The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
– quoted in archival footage by a young Ram Dass in Ram Dass: Going Home, from Hsin Hsin Ming by Sengcan
I assume this may be a translation mistake. Preferences are natural, inevitable, and required for us to live a life as a human being. I prefer a lot of things from a society that works for everyone to strawberry ice cream. We need preferences to create the society and life that makes sense to us, and they also add up to the unique expressions of life that we all are.
What’s equally natural, but not inevitable or required, is identifications with these preferences. Beliving they are needed for our survival or happiness. Having sensations associated with these preference-thoughts that the mind then interprets as meaning that they are solid, true, and perhaps final.
I see there is another translation saying “The Great Way is not difficult for those not attached to preferences” and that makes more sense. That’s what I wrote about above, although I prefer (!) to not use the word attachment. It comes with a bit too much baggage.
This is not something we can will into (or out of) existence. At most, we can notice what’s happening. Notice the dynamics of the mind. Invite the association between certain thoughts and sensation to fall away. Inquire into beliefs and find what’s more true for us. Rest as that which all of this happens within, and then within and as. Shift our relationship with these dynamics (from seeing them as a problem to befriending them). And so on.