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Seeking Freedom in the Practice of Detachment

Seeking Freedom in the Practice of Detachment

Last updated on: September 24, 2024 at 8:54 am by Tricia Gates Brown

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Seeking Freedom in the Practice of Detachment 2024-09-24T08:54:52-07:00 Tricia Gates Brown

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seeking freedom in detachment

{Photo by Andreea Popescu for Scopio; seeking freedom in detachment}

As I approach accompanied by crickets, the sky’s palette ranges from turquoise to dark violet; above, a few stars. The temperature of the day reached 90. Growing up in northern California where summer days exceeded 100, I came to love evenings following hot days, when I could walk outside with bare arms, feeling the brush of warmth and smelling night’s incense.

Such is the experience this evening in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. In the distance, I see a handful of people walking the labyrinth, the glow of light on the surface. I look up to take in a single cloud formation on a clear backdrop, almost directly over the labyrinth. The body, head, and symmetrical wings of a bird, are finished off by a tail. It is hard to believe, but there it is—unmistakable in its rendering. Earlier that evening, I spoke to my monk friend Martin, explaining I was headed to the labyrinth walk. “That will be a special grace,” he said.

Before moving to the beach in 2004, I attended a Quaker church. In the years following my departure, members of the church banded with friends in the community to build a peace trail, including the labyrinth I go to walk this night. The labyrinth is painted in the classic Chartres style with a flower at the center, over rust-stained concrete. On a few occasions, I’ve gone alone to walk the labyrinth. But this is the first time in eleven years I have returned to the church grounds for a community event. Even in darkness, it feels brave.

I have written about the hard work of compassion. But in 2004, I was the one needing compassion, as I left my husband and departed to sort myself out, towing my own unfaithful heart. I never returned home, or to that Quaker church. Instead, I established a new life for myself on the Oregon Coast and divorced. The experience is loud in my ears as I greet strangers in the hazy darkness, passing on the trail to the labyrinth. The year, 2015.

Outlined with hundreds of bright electric votives, the labyrinth looks magical. Cricket song, the canvas of sky and cloud-sketch of a bird, the constellation of the labyrinth, the people—a few of whom I recognize. It has been a few months since my husband left. As I near the labyrinth: I wish he was here to see this.

And so to the subject of detachment. The word “attachment” has connotations of bondage, though it is often translated “clinging.” Attachment, along with “detachment” (liberation from bondage) and “impermanence” (the certainty of all things changing), are the most challenging spiritual concepts for me. Buddhist spirituality teaches that clinging to the impermanent causes human suffering—and the true spiritual path is the path to awareness, acceptance, and letting go, the pathway to joy.

Mostly I hate this with the shit-fire passion of a bull.

Nonetheless. The challenge to detach and accept impermanence is the main reason I’ve integrated Buddhist understandings and practice with Christian traditions I treasure. I must face the bull in me like the bastions of adrenaline-charged men in Pamplona, or in better moments, the graceful matador choreographing the dance of non-resistance.

seeking freedom in detachment

{Photo by Artemi Roz for Scopio; seeking freedom in detachment}

The Challenge of Detachment

My mind is busy as I walk the labyrinth, struggling to stay present. The fullness of my heart knocks me over. I am knocked over by the beauty of the path, the sweetness of the air, the soft smiles, and how happy I am to be here. I am knocked over with missing Gil, with wanting him to open his heart to mystery, connection, and growth. I am knocked over by seeing an old friend I haven’t talked to in years, wondering how to explain my present life to her. For several minutes, the explanation factory in my head hums at full capacity as I round another turn. A few times I have the mind-presence to recognize my need to anchor. In meditation practice, attention to the breath is used as an anchor; in walking the labyrinth, I turn to my steps, focusing my attention on each footfall and rise. Step, step, step, step, step, step. Then I am gone again.

Each time I walk the labyrinth, I have a particular experience. At four spots in the pattern, one encounters a consistent stretch continuing halfway around the labyrinth. After turning this way and that, back and forth, one is suddenly on a path that stretches out of sight, all the way to the other side. When this happens, I slow down to enjoy the blissful and uncomplicated little stroll. I try to make it last.

Each time, I think how like life this is. When an easy round comes (early years of my marriage to Gil spring to mind), I enjoy the ease a bit too much. I want that uncomplicated, walk-in-the-park stretch to go on forever. I want it so badly I buy into the illusion that it won’t change. I keep my eyes trained just in front of my feet so I won’t see how the path twists up ahead, starting into another curly jag. Another fucking curly jag.

So I work at detachment.

I’ve started thinking of the verb “to detach,” as more helpful than the noun “detachment.” The verb implies I must keep detaching, that I start the action from the position of clinging and being attached. Because the hard truth is, I am usually clinging. I detach, then re-attach again … to whatever it is I don’t want to let go at that moment. I briefly detach, then re-attach. Detach. Re-attach … I am an expert at it. We all are.

After walking to the center of the labyrinth, sitting to pray a bit, and walking back out, I rest on a bench at the periphery to take it all in. By this time, the sky is black and bright with stars, and a whole orchestra of crickets bow their tiny violins. Dry, percussive oak leaves clap along the peace trail. Bats dip and swoon. Eventually, I leave by myself, not talking to anyone, grateful and gulping in the balmy air.

Almost everything is uncertain in my life just now. But things always are; everything is uncertain in every life. These days, life circumstances just make me more aware of it. And since clinging to uncertain things brings suffering, I want to learn not to cling. I want to detach.

What I have observed in my life, is that while change is certain—and at times, heartrendingly painful, I am just as certainly cared for by a restorative, redemptive force I call God. The poet Mark Nepo writes, “For as the Earth was begun like a dish breaking, eternity is that scene slowly reversing, and you and I and the things we’re drawn to are merely the pieces of God unbreaking back together.” This observation of restoration and redemption is the essence of trust for me, the pivot point of my life of faith. When I do succeed at staying present in the moment and don’t cling to particular outcomes in my marriage or other facets of my life, when I dwell in trust that no matter what the outcome, I am guided toward redemption and wholeness, then I am living moments of detachment and trust. This encompasses even the struggles. Jack Kornfield says the opposite of attachment is not so much detachment, but love. True love embodies trust over fear. It lends freedom and doesn’t try to control circumstances or people. Love does not cling.

I have long appreciated the Ojibway saying: “Sometimes I go about worrying when all the time I am carried on great wings across the sky.” This evening while walking to the labyrinth, I see the great wings across the sky, reminding me to stop worrying. Again. To stop worrying, because liberation and wholeness await.

{This piece is an excerpt from my 2016 essay collection Season of Wonder.}

Wren, winner of a 2022 Independent Publishers Award Bronze Medal

Winner of the 2022 Independent Publisher Awards Bronze Medal for Regional Fiction; Finalist for the 2022 National Indie Excellence Awards. (2021) Paperback publication of Wren , a novel. “Insightful novel tackles questions of parenthood, marriage, and friendship with finesse and empathy … with striking descriptions of Oregon topography.” —Kirkus Reviews (2018) Audiobook publication of Wren.

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About Tricia Gates Brown

Tricia Gates Brown is an everyday theologian working as a writer/editor in Oregon's Willamette Valley, mainly editing and co-writing books for the National Parks Service and Native tribes. After completing an MA in theology then a PhD from the University of St. Andrews in 2000, she continued to pursue her studies—energetically self-educating in theology, spirituality, and the emotional life. She is also an Ordained Deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon. Tricia is also an art quilter, ceramicist, and poet. You can read more about the author here.

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