Tools & Tips
Detachment is the path to happiness

"To enjoy anything, we cannot be attached to it. What we usually try to do is capture any joy that comes our way before it can escape. We try to cling to pleasure, but all we succeed in doing is making ourselves frustrated because, whatever it promises, pleasure simply cannot last. But if I am willing to kiss joy as it flies, I say, 'Yes, this moment is beautiful. I won't grab it. I'll let it go.' And I live with a mind at peace and heart untroubled. Pleasure comes and goes. When it goes, we don't need to cling to memories of the past happiness or dwell on when it may come again. When we turn to the past yearning, we are running away from the present. When we propel ourselves into the future in anticipation, we are running away from the present. This is the secret that the world's spiritual traditions call detachment: If we don't cling to past or future we live entirely here and now, in 'Eternity's sunrise.' "

Excerpted from Take Your Time (Nilgiri Press, 2006), a mew edition of a collection of talks by the Indian-American spiritual teacher Eknath Easwaran.