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Quotes About Non-attachment

Perhaps the hardest lesson to learn is not to be attached to the results of your actions.
~ JOAN BORYSENKO
he does not pursue activities with the notion that he is the doer;
~ Robert Wolfe
One without attachment is free from sorrow.
~ Robert Wolfe
liberation from the persistent desire for things to be different than they are.
~ Robert Wright
Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.
~ Andre Gide
Muichi Motsu: "Hold nothing": If you meet Buddha, kill Buddha. If you meet the patriarchs, kill the patriarchs. Free of all, bound by nothing, you live your life simply as it is
~ Kazuya Minekura
If I change car, I change car. I don't get very fond of things.
~ Ronnie Corbett
Do not compete with what is happening. To compete is to prepare for failure. Do not be trapped by the need to achieve anything. This way, you achieve everything
~ Frank Herbert
We constantly need to be reminded not to attach to anything.
~ John Daido Loori
These golden matters Of Gyges and his treasuries Are no concern of mine. Jealousy has no power over me, Nor do I envy a god his work, And I do not burn to rule. Such things have no Fascination for my eyes.
~ Archilochus
To 'want' something, to 'strive' after something to have an 'aim' or a 'wish' in my mind — I know none of this from experience. Even at this moment I look out upon my future — a distant future! as upon a calm sea: no sigh of longing makes a ripple on its surface. I have not the slightest wish that anything should be otherwise than it is: I do not want myself different than I am. But in this matter I have always been the same. I have never had a desire.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
From my tutor: not to become a 5Green or Blue supporter at the races, or side with the Lights or Heavies in the amphitheatre; to tolerate pain and feel few needs; to work with my own hands and mind my own business; to be deaf to malicious gossip.
~ Marcus Aurelius
I desperately want to stop minding so much about other people, life, and myself. Krishnamurti, the great Indian teacher, when asked what was the secret to his serenity, said in his soft, shy voice, "I don't mind what happens." This is so not me—I mind his having even said this.
~ Anne Lamott
The secure attachment of Western psychology is actually akin to Buddhist non-attachment; avoid-ant attachment is the inverse of being mindful and present; and anxious attachment aligns with Buddhist notions of clinging and grasping.
~ Sharon Salzberg
Leave life alone. Let it be.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Be neither attracted nor repulsed is the message of Tantric Buddhism. Don't be drawn to something, don't run away from it. Just naturally accept whatever comes into life.
~ Frederick Lenz
Don't get attached to anything.
~ Rajneesh
My own passion, all my life, has been non-collecting.
~ Louise Imogen Guiney
The mind that doesn't need any outer conditions for happiness is the mind that can say, "This is the release from all suffering. This is true happiness." Such a mind sees with clarity the absolute reality of what's happening in this universe and doesn't have to hang on to anything, attach to anything, doesn't have to become anything, doesn't have to be anything. It just does what is necessary at each particular moment and then lets go.
~ Ayya Khema
Letting go is not getting rid of. Letting go is letting be.
~ Sally Brampton
Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for non-attachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.
~ George Orwell
A yogi has no preferences. There's no point in hurrying. The only thing that matters is for me to watch whatever is happening, good or bad.
~ Sayadaw U. Pandita
8. And finally, of course, the very central teaching of the Gita: "Let go of the outcome." Let go of any clinging to how this all comes out. You cannot measure your actions at this point by the conventional wisdom about success and failure.
~ Stephen Cope
Love is the only freedom from attachment. When you love everything, you are attached to nothing.
~ Mikhail Naimy