André Duqum

I'm zeroing in on something.

I'm focusing my mind on a pursuit of a goal.

And so I have to contract my mind to pursue the desire, the attachment.

And so desire is not bad or wrong in any way.

It's very divine.

We're just supposed to be pointing it or we should point our desire towards divine things, you know, realizing our purpose and our truth, our essence and all of that.

It's beautiful to desire

good, loving, and godly things.

But when the ego hijacks desire and points it towards objects and sense pleasures, that's where we get lost in the weeds and start suffering.

And so in the same way that the kind of underlying philosophy of lack is giving, right?

Giving is the remedy for lacking.

In that same way, detachment is the remedy for attachment, right?

It's like, duh, that's not a novel concept.

But it's important to understand what detachment is.

Detachment is not the losing of something you want, right?

It's not the giving up of something you want.

Detachment is the relaxing of a contracted mental state.

And so the sort of phrase or idea given in the book for the second belief in outcome happiness is to repeat this outcome, like whatever it is you've identified you want, you're chasing, this outcome cannot give me anything I want.

And you're sort of denouncing the attachment as being fruitless for you.

And the ego will resist and say, no, of course it has what I want.