Sacred Attachment
Me and mine while in Upstate NY for the Pema Chödrön retreat in 2022
A little Valentine post ♥️
Attachment was always sticky for me. Well aware that the root of the whole teaching is grasping as the cause of all our suffering. Time and time again, the teachings bring us back to this undeniable truth. One of my dear teachers, Tana Rinpoche, reminded me that, “Detachment doesn’t mean that you own nothing. It just means that nothing owns you.” I carry his words on my person daily. This is a concept I can slip into and I feel myself soften when I contemplate the words with deep understanding.
However, for years I battled attachment in regard to my loved ones. I felt I hadn’t brought my understanding of attachment to completion because I failed to figure out how to manage my love of these incredible people in my life, how to let my obsession go. My deep love for my partner hindered me from fully stepping into this principle concept of non-attachment. I struggled internally and felt it was damaging my devotion to the dharma.
I had an opportunity to ask Tskonyi Rinpoche about my conflicted state in this matter, but I hesitated, afraid I couldn’t stomach the answer. Even on a good day, without hesitation, I’ll confess to being a bad Buddhist for a variety of reasons. But in contemplating grasping, I believe I couldn’t get myself to admit that I would give up anything for the love of my life, including perfecting the practice. How could I openly state out loud that my attachment to my primary partner was a pebble in the shoe of my practice? Ridiculous. But my love was not something to be messed with, my partnership is the most important thing to me and it has fulfilled me in limitless ways as well as kept me on the rails. My husband has done nothing but support my path, so by title and love I did not wish for the impossible task of unwinding our connection in the effort to not be attached to the man I love.
This connection has only deepened over the decades. I fall madly in love with him over and over. Not just with the celebratory moments, but as we cling to each other through the rough bits, too. My heart blossoms tending to my marriage and I find stability in what I call Home. My gratitude for the partnership deepens each time I step up to brace him in life, and every moment I feel secure with his presence and care.
It wasn’t until I was in retreat with Anam Thubten that the question was asked by another practitioner in the sangha about how to achieve non-attachment in relationships. Wait. I heard the tinge of anguish in the voice as they, too, admitted to be grappling with this issue. And I stiffened for the response. It seemed I wasn’t the only one hitting this snag while applying the teachings to real life and tripping up. Throughout each day, I can identify grasping. Pause. Then let it go or set it down. But when it came to missing my partner while separated or craving their presence, wishing to be grounded or comforted by our partnership, the desire to care and tend to him, I couldn’t achieve non-grasping. The pull was impossible—our hearts are stitched together.
With a soft but immediate response, Rinpoche earnestly answered that this was an exception, a special case of “attachment.” This was Sacred Attachment (or Divine Attachment).
He went on to explain why. Attachment to our loved ones is healthy, it is Love. This is where we set down ego. It’s when we become number two as parents and a spouse—this is the space where we are given the opportunity to practice great compassion and sympathetic joy—the foundation for unconditional love. This bond has to be cultivated. Non-attachment is not about healthy love, it’s about sticky ego.
In that moment everything softened. I was able to set down my “flaw.” This idea of failing at non-attachment was false. I wasn’t deficient as a practitioner via my love for my “soulmate.” They were once again part of my practice in their own way. Instead of being a lesson to master non-attachment, they were an expression of the dharma, a way to practice compassion and love.
I knew this. No wonder there was conflict and the deep desire not to release and slip into some sort of crazy nihilism. Devotion is love.