How to love with non-attachment

Kris Gage
4 min readSep 13, 2017

And why non-attachment isn’t avoidance

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

- Aldous Huxley, Island

There is no love without lightness

It’s understandable to hear “non-attachment” as “avoidance” and “lightness” as “unengaged.” But this is to misunderstand the real nature of good love, and loving with care.

Love means engagement — without clinging. It means care — with release.

There is danger in “loving too hard.”

The danger to your beloved

Sometimes children make this mistake with small animals. They “love” them so much that, in their rapture over holding or “hugging” them, they inadvertently crush or suffocate them.

It’s a dark and painful realization, but illustrates the very real dangers of mis-channeling love beyond “care.” Of loving too hard. Of holding too tightly.

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