Alan Watts once said that detachment is the highest form of wisdom, he also quoted Chuang-tzu on detachment:
‘The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror; it grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives, but does not keep.’
Detachment means to have neither regrets for the past nor fears for the future. It is about letting life happen without us interfering with it. Whatever is happening around us, don’t let that dictate our wellbeing.
Of course it’s always easier said than done. The hard thing about detachment is that one cannot simply just ‘give up’ and not do anything at all. That’s certainly a natural interpretation one might have about of detachment. But there are still things we need to do in order to put food on the table and pay the rent.
The mirror analogy is a very good one, ‘it receives, but does not keep’. It still receives what comes its way, it just doesn’t keep it. The real life application would be something like this, you just go about your life as you normally would, whether that’s work or life. But whatever activity it is, let it go once it’s done. There’s no need to dwell on them.
It’s like the mirror, it reflects the person (and all the accompanying activities) exactly the way he or she is. Once the person is outside of the mirror, the mirror does not keep anything at all. As if no one was there. That is detachment.
Whether detachment is the highest wisdom or not it’s up to the individual to decide. But it definitely is an important concept to understand for anyone who aspires to be wiser and live a better life. The mirror serves as a perfect reminder of what detachment means.