What do the texts teach about detachment from material things?

Remember that the pleasures of the world are false; this whole show is just an illusion.

O Saints, and friends, listen to me: all this world is false.

The world and its affairs are totally false; know this well, my friend.

They that fashion a graven image are all of them vanity, and their delectable things shall not profit; and their own witnesses see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.

This material life, even at the time of its existence, is nothingness; for instance, at the time of Christ, though the people had this life, He said: Let the dead bury their dead! For those merely living physically we may say the real life does not exist.

From here the mystics ascended from the depths of metaphor to the heights of reality, and completed their ascent, seeing by direct vision that there is nothing in existence but God, and that everything perishes except His face — not that it will perish at some future time, but that it is perishing now and always.

We are surging like waves from existence toward non-existence. The soul has no resting place in the earthly world, nor in the arc of this spinning vault.

Pure non-existence — this is the nature of the world, or of everything called other-than-God. In itself it is pure non-existence, and the only true existence is God. This, in al-Ghazali's view, is not a metaphor but the plain truth.

Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.

Taking what is impermanent as permanent, what is inherently unsatisfactory as satisfying — these are distortions of the mind.

Happiness is to be found in contentment. Too much is always a curse, most of all in wealth.

How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! And the disciples were astonished at his words.

How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Because of attachment to Maya, the world is bound by the Messenger of Death.

In attachment to Maya, they have forgotten the Father, the Cherisher of the World.

In emotional attachment to Maya, they have forgotten the Great Giver, the Giver of Peace.

The doors of Hell are threefold, whereby men to ruin pass — the door of Lust, the door of Wrath, the door of Avarice. Let a man shun those three!

The doors of Hell are threefold, whereby men to ruin pass — the door of Lust, the door of Wrath, the door of Avarice. Let a man shun those three! He who shall turn aside from entering all those three gates of destruction works his way to bliss.

Pursue knowledge, gain daily. Pursue Tao, lose daily. Lose and again lose, arrive at non-doing.

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.

Free thyself from the transient world, that thou mayest wing your flight to the everlasting world. Detach thyself from this world that God may cause thee to ascend unto the exalted heaven of holiness.

King, I renounce all earthly care, and live in woods on woodland fare. What, dead to joys, have I to do with lordly train and retinue! Who gives his elephant and yet upon the girths his heart will set? How can a cord attract one free of the rest?

Renouncing pride and desire and ire and joy and fear, wait upon thy very foes, humbling thyself and joining thy hands. Do thou serve Janaka the ruler of Mithila, always performing good and pure deeds.

Devoted — with a heart grown pure, restrained in lordly self-control, forgoing wiles of song and senses, freed from love and hate, dwelling amid solitudes, in diet spare, with body, speech, and will tamed to obey.

Poverty is my glory, said the Prophet of God — he who is the master and king of swimmers. The affairs of this world are sorcery and illusion; the world is like amber that attracts.

The time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not.

The Tao produces all things and nourishes them; it produces them and does not claim them as its own; it does all, and yet does not boast of it; it presides over all, and yet does not control them.

They who preserve this method of the Tao do not wish to be full of themselves. It is through their not being full of themselves that they can afford to seem worn and not appear new and complete.

The sage puts his own person last, and yet it is found in the foremost place; he treats his person as if it were foreign to him, and yet that person is preserved. Is it not because he has no personal and private ends that his personal ends are fulfilled?

Tell me, Brother, how can I renounce Maya? When I gave up the tying of ribbons, still I tied my garment about me: when I gave up tying my garment, still I covered my body in its folds. So, when I give up passion, I see that anger remains.

Yet, the right act is less, far less, than the right-thinking mind. Seek refuge in thy soul; have there thy heaven! Scorn them that follow virtue for her gifts! The mind of pure devotion — even here — casts equally aside good deeds and bad deeds.

Hear now the deeper teaching of the Yog, which holding, understanding, thou shalt burst thy Karmabandh, the bondage of wrought deeds.

I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

The sage does not accumulate for himself. The more that he expends for others, the more does he possess of his own; the more that he gives to others, the more does he have himself.

The sage does not accumulate for himself. The more he uses for others, the more he possesses of his own.

The sage does not accumulate for himself. The more that he expends for others, the more does he possess of his own; the more that he gives to others, the more does he have himself.

But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you.

He that regards everything — joy and sorrow, honour and insult — with an equal eye, that never exerts himself for gratifying his desire for earthly possessions, that practises truthfulness of speech.

There is no guilt greater than to sanction ambition; no calamity greater than to be discontented with one's lot; no fault greater than the wish to be getting. Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring and unchanging sufficiency.

There is no guilt greater than to sanction ambition; no calamity greater than to be discontented with one's lot; no fault greater than the wish to be getting. Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring and unchanging sufficiency.

He who does not commit any crime in the world, who, after abandoning all bonds and fetters, clings to nothing, being liberated, such a one is called sinless.

He who in this world clings to nothing, is liberated, and for whom there are no passions, he is one endowed with good conduct.

He who receives his happiness from others may be rich, but he whose contentment is self-willed has inexhaustible wealth.

Un-startled, like a lion at sounds. Un-snared, like the wind in a net. Un-smeared, like a lotus in water: wander alone like a rhinoceros.