Detachment

In Buddhism, detachment is the opposite of attachment, craving, desire, which is the cause of all suffering.

Detachment, end of craving, stops the cause of suffering, and, hence, frees one from samsara.

a phenomenom i have observed among people who travel for extended periods, to distant places.

recently in tokyo, a brittish girl went missing. i, living with a close friend of this girl, noticed that for all the proclaimations of concern/sorrow/loss the people closest to her continued about their daily business as though nothing were amiss ie. going to work, going out after work, going to bars and picking up. this behaviour seemed rather odd untill i realized that the traveling life style was probably the cause. let me explain:

people who travel here regularly do so on tourist visas, maximum 3 month duration (without extension).

in this short period, people (being social creatures - supposedly) bond quickly and intensly with those around them. this means that colleagues or housemates become "best friends" often, but only for the length of their stay.

the 3 month visa also makes saying goodbye a more common place occurance. think about how often you have said goodbye, and how it felt. the traveller performs this routine every 3 months to numerous "best friends", and, i suspect, are desensitized to it.

in my home country this is also apparent in those who have returned from tavelling.

is the traveller a person how fails to make secure relationship bonds? or, as i believe, numbed by the experience?

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well they caught the guy who took the grrl.
the best friend sold the story to a UK tabloid for an undisclosed 5 figure amount. - great friend?

she still hasnt been found.......

everything has been forgotten..........

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shes been found,
..and it appears that this nodes title is tastelessly appropriate.
she was found in 8 seperate pieces, with the head discovered inside a block of concrete.

i wonder if 5 figures is enough profit for such a thing?

A detachment is also a term used in the US Military aviation community.

As an example, I will use my friend Yurei. He works for the military as an "elite toaster repairman" (his words). His squadron received a request to create a detachment to go to the Persian Gulf. The Assistant Maintenance Officer (AMO) and the Maintenance Officer (MO) peruse a listing of available personnel. They pick and choose who would be on this new detachment, assisted by the detachment's Chief Petty Officer, the most senior enlisted person who is in charge of making sure things get done.

The squadron assigns one or two helicopters for the exclusive use of the detachment. From personal experience, it is the one the needs the most maintenance. In Yurei's case it is the one with evil gremlins living in the electronics.

The detachment gets assigned to a ship and separates itself from the squadron, in effect creating a mini detached squadron. The Officer in Charge (OIC) is the detachment's version of a Commanding Officer (CO). The helicopters, the crew and the equipment are trundled off to the ship, and they sail for the Persian Gulf.

Note that this whole process takes months to set up, months to whip the detachment into a cohesive unit, and four to six months of floating around. Yurei coined the apt phrase Evil Floating Vacation. Imagine being in the middle of a body of water with the dim possibility of an E2 fix every three weeks. Yes, war is hell.

De*tach"ment (?), n. [Cf. F. d'etachement.]

1.

The act of detaching or separating, or the state of being detached.

2.

That which is detached; especially, a body of troops or part of a fleet sent from the main body on special service.

Troops . . . widely scattered in little detachments. Bancroft.

3.

Abstraction from worldly objects; renunciation.

A trial which would have demanded of him a most heroic faith and the detachment of a saint. J. H. Newman.

 

© Webster 1913.