Nonattachment

The principle of nonattachment to the fruit of action is basic to Buddhism as a corollary to the teaching of Gautama Buddha in his second of the Four Noble Truths, i.e., the cause of suffering is inordinate desire.

In Gautama Buddha’s Pearls of Wisdom series “Quietly Comes the Buddha,” dictated to the messenger Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the Lord of the World teaches on the virtue of nonattachment:

He that would be great among you,

Let him be the servant of all.

He that is great among you

Is the servant neither of self

Nor of passion’s pall,

Not of desire save the desire to be

The Buddha for humanity,

Not of attachment

Save the attachment to the law of individuality,

Not of self-centeredness save the centering of the self in God....

The tenth perfection of the law

Is the balance between desire and desirelessness.

It is the point of the fusion

Of the active and the passive....

The Perfection of Indifference is the zeal

That determines the quantity of energy

Entrusted to your care.

The three-times-three will be the nine,

The ninety, the nine hundred, the nine thousand,

The nine million, or the nine billion

According to your ability

To show indifference alike

To mockery and to praise,

To pleasure and to pain,

To poverty or riches,

Adulation or indignation.

This is the tenth perfection of the law—

Indifference to the gratitude or ingratitude of mortals,

Indifference to their cursings

Or the garlands of their approbation.

See also

Karma yoga

Sources

Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 31, no. 67, October 9, 1988.