☯️ 🇺🇸🇲🇽 Detachment - 05.15.2026
"The root of suffering is attachment" is a fundamental Buddhist teaching (often attributed to the Buddha) explaining that emotional pain stems from craving, clinging, or grasping at things, people, or outcomes that are inherently impermanent
. Because the world is in constant flux, attachment to permanence causes dissatisfaction and suffering.
Key Aspects of Attachment and Suffering
The Second Noble Truth: Within the Four Noble Truths, Buddhism identifies the cause of suffering (dukkha) as craving (tanha) and clinging/attachment (upadana), which is rooted in ignorance.
Impermanence (Anicca):Suffering arises because we try to hold onto things—people, wealth, or experiences—that are subject to inevitable change.
Types of Clinging: This includes craving for sensual pleasures, clinging to views or opinions, and holding to the concept of a permanent self.
The Alternative is Freedom: The cessation of suffering (nirodha) is achieved not by lacking love, but by practicing non-attachment (releasing the desperate need for things to be a certain way).
Common Misconceptions
Not a prohibition on love: Non-attachment does not mean becoming indifferent or heartless; rather, it means loving without the desperate grasping that leads to distress when things change.
Acceptance, not apathy: It involves accepting reality as it is, rather than holding on to how we want it to be.
By reducing attachment, one reduces the gap between reality and expectation, which ultimately eases suffering
This bodega of things has been out-of-site out-of-mind for the last 2 years. I've lived comfortably without… so it's easy to detach and permanently remove the things from my life… until I started going through it. 🙃
I have some cool things… funky chairs and furniture… typewriter table… too many backpacks… more clothes… random gear… a bunch of pillows… another bag of shoes… books… always more books.
I was quite sure in the back of my mind what I'd keep. My vintage typewriter, my rock-climbing gear, outdoor gear… and my kayak… but I don’t know now.
If I had moved all these things to Mexico City like I had planned… I would have stayed. I’d likely have a cheapie apartment in Santa María La Ribera near El Chopo… and have a residency visa… but it didn’t work out that way. At the moment I am glad I didn’t plunge fully into 🇲🇽… and here I am… in the State of New Mexico, 13 kilos below my normal weight. I look like a skeleton in the mirror… my hip bones and ribs stick out… none of my pants fit… and now my “too small” t-shirts in my awesome vintage t-shirt collection now fit. 💀 Back to the médica in Denver… sighhhh
I have a car… it will be full of things… and a motorcyle to haul to California. And then the rest of it… at the moment I am trying to sell all… whether I like it… or love it… or have a healthy or an unhealthy attachment. Half of it is crap… and I will likely donate or throw in the trash. Having this stuff sit… and paying for it to sit each month makes no sense.
And… why do I have so many pinche shoes and boots?!? And I really don’t want to get rid of any… 🤓🤠
So… detachment time. Anybody want some cool chairs? cool tables? art supplies?
