Attachment

"Among virtues, freedom from attachment is best."
- Dhamma Pada, 20th chapter, first verse.

"If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work."
- George Orwell

If i took the two arguments without considering where they came from, they represent a contradiction. If i did consider their contexts, i cannot find a common truth embedded in them.

Here it goes. It is of a general belief that religious tradition in Asia tried to give hope to people who knew nothing but poverty and suffering. Hence most eastern philosophy stresses on renunciation and ways to escape the 'illusion' that life is. The 'fact' that all the suffering people went through was only 'illusion' gave people hope. Their new quest was not seeking joy in this world but in the next. Their salvation would be freedom from rebirth; something that had to be avoided at all cost.

Most Abrahamic religions(Judaism, Christiniaty and Islam to name a few) seem to deal with compassion and codes of conduct. They seem to address problems on a social level and are far less esoteric when compared to budhism.

If i did not make this geographic distinction, i have then, two different schools of thought saying exactly the opposite things about the issue. Does it then become an issue of personal choice; to what school you choose to adhere to? In that case, is there nothing that is absolute?

For the moment, i think the following should suffice :-)

"... How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet."
-W.Cowper