But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6 ESV
Of course that passage comes from the much longer passage from Matthew below. Just read it and see how much sense it makes to you. It makes so much to me
Great Wisdom About Anxiety
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Matthew 6:25-34 ESV
Anxious and Wanting More
You, of little faith...is meant fro me, I am sure. I find myself anxious and wanting more, not fully trusting that I will get it.
I have always been so confused about the notion of "desire". I mean I absolutely resonate with most Buddhist teachings...feeling it right through this overly conditioned Catholic core to an even deeper core. And I agree that most of our suffering is due to "wanting" Life to go a certain way...more specifically with our resistance and aversion when it doesn't go our way. I "see" that so clearly...I do. Healing , true healing, I also believe whole-heartedly, is enlightenment and by that I mean, healing depends on our willingness and ability to go back to our peaceful mind which lies beneath all the mental junk we piled on top of it with our wanting and unwanting. From there we fall back into Self. Ironically, I "want" that. I "desire" that. It just seems I am too overwhelmed with challenge to clean my inner and outer houses.
The Hindrances of Desire and Aversion
According to the Buddhists, five things hinder us from reaching this state I so want. The first of which is desire and the second is aversion. So am I caught in some type of a never ending cycle of wanting because I want what I presently don't perceive I have now..."true healing": my freedom from suffering? Is it "unwholesome" and "unskillful" of me to want the external situations before me to improve? Am I caught in a cycle of aversion...resisting my suffering, because I want to be free of it? How do I break that cycle and at the same time reach for my goal of enlightenment? (Reaching is grasping, seeking, striving) How do I embrace the spiritual path while in a physical and mental form without meeting the basic survival needs of both?
We Need to Survive , Right?
So yes God will provide...the universe will provide in some way...but in the mean time lol...what do we do?
And we need to "survive, right, as an inter-dependent bodies in this ever changing world? That is what we are biologically wired for...survival. These "physical world" challenges I face everyday are so intertwined in the basic needs of survival of this form...with health issues, shelter issues ( I know I can't keep this house) and finances. (Before I go any further...please know that I am fully aware that so, so many others have it much, much tougher than me. I am so blessed in so many ways to have what I do have...I know that. As far as survival needs, I have a roof over my head right now. I have food in the fridge. I do have some money coming in and I have access to a health care system in which I don't have to worry about paying for getting most of my health care needs met. That is blessing!!! I know that and I truly appreciate all of it! But if I am living honestly , I have to also address the challenges in front of me at this point in my life that may pose a threat to my physical and emotional survival. )
A Personal Example
From now on, I am going to try to give you the heads up if I am going to self disclose...so you can step back and away if it you find it annoying or offensive. I am still gong to do it lol...but I want to give you the option of ignoring it if you see it as just another person's trip down Self-Pity Lane. :) I couldn't bear to realize that I am just feeling sorry for myself...but maybe I am, who knows? Regardless....
My situation is such , that I am worried about "survival and safety needs" which my brain, the filter for the mind, is biologically wired to contemplate...It is, after all, the function of brain mind to keep us alive. It leads me to question: So how do we fall back into a spiritual purpose without the body having its needs met? And how do we advance to higher consciousness , using this tool of a mind we have, when it is so busy doing what it is "supposed" to be doing in a functional way as we confront one challenge after another. Sure... a great deal of the time my mind is doing the "monkey" thing...using me instead of me using it but a lot of other times, lately, it is simply doing its job. Like some robotic entity programmed for survival, it goes through my days lately saying: "Must figure out how to keep her and off spring alive; must figure out how to keep her and offspring alive; must figure out how to keep her and off spring alive." And I appreciate that sentiment. I "want" my off spring and myself to stay alive as long as we can. On top of that...I "want" it to be "easier". I want some longer intervals of peace between the challenges. Yep...I am taking my attention away from inner responsibility for my life experience and saying, " I want the outer world to lay off with the challenges...to give me a bloody break!" Is it a hindrance to my mission of liberation from suffering, then, that I am not completely accepting of my present circumstances and asking for something different or more?
Internalism versus Externalism; "House Dwellers" vs "Forest Dwellers"
So all this questioning brings to mind again...the different approaches to Life: Internalism, Externalism and Interactional. And that brings to mind what Alan Watts was talking about in regards to those who went off on a spiritual quest in India during the time of the Buddha. (see link below). In that tradition the population was divided into two groups: those that were called "house dwellers" who more or less would be our "externalists" ...the majority who were dependent on the physical world and society. They "desired" the physical world offerings; those who more or less lived on the horizontal plane...and the "Forest Dwellers"- those that set out away from the communities and societies they lived in, in order to renounce the "physical world" and focused entirely on the " internal" world. They expressed aversion of the physical world. Of course, they represent the epitome of internalism and life on the vertical plane. These spiritual devotes took great care to reach that level of enlightenment but during the Buddha's time, many were ascetics who felt they had to renounce all things even those things needed for the body to survive: food, water, sleep, warmth, shelter etc They would even purposefully inflict pain on themselves in hope that that would take them to awakening faster. The Buddha even tried this, for years, but eventually came to the realization that that too was a trap of clinging, striving and aversion.
He discovered the middle way:
Life is like the harp string, if it is strung too tight it won't play. If it is too loose, it hangs. The tension that provides the beautiful sound lies in the middle.
The Buddha.
What I get from this is, while we are waiting find that complete faith in God, that spiritual enlightenment that will set us free... we need to walk the middle way between desire and aversion...between house dwelling and forest dwelling, between the easy life and challenge. and between an internalistic perspective and an externalistic one. Maybe, the interactionalist approach offers the needed direction there? Maybe it is okay for us to want some of the external challenges we are given to diminish, for it to be a bit easier while we continue to look inward for the truth that will set us free. Maybe we really do not need to suffer quite so much from external events in order to free ourselves from all suffering in the long run? Maybe we can get off the rack, Aristotle spoke about, and still live the good life. What do you think?
I don't know. Worth some thought I suppose. Might as well put these "monkey" minds to good, functional use.
All is well.
Ahuvia, A., Thin, N., Haybron, D. M., Biswas-Diener, R., Ricard, M., & Timsit, J. (2015). Happiness: An interactionist perspective. International Journal of Wellbeing, 5(1), 1-18. doi:10.5502/ijw.v5i1.1
Joseph Goldstein (2016) Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening . Boulder: Sounds True
Alan Watts/ Global Well Being ( Nov, 2017) Freedom From Illusion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd0g17J0sqI
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