NON-ATTACHMENT IS SELF-MASTERY; IT IS FREEDOM FROM DESIRE FOR WHAT IS SEEN OR HEARD.
It is fairly easy to reason all this out in a calm moment. But our non-attachment is put to the test when the mind is suddenly swept by a huge wave of anger or lust or greed. Then it is only by a determined effort of will that we can remember what our reason already knows — that this wave, and the sense-object which raised it, and the ego-sense which identifies the experience with itself, are all alike transient and superficial — that they are not the underlying Reality.
Non-attachment may come very slowly. But even its earliest stages are rewarded by a new sense of freedom and peace. It should never be thought of as an austerity, a kind of self-torture, something grim and painful. The practice of non-attachment gives value and significance to even the most ordinary incidents of the dullest day. It eliminates boredom from our lives.
