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caring non-attachment
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Non-attachment is part and parcel of equanimity and leads to a more spacious approach to life. Non-attachment is not indifference but, on the contrary, leads to true caring and compassion. If a mother hugs her baby too tightly, the baby will feel uncomfortable and cry. But if she holds her baby too loosely, the child is likely to fall. So the mother must hold her baby just so, not too tightly and not too loosely.
People usually cling to things like those burdock burrs that children throw at each other's clothes.
By doing this, you limit yourself. You reduce yourself to what you are grasping – being like this, having that problem, being affected by this painful word or that unpleasant experience.
Return
to the object or thought or situation you were in contact with or
recall such a situation. Does this process of
grasping and solidifying the experience make you magnify the
object or a situation until it becomes a monster that totally
overwhelms you? Do you end up feeling helpless and out of control?
This process does not need to happen. Non-attachment can help you dissolve the patterns of grasping.
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Note how a certain process of grasping begins. After grasping at the word, the thing, the situation or the relationship, do you identify with it, saying to yourself that this is 'me', 'mine', 'happening to me'.
Do you then solidify the experience, saying to yourself that it is real, for all times and all situations?