So, I just read a passage in a book by Deepak Chopra, Buddha: With Bonus Material, in which he tells the story of the Life of the Buddha and then his thoughts on some of his teachings.
The part I was just struck by is the positive idea of "no desire". If you have everything you want, do you have any more desires? If you are entirely fulfilled, then you want for nothing. Want implies not having. There are many implications to this, that I imagine a Buddhist would say boil down to: Life is an illusion and thus the only useful implication is that the only thing worth having is something we already have and is not part of the Illusion.
My biggest problem with Buddhism is the same problem I had with the Matrix. Once you recognize the illusion, why throw it away. If you are dreaming and suddenly become lucid, why wake up. Why not enjoy the dream to the fullest and only discard the parts that are unhelpful, you don't like, or do not teach you what you need. I'm not sure the Illusion is bad just because it's not real. --now at this point I'm also willing to say that maybe I just am not .. ready enough to fully accept that there is something better than the illusion. In the Matrix, the Agents said that they first created a world in which everything was perfect but people rejected it. I want to know why. Maybe when things are too god to be true, people have trouble accepting it, and accepting their own responsibility for their bliss, but why is that an impossibility? why is it only suffering or nothing?
anyway I've digressed a bunch. The point is that I think there is a link between the idea that not having desires is a result of being fulfilled on a complete and true level, and the LOA (law of attraction) idea that to get what you want you must stop struggling against it and act/feel/believe that you already have it. In other words, assume you already have everything you want. If you suffer from not having it, if you are focused on the lack, that is where you will stay.
The point at which the LOA and Buddhism splits is at the idea that the having in life must still lead to suffering. I would argue that to truly live such that you are creating only positive non suffering existence one must not struggle. One must not embrace the suffering, but let it go and embrace already having all things one might want. having less that perfect situation does help one find what one does not want, or identify the "suffering" but the next step is to let it go. If one lets go of the suffering, one does not have to let go of the bliss. It is also a lot like identifying an insecurity. If you identify it, and let it go, one does not have to loose the benefit of the defense mechanism. One can loose the fear and still enjoy the benefit of the skill that the fear helped to teach.
Buddha would say that if you are relying on contrast to show you what you want and don't want, you are already loosing the "war" by participating. I think that you can use the contrast to ever move closer to bliss. Letting go off finding your security in your attachments or the worry of loosing things you may or may not have, allows you to find the bliss in everything, and carry your security and sense of wonder with you always, no matter what you may or may not have. If you let go of the negative when you see it, but continue to be aware of contrasts and possible desires (cause as soon as you want it for real you can know you have it and no longer really desire it) then you can keep moving more and more toward your true self and what *really* makes you happy.
Also I see a small but very significant difference between "no desire" as a deadening of desire and "no desire" as an acceptance of desire instantly becoming something you "have" and thus satisfied as soon as it occurs to you.
Of course there is the saying that "having isn't a great a thing as wanting", which I think just means that you didn't get what you really wanted, or you didn't understand what you really wanted. When you desire out of "lack" and then get the thing. . you don't really get what you want, cause you desired a "not lacking" not the thing itself. Getting the thing does not cure the lack, it just means you got the thing. You still want to "not lack", and that you can take care of easily on your own without getting the thing.
I think that's my thoughts on the subject for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment