The notion of Detachment, Buddhist I think in origin, is something that I dislike. Not an idea that I am fond of ever. But some form of it is what I'm experiencing, a superior form I believe.
With practice my awareness of when I am being my body, or enmeshed with discomforts or unhappiness or pleasures of the body, with practice that awareness is becoming more reflexive, rapid, frequent. And that allows me to make a choice. James, is this what you want to be right now? Always the answer is no. It's a very glad answer. Very glad is James to have the choice. And each time so far he has been able to easily make the choice and step back into his soul, lovingly aware of the calls of the body but choosing for the joy of it to be inhabiting his soul as supervisor. Each time that is who and what James wants to be. Surprised he will be if he ever finds that he wants to be something else.
Not infrequently when these choices arise James is fleetingly aware that this could be practice for someday in a trump prison where prolonged torture might be a possibility. Does James expect this? James is aware that it's a possibility. And he is aware, although this is not his reason for making the choice, he is aware that this is practice. Important? Significant? Sufficient? Don't know. But he's glad of it.
Important modifications improvements, upgrades, at the lsgiabeing.com site.
I don't know, is it important to understand human beings? Is there anything more important than understanding human beings? I mean, humans are the ones destroying all life and goodness on Earth. And as a human being is there anything we care more about than the one in a million that might be sparked to sanity? And joy? Not me.
Brilliant or not, and I was not early on a fan, I'm finding the book by Dasher Keltner, born to be good, free and legal at archive.org, to be an absolute must read and study. I found the first couple of chapters quite distracting. I wonder if he felt he had to put the bad stuff first? But then it really gets going. Stanford University, no, Berkeley, a properly respected World Authority.