6.3 How does one live a full emotional life, yet remain detached?

The detached attitude of mind which results from the successful application of these teachings is not to be confused with the male heterosexual insensitivity to emotional conditions which is such a common and inherently harmful product of our culture. Nor is it to be confused with that perversion of masculinity involving denial or suppression of emotions, either one’s own or other people’s. These forms of behaviour, which are by no means the sole province of the heterosexual male, are a failure to face reality and result in suffering caused by the accumulation of negative karma.

Be clear: after you have attained the first stage of enlightenment, you will still have the capacity to experience the full range of human emotions. What differs is that you will no longer be driven compulsively by your emotions. You will live and love both fully and freely, aware of the implications of the choices you make at each moment.

The heart of the matter is this: you must develop the ability to stand back from any situation you encounter through experience, to the extent that you understand your emotional response as being only one, relatively illusory, component of the conditions establishing that situation. In reality, the emotions experienced before the first stage of enlightenment are products of the personality and have only relative and illusory substance. After the psychological stage of enlightenment, you have the option to see through the illusion and to experience the emotions truly pervading all of reality.

To practise detachment, you need to resist the force of your emotions: use deep meditative breathing to calm you in emotionally stressful conditions. Learn to understand and experience difficult situations in a wider context which embraces both your point of view and the other person’s. Learn to be detached: in reality, you may or may not get what you want in any particular situation – it truly does not matter. In either event, your life still goes on and the path unfolds, now, before you.

Use your meditation to develop your sensitivity to the full potential of each moment. Your emotional suffering is only real if you lack the capacity to detach yourself from it. Your emotional suffering will pass once you are centred in the midst of conditions.