Many of us spend our lives chasing experiences. We think if we accumulate enough of the right experiences, we will be happy or if we could find that perfect experience that would last forever, we would be fulfilled. But seeking a new or different experience to satiate something in ourselves will ultimately leave us unsatisfied. Why is that? It is because we are complete without any experience. We do not need to "do" anything to reside in the so-called kingdom of heaven. In fact, sometimes "doing" gets in the way.
A second related part is that seeking a different experience than the current one is to reject current reality. Often, if we look deeply enough, we are seeking that different experience to fulfill a belief in a story of who we are.
WHY do you need anything different than what you have at this moment?
I am rich so I have money. I am smart so I speak well or solve problems well. I am ugly, so few people find me attractive. They are all stories we tell ourselves, in which we believe and then seek out experiences in relationship to that story. If I told you you are nothing and that so am I, and so we all are, how would you feel? The degree of your resistance is the degree to which you are shackled.
You are also everything, every iota.
What if we embraced each moment as it appeared? For example, if you were feeling sad, could you embrace the sadness fully. Where would you feel it? What color would it be? What shape would it be? How big would it be? What would it be trying to tell you? I suspect that when many people encounter sadness in their life, an attitude of " this should not be here exists" They meet the sadness with further injury by condemning it and themselves. Arguing with reality IS suffering. The more we are able to meet that experience with love the more it can dissolve into the nothing that it is too.
Recently, in my own meditations, I noticed that I was seeking rather than resting. A few weeks ago I had a particularly wonderful meditation and I found myself clinging to that experience. I found myself trying to recreate it rather than just letting my moment to moment experience just be. It created suffering. Even within our spritual "practice" we can chase experiences. When we achieve a particular state of bliss or happiness through meditation or listening to a satsang do we find 0urselves yearning to recreate that experience in our lives? Do we become atttached to finding that state again rather than resting in whatever state we are in? I am not saying that we should not have experiences that are blissful or wonderful or surround ourselves with "things" that we enjoy, but do you realize that for anything you enjoy the source of that happiness rests not in that activity or object but actually in you. Only love is real and you are love. It is the love that you bring to "it" that makes all the difference. It is the true seeing of whatever "it" is that makes it beautiful or exciting or wonderful. Everything just wants to be seen. In fact, the most fundamental act of love may be really seeing something. All "things" just "want" to be noticed for what they are. Our experiences are no different. When we chase experiences, we reject the present moment. Its like we are saying this moment is not good enough. I want the next. Its as though we are not capable of giving love to this moment. For any "difficult experience" can you try to give it love too?
Experiment: "Experiment with giving love" to every experience that appears in your life. Can you notice the experience? What happens to the experience after you notice it? What happens when you sit with it without clinging to it, trying to turn it into something else or pushing it away?
There is story within Buddhism that even after the Buddha became enlightened he would still be visited by the demon tempter Mara but Buddha would simply invite Mara to tea. This is a wonderful and loving image. For any experience that is supposedly "negative" can you invite it to tea. This poem by Rumi also captures the idea of not running from our experiences The Guest House
But isn't this a way of thinking paralyzing? How would you ever extract yourself from an unhealthy or dangerous situation?
Accepting the moment, or giving love to the moment does not mean that you cannot act. For instance let us say that someone has been physically abusing you in a relationship. Accepting the moment does not mean you are are "ok" with the person hitting you. It means that you deeply acknowledge that the reality IS that that person has been hitting you. That act in and of itself could take an enormous amount of courage and acceptance of the present moment. It could mean a deep acknowledgent of one's own present moment feelings towards the situation. It means, you deeply notice what has been transpiring and you take action from that place; including removing yourself from your circumstances.
Everything changes from moment to moment. It is born, lives and passes away. The more we can be blown by this silent wind, and not chase after some experience which will not satisfy us anyway, the more we can surrender to this moving current, paradoxically, the more joyful we will find ourselves.
Showing posts with label seeking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seeking. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
What Do You Seek?
It is very common to want more. It is common to feel as though fulfillment is just around the corner, if only I could just . . . . Our minds tell us that we are not complete as we are. They keep us in eternal seeking mode. Perhaps it is a cleaner house that we are seeking, or that perfect relationship, or even enlightenment. The mind is constantly trying to get "there" not understanding that we are already there. What the mind cannot understand is that the breath we are taking this moment right now is fulfillment -- if there is clear seeing.
But I am frightened in this moment you say, I have just lost my job and I don't know how I am going to support myself and my family.
As humans, we try to control our environment. "Knowing" itself, is an attempt to describe or figure out the world so that we can supposedly better function in it. Understanding and knowing have served us well for thousands of years, and they have their place, but what if that knowing is at the "expense" of a deeper intelligence and deeper freedom that few have ever realized. What would happen if we really embraced the idea that we cannot really ever "know" anything. How would we live? Can you entertain the notion that it might be freeing? After all , things would still happen - you would likely still take your next breath, your cells would still multiply and divide, you would probably still go sort your laundry into piles. Life would all still be "moving", a deeper something would still be operating, but you would not be the center of it. Life would go on being life somehow, even if you did not try to control it or make it fit what you thought it "should" be. Most of us go through life with the illusion that we are in control but is that really true? Take a moment and ask yourself if you have ever been in control of your life? Do you even really know what's "best" for you? How would you judge?
Yes, it is true that it may be scary to lose a job, but as humans we are capable of wonderfully complex feelings and emotions. Its a part of the richness of our experiences as humans -- why can't fulfillment and fright exist side by side? What would happen if you inquired about your fright or accepted that you were afraid? Does being afraid have to cancel out joy, or fulfillment? If it did, then why do people enjoy scary movies or roller coasters or ghost stories?
Exercise : Take a recent situation that you are worried about or frightened about and look at it as an observer for several hours? Did the shape of the worry/fright stay exactly the same over time? Were you worried/frightened continuously or did other things take your attention from them for respites? If so what were they? Where did you feel the worry/fright in your body? Is the fright or worry as monolithic as it was at the beginning?
It is the mind that tells us that we are not fulfilled, that we want more or something different; that something must be "wrong" with the experience we are having. It may not be a "pleasant" experience. It may not be an experience we would care to repeat, but it is, simply what it is, - nothing more, nothing less. By making the experience wrong, we set up resistance which IS our suffering. In those moments we are "resisting" the flow of life. We are resisting life itself. It is, as it is. If there is something we can do - do it, if not, accept it. It is the stories we tell, that we attach to like a burr to a sock that are the origins of our pain. As Byron Katie says Who would you be without your story? Our stories are the movements of our mind. They create a "me" where emptiness exists. Don't get me wrong, the mind is not "bad". It is not something to be rid of - that would be more resistance, rather it should just not be taken so seriously. It simply is. It tries very hard to do a job for which it is ultimately unqualified - bringing you peace. True joy and peace come from the vast depth of who you are, not from chasing particular fleeting circumstances.
It is peaceful to mimic a porch screen through which events pass like a summer breeze.
For they will pass, both the "good" and the "bad". Nothing lasts, it all dissolves away into beautiful nothing.
But I am frightened in this moment you say, I have just lost my job and I don't know how I am going to support myself and my family.
As humans, we try to control our environment. "Knowing" itself, is an attempt to describe or figure out the world so that we can supposedly better function in it. Understanding and knowing have served us well for thousands of years, and they have their place, but what if that knowing is at the "expense" of a deeper intelligence and deeper freedom that few have ever realized. What would happen if we really embraced the idea that we cannot really ever "know" anything. How would we live? Can you entertain the notion that it might be freeing? After all , things would still happen - you would likely still take your next breath, your cells would still multiply and divide, you would probably still go sort your laundry into piles. Life would all still be "moving", a deeper something would still be operating, but you would not be the center of it. Life would go on being life somehow, even if you did not try to control it or make it fit what you thought it "should" be. Most of us go through life with the illusion that we are in control but is that really true? Take a moment and ask yourself if you have ever been in control of your life? Do you even really know what's "best" for you? How would you judge?
Yes, it is true that it may be scary to lose a job, but as humans we are capable of wonderfully complex feelings and emotions. Its a part of the richness of our experiences as humans -- why can't fulfillment and fright exist side by side? What would happen if you inquired about your fright or accepted that you were afraid? Does being afraid have to cancel out joy, or fulfillment? If it did, then why do people enjoy scary movies or roller coasters or ghost stories?
Exercise : Take a recent situation that you are worried about or frightened about and look at it as an observer for several hours? Did the shape of the worry/fright stay exactly the same over time? Were you worried/frightened continuously or did other things take your attention from them for respites? If so what were they? Where did you feel the worry/fright in your body? Is the fright or worry as monolithic as it was at the beginning?
It is the mind that tells us that we are not fulfilled, that we want more or something different; that something must be "wrong" with the experience we are having. It may not be a "pleasant" experience. It may not be an experience we would care to repeat, but it is, simply what it is, - nothing more, nothing less. By making the experience wrong, we set up resistance which IS our suffering. In those moments we are "resisting" the flow of life. We are resisting life itself. It is, as it is. If there is something we can do - do it, if not, accept it. It is the stories we tell, that we attach to like a burr to a sock that are the origins of our pain. As Byron Katie says Who would you be without your story? Our stories are the movements of our mind. They create a "me" where emptiness exists. Don't get me wrong, the mind is not "bad". It is not something to be rid of - that would be more resistance, rather it should just not be taken so seriously. It simply is. It tries very hard to do a job for which it is ultimately unqualified - bringing you peace. True joy and peace come from the vast depth of who you are, not from chasing particular fleeting circumstances.
It is peaceful to mimic a porch screen through which events pass like a summer breeze.
For they will pass, both the "good" and the "bad". Nothing lasts, it all dissolves away into beautiful nothing.
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