Why Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity all warn about this trap

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THE ART & SCIENCE OF LEADING SELF
The Power of Context

My friend, last week, we used the Spanish word abstraerse to be a bridge to the nuanced concept of Detachment. This week, we’re going to examine it through 3 different lenses.

First, let me tell you about a random day I spent visiting temples and other historic sites in Bangalore, India. While taking in the view, a group of monkeys scurried past me. One was carrying her baby. Fortunately, I had my camera ready. :)

This image illustrates an important concept you have to understand to fully grasp detachment: attachment. Attachment is a state of grasping or clinging to people, objects, ideas, or causes. It carries the idea of possession or a sense of ownership. In the case of the baby monkey, its attachment was physical. When it comes to you and me, attachment is generally rooted in perception.

Prior to spending 3 months in India in late 2018/early 2019, I thought detachment was just a Buddhist concept. I’m grateful for how my time there corrected that misconception.

In reality, detachment is a concept that sits at the intersection of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, much like the country of India does. Here’s a high-level overview of how each spiritual tradition approaches this powerful concept.

Detachment: A Buddhist Lens ☸️

Buddhist psychology teaches that attachments are the cause of suffering. That’s because the clinging at the heart of attachment is rooted in craving. Craving is anchored in a distorted sense of the self. Essentially, grasping arises when the ego clings to an identity it believes it must protect or preserve.

Detachment is the practice of letting go of attachments. A key aspect of letting go lies in your ability to embrace Impermanence, a recognition that nothing in life is fixed or permanent; everything is in a state of continuous flow.

I want to clarify that detachment in Buddhism is not about aloofness, apathy or a renunciation of life or people.  It’s about freedom from delusion, craving, and aversion. Love and connection are important. Where problems arise is when that love leads to attachment (clinging) because of the role that your ego plays in it all.

Detachment offers liberation (nirvāṇa) from the suffering that attachments bring.

Detachment: A Hindu Lens 🕉️

Hindu texts teach that attachment is rooted in the ego and desire. This creates bondage in the cycle of karma. Consistent with how Buddhists think about attachments, Hindus recognize that attachments stem from internal identification. This shows up in you projecting your self-worth, identity, or validation onto people, roles, or outcomes.

This quality of detachment, or vairāgya, is held as essential in many yogic and Vedāntic texts.

Contrary to Western perceptions, detachment in Hinduism does not mean withdrawal or rejection of action. It means acting with devotion and love, without clinging or attachment to the outcomes.

The Bhagavad Gītā explains what empowers someone to let go of outcomes, ego, and the illusion of control: devotion to the Divine. This shifts detachment from being about cold indifference to dedication that is grounded in faith, surrender, and love.

In Hinduism, love is central to the oneness at the heart of Hindu beliefs. Thus, detachment empowers you to purify yourself from the selfish grasping that is at the root of attachment. This creates space for love and oneness, not ownership, to deepen.

Detachment: A Christian Lens ✝️

You may be surprised to learn that Christianity also has a clear position on detachment. The Bible’s teachings on this are rooted in highlighting ways in which attachments can become idolatry, which pulls your heart away from God.

Exodus 20:3 says “You shall have no other gods before me.”

In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus lays out what He highlights as the 2 greatest commandments:

• “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

• “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Through the Christian lens, detachment offers a path for the authentic formation of the disciple’s identity in Christ. It’s  about rightly ordering your loves, desires, and allegiances. Detachment for Christians is always for the sake of a deeper relationship with Christ (not emptiness or dispassion).

When you start with God and then focus on loving your neighbor as yourself, you cannot be led by ego, cravings, and the clinging that creates so much suffering.

Similar to what Hindus believe, Christians recognize God as the one who makes it possible to let go of outcomes, ego, and things that feed attachment.

Something In Common 💡

Now that you have additional context about how detachment is approached across different religious traditions, let’s talk about what they all have in common:

• A recognition of the harmful nature of attachments

• Clarity about the craving, ego, and clinging that drive attachments

• A clear position on how attachments: impair your ability to love purely and shape (in unhealthy ways) how you approach your duties

• A warning about how attachments distort your perception, which has clear downstream impacts

We’ve covered a lot today, so I’m going to pause here and pick this up next week. 😉

In the next issue, we’ll use these 4 points that each religious tradition agrees on to make larger connections to key leadership capacities. We’ll walk through how you can start to take detachment from a theoretical concept to actionable leadership practices.

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Until next Sunday,

Shawnette