Bradley; I'm sitting here trying to craft a response to your question, but I keep deleting my attempts.
I've been thinking about this for well over an hour now, probably close to two, and there are a lot of things that I want to say to address your question, but there's no way I can get it in a post of reasonable length. And it would take a very long time to write.
That attachment causes suffering is observable (for instance it's fairly well observable in divorce court). But that's not to say that attachment is wrong or even that suffering is bad. (By the way, for those of you unfamiliar with the distinction, in this context suffering is not the same thing as pain.) I think that the important thing here is the awareness that attachment causes suffering. It seems to me that our culture here in the US (I've never lived in another country) promotes the idea that you can buy happiness, and it seems to me that a lot of people just accept this unquestioningly. It seems to me that a lot of people are unhappy with where they are in life at this very moment, and are always looking for the next thing that will make them happy. But that happiness is fleeting. Still they keep at it, one thing after another, always pursuing but never arriving. It never occurs to them that they can fully and compassionately accept who they are right now; that tool has never been available to them, they're not aware of the concept. And it runs counter to a culture based on consumerism.
Yes, there are people with whom I have very close relationships; and being separated from them can be sad. But that's ok. I can fully accept with an open heart who and where I am right now, attachments, suffering and all.
I think of love as being selfless. There is a teaching, a tool, that love is not jealous or boastful, which to me is similar to saying that love is selfless. Attachment, as I use the word, is not selfless. It seems to me that you can fully and selflessly love someone, and at the same time also be attached to that person. Thus it hurts to be separated from someone with whom you are very close, but love is not jealous; we can fully accept the situation with an open heart. Because who and where we are at this very moment is all there is.
It seems to me that for many people, love is not selfless, but is based on attachment itself. And it seems that in such a case, when separated from the person to whom they are attached, the suffering is not acceptable. And it further seems to me that for many people the reason that this is the case is that the tools of compassion and acceptance have never been made available to them. When someone pulls out in front on them in traffic, they get pissed off, they react in anger, they're thinking about what a jerk the other driver is. That's always been the way the world works for them. They are not aware that there would even be another way to react. The tools have not been made available to them. That's who they are right now. That's ok. Perhaps someday they will discover tools, teachings, practices, that will enable them to pause before reacting, to see the situation without attachment and to accept the other driver for who that person is right now.
And perhaps some people will find that love isn't just attachment, but is fully and selflessly accepting someone for who they are right now. And that we can fully accept everyone for who they are right now; that we can love one another; that we can have compassion for all beings.
The very fact that we are where we are right now, sitting in front of our computer monitors, on this little planet, zooming around this particular star, in this section of this one particular arm in this particular spiral galaxy, itself hurtling through the universe with countless other galaxies, .. is pretty amazing. This one moment right now, is simply amazing.
