Do not cling to what you love nor to what you do not love. It is painful not to see what one loves, and painful to see what one does not love.

Mā piyehi samāgañchi appiyehi kudācanaṃ — do not cling to what you love nor to what you do not love: the advice seems paradoxical — how can one live without attaching to anything? But the teaching is not about avoiding relationships but about not compulsively clinging to what is pleasing nor compulsively rejecting what is disagreeable.

Piyānaṃ adassanaṃ dukkhaṃ — it is painful not to see what one loves: this is one of the classic formulations of dukkha: separation from what is loved (piyavippayoga). Loving produces vulnerability: the more you love, the more the absence hurts.

Appiyānañca dassanaṃ — and it is painful to see what one does not love: the other face: the presence of the unloved (appiyasampayoga) also produces suffering. We are surrounded by what we do not want and separated from what we want — this is the ordinary human condition.

This verse describes the two fundamental wounds of attachment: loss of the loved and contact with the unloved. The practice of upekkha (equanimity) is the Buddhist response to both.