If however she had achieved the ideal non-attachment of Buddhism, her grief would still be real, but she would experience it in a different way. Her grief would be part of a process of letting go the son who is no longer there. A degree of non-attachment would then allow her to experience the grief as outside of herself rather than as part of her individuality. This would help her to move on with the life that is her own. In the above way a too great degree of attachment to human relationships may become destructive to the spiritual goal. The same is true of a great degree of attachment to materialistic ideals such as food or money. Great ambition to accumulate money or physical assets may cause a person to lose sight of spiritual goals. This is a very one-sided approach to life, and may lead to destruction when for example money is lost. When money is not the ultimate ideal, the person losing the assets will experience the loss as less devastating, because once again the loss is not part of the soul itself.

Instead the philosophy recommends remaining distant from materialistic ideals while placing spiritual goals in a more important position than material goals. These spiritual goals can however be manifested by the way in which material goals are achieved.
The core of Buddhism is thus the ultimate spirituality achieved in Nirvana. When all life lessons have been learned, this is the final state of unity between the soul and the creator. Nibbana is the manifestation of this goal on earth. Each Buddhist then, while not being able to achieve the ideal state with a single step, can use Plato's ladder in order to journey towards the goal of spiritual unity.

The beauty of Buddhism lies in the fact that achieving the ulitmate spiritual goal relies on providing loved ones and others with manifestations of spirituality that provides happiness to souls other than the self. In this way Buddhism is ultimately selfless.