-Dalai Lama ( Desktop calendar, Andrew McMeel Publishing, 2018)
Hmmm! Now those are words to ponder this morning, aren't they?
In some spiritual traditions "wanting," "craving," and "striving for" are seen as vices that hold us back from achieving spiritual enlightenment. How does that piece of wisdom apply, then, in secular reality when few of us are striving to achieve "Buddha" status?
Well we may not be consciously striving for enlightenment but many of us would admit to wanting to find "happiness" in our lives, would we not? Some of us, like me, just want peace of mind and freedom from the "stressors" we are living through.
Long Term Goals of Happiness and Peace
There is nothing wrong with that.
Happiness and peace are our natural birthright. They can be viewed as our life long goals. We are meant to be peaceful and joyful. These long term goals, however, are punctuated by many short term goals.
Short Term Goals
It is what we choose as short term goals, I believe the Dalai Lama is referring to, that cause the problem with being satisfied. As we attain each one, they intensify and increase in numbers and our wanting becomes more difficult to find contentment.
Misdirected short term goals
I want happiness. I therefore desire:
- perfect health
- a six digit bank account
- the perfect job
- a great house in a great neighborhood
- a certain degree of recognition and praise
- a relationship with an outwardly seeming perfect person
- the car of my dreams
- the ability to travel everywhere
- a Facebook family others will be envious of
- etc etc
When we get that perfect checkup that says we are in perfect health, we will feel pretty darn satisfied for a bit... but it won't last. We may look in the mirror a few weeks later and see we are aging. Regardless of how perfectly healthy we are, we are all going to age. We may then desire youth and seek a reconstructive process that takes the lines out of our brow and from around our mouths. We get that done and then feel pretty satisfied for a while...until we notice that body parts are sagging as they are meant to at a certain part of our life spans...so we seek reconstructive surgery to repair that. We get it done and feel happy for a while. Then we see a need for another surgery, and then another to repair the first one we had done... And on and on it goes.
Or
After striving our whole lives we finally get that perfect job promotion that gives us a six figure salary. Oh happy day!! Our bank account is soon full. We get the house, the car, the recognition and reward we craved so desperately all our lives. Our dream has come true. We are finally there. We can stop striving...or can we? We feel good and satisfied ...for a while. We will soon realize that with this new position more is expected of us. We need to work harder to keep it until we can move up to the next rung in the corporate ladder which seems to be what is also expected. We work even harder now to get the next promotion, a bigger home, a nicer car. We will never be satisfied. Sigh!
In these examples , it is easy to see how wanting and desiring things that are so physically centered and at the mercy of natural laws because of their temporary nature, can lead us to get caught in a never ending cycle of needing and wanting more.
What happens if things work the other way and one does not reach these short term goals or so called pinnacles of success?
Desiring the removal of Life circumstance
In my own life, my desires were somewhat different than above. I did want things like perfect health and a "comfortable " income but I also wanted to publish books, be known as a writer. I lost both perfect health and a comfortable income (and have yet to publish a book which is irrelevant to this example lol). The "stress" in my life was often overwhelming. So my "striving" changed gears. Instead of wanting things added, I wanted things removed.
My wanting became more of a "take this away please" kind of thing . Many of you may relate.
I want peace of mind. I therefore desire:
- a removal of parenting stressors from my life
- a removal of financial stressors
- a removal of this illness
- a removal of this shame related to my health seeking
- a removal of conflict
- a removal of life circumstance
- etc etc
It seems a less demanding type of wanting to some degree but it isn't. In fact...maybe it is even more demanding.
In my wishing, desiring and striving I am asking Life not so much to give me something...but to stop being Life and to remove something it has already given me from my experience. The ideology here is that if I work really hard at it, put everything into controlling and fixing what is broken, Life could take away some of my parenting stressors, for example, and I may be satisfied and "peaceful" for a while. But It will also have to take away some precious learning opportunity for both me and my children when it does that. I will not be peaceful for long. The much needed learning will present itself in another challenge.
If I work myself past the brink of my physical limitations and into exhaustion, Life may somehow end all my financial stress by putting money in my account but it may also have to remove health and learning. I won't be satisfied for long because another similar challenge will show up in my Life that I will have to process through....and this time I will be too exhausted to deal with it.
My wanting and striving for things to leave my life experience is just as destructive to my growth as wanting Life to give me more, is.
External world short term goals are the problem
The problem is not in the wanting and striving to be happy ( though I am not fond of that word) or peaceful. No that is perfectly okay...that is what we should all be striving toward. The problem is in what we assume are the short term goals that will take us there.
Looking out there into the external and very material world for happiness and peace is looking in the wrong direction.
The reason why we are not satisfied for long when we get the new house or car is that those things are not what we are "really" wanting and needing. They don't bring us closer to happiness. The new house or car cannot give us happiness. When we get them, something in us knows that. They do not fill us up. We begin to feel dissatisfied again but instead of turning in the right direction...we just go onto the next worldly thing or goal on our list. ...leading to more and more dissatisfaction...more and more desperation to fill in those holes...more and realizing that they don't.
The reason why the attempts made to change or end our negative circumstances don't keep us peaceful for long is because they also lead us in the wrong direction. We don't need to end challenge...we just need to go through it. Challenges are blessing in our lives, learning opportunities and necessary for our spiritual growth.
Our short term goals need to be internal
If we truly want contentment, happiness and peace we do not need to strive for more or seek the removal of outer world things, to bring that to us. These things can't. We need to set some goals that will lead us in a different direction.
Look inward rather than outward. We need to change our focus direction and create new list short term of goals.
I want peace. I therefore desire:
- more stillness in my day
- more quiet
- more presence
- more acceptance
- more awareness
- more appreciation
- more kindness ( that comes from me)
- more compassion
- more laughter
- more knowledge of who I am beyond all the monkey chatter in my mind
- etc etc
It is with the attainment of these goals that we will find a satisfaction that doesn't go away. We know, finally, we are going in a direction that will take us to where we really want to be. We are on our way home. We then become less demanding and more content with each moment Life offers us.
Hmmm! Does that make sense?
All is well.
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