We have to be willing to let go on familiar "landmarks" like our self-identity and cherised beliefs.
The supreme lesson of human consciousness is to learn how to not know.
Every aspect of a person's indivduality- indeed, his entire experience of self, life, and reality- is largery a product of the culture in which he lives.
In our culture, we spend most of our time looking outward in search of some satisfying experience. We focus on the circumstances of life- attaining our desires and avoiding our fear- yet, when all is said and done, we still find little satisfaction.
Since our experience is dominated by assumptions and beliefs, we're limited to pursuing a self that is more conceptual than real.
Cultural assumptions are part of foundation for our perceptions. We can't help but take them for granted. We look out from them, which makes it difficult to look at them.
By design, the modern human mind craves knowledge, especially in places where we can find none. When faced with absence of information, we'll make something up- we will believe and assume.
Without the clutter of opinions and beliefs, we are free of bias, and free to look in any direction. We are no longer stuck in beliefs or conventions, or limited by our cultural histories or individual past experiences.
If you think you are bad or stupid, clumsy of worthless, and that these assessments exist in the same category as having no legs, then you are just as stuck with them as you would be with a wheelchair.
On the other hand, if you realize that these attributes are conceptual in nature, immediately you will experience the possibility that you can change them, or get free of them altogether.
Usually, the strong influence that our feelings have on us is more readily apparent and acceptable than the fact that we're dominated by our own thinking.
The task of directly experiencing the real nature of Being requires that we recognize and free ourselves of any and every concept we have- even the subtle and hidden ones- about who we are.
To get free from culturally mandated destiny of a life spent trying to fulfill the needs of something unreal and unnecessary, we need to make a distinction between what is real or original within ourselves and what is secondary and conceptual.
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes- Marcel Proust
Feeling truly complete and whole, authentic, and alive only becomes possible if we recognize this fabricated self-identity for what it is, and seek out an authentic experience of real-being.
Moving through life unknowingly dragging along and expressing yourself as a conceptual conglomerate can only lead do dissatisfaction. Being ill at ease with one's self and life, feeling like something is missing or not right, or having a sense of being inauthentic in some way, are all directly related to our inability to distinguish between our real beings and conceptual selves.
There is no inherent problem in having concepts, but we must not trap ourselves into being concepts.
You're still alive and you're still you, so mind will naturally protect and promote all the beliefs behind the activites that keep you that way. Unless you think to question the validity of the assumptions behind all this, they will simply appear to you as reality.
Whenever you get there, there is no there- Gertrude Stein
In simple terms, once we think we are some way, this though will become confused with ourselves, and so must be preserved.
In fact, the vast majority of our survival concerns are conceptual- even many that appear at first glance to be physical. When we think of such objective aspects as where we live, what we wear, and what we eat, we might hold them as matters of physical survival. Procuring basic food, clothing, and shelter for ourselves is quite straightforward, and if it were just a matter of physical survival, our work would end as soon as these needs were fulfilled in any way.
The act of comparing yourself to others, the idea of being a good or a bad person can only occur in relation to others.
Our social survival is the source of every concern of self-image, self-consciousness, and self-esteem, and these issues don't pause for us, ever.
We are largery made up of concerns such as what people think of us, what we want them to think or fear they may think of us, what we think of ourselves, and what we present as ourselves to others.
Being happy is confused with being successful, or being comfortable, or having life turn out as desired, or being free from pain and suffering.
Using "happiness" as a survival goal puts it out of our reach- it becomes unobtainable "cheese" that motivates us forward in life. We are stuck moving from one obtainment to another, from one struggle to the next, sometimes feeling good about it and sometimes feeling bad, yet never actually and only being happy with whatever is taking place.
Being programmed with so many nonoccurring images and ideals, we can't help but experience a huge emptiness. We can't help but compare and contrast what isn't- fantasies of our future destiny, images of how we should be or how things should turn out, beliefs what life should be like, standards to which we should measure up- with what "is", or at least "is preceived", and find the "is" lacking. By extension, we find ourselves lacking.
An "ideal" is largery used as something to indicate what we are not. At best it provides a direction in which to go. At worst, it is something we use to beat ourselves up with because we find ourselves and our lives continuously lacking.
The idea that we deserve fulfillment sets up for endless disappointments.
Where does suffering arise? In our experience of something, which means it is created by the mind. There is no suffering in an object. If suffering is not inherent within the existence of anything, then experiencing something as-itself and for-itself cannot produce suffering. It is only within the interpretive mind that suffering takes place.
Still, it's not the having of a self-image that creates suffering, it's that we identify with it. Those may seem like the same act, since for us the mere having of an image of self is the same as identifying oneself via conceptual imagery. But this doesn't need to be the case. It is possible not to identify with the images we have about ourselves. We can allow it to be just an image, separate from the reality of the self. No matter what form the self-identity takes, the same principle apples. The very act of identifying one's self occurs "having" or "being" any number of perceives phenomena. If we don't identify with any of it, we can't suffer in our struggle to maintain or defend or to persist as any of it.
Suffering is actually produced by such familiar actions as judging others, trying to control life, clinging to ideals, and resisting or conforming to what's happening, and it is even produced in the activity of wanting.
We have many conscious and subconscious images of how we and life should be or become. Anything we experience that does not match those images- which is most of it- will be viewed, in both small and large ways, as threats or failures to the goal of attaining our self-agenda objectives.
It isn't getting what we want that makes us happy. It's being happy whatever we experience- or perhaps I should say, being happy regardless what we experience.
Obviously, the chanches of being happy must by definition be reduced to moments of achieving something we want, and to be completely happy we would have to have achieved all that we want- which is very unlikely since our wanting never ends.
If we find nothing missing in our experience right now- nothing that should be experienced that isn't experienced- then we can have no desire. If we have no future as a possibility, we will also have no desire, no craving, no wanting.
Complaining about my choice and generating images of more exciting activities only creates pain. Enjoying my work while I work and my play while I play produces no separation and so no suffering.
Ordinarily we tend to focus on aqcuiring whatever will fulfill our needs. With experience, we notice that our needs are never finally or ultimately fulfilled no matter what we accomplish.
Happiness is as much about being free from ourselves as it is about being free to be ourselves.
Earlier I pointed out that no matter what is accomplished throughout life, no matter how successfully you meet all of life's challenges, the end of the story is that you will fail. You will not survive. All goals accomplished and ordeals overcome will fall away. That may be depressing and unacceptable fact for a self. But to Being it doesn't matter. If happiness is dependent on successfully realizing your goals, then ultimately there can be no satisfaction. On the other hand, if you are happy working toward your goals, then your happiness is not reserved for attaining them. If you are happy with whatever you experience, then you are happy. Being happy is a matter of being happy, period. As far as being happy goes, your true nature is already happy; simply let it "be".
This ability to create a discipline is what allows you to get free of your own immediate self drives. Without discipline we find no access to freedom.
Genius is eternal patience- Michelangelo
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