What it is
In the Buddhist sense, attachment is clinging: treating a particular outcome, person, thing or feeling as necessary for you to be okay. The suffering doesn’t come from wanting. It comes from the grip, from needing the world to arrange itself a certain way.
This is a different idea from attachment in psychology, which is about the bond between a child and a caregiver. Same word, different thing.
How it shows up for me
I notice it when I’m already rehearsing the conversation where I get my way. That rehearsal is the grip. When I can loosen it, I still want what I want, I just don’t fall apart if it doesn’t come.
Go next
- Attachment theory, the other meaning
- Accepting uncertainty
- Nam-myoho-renge-kyo