I can only want something because I thought I have not. When I have the idea I don’t have and my want is not met I will see “what I can’t have” as an attack. Each perceived attack will be retaliated as a defense in my system. In this drama I am frightened by what I have created. If I have a idea that I can possess you, I will try all means to win you over. Each failure produced an idea that you are rejecting me. The more I thought you are rejecting me, the more I will try to reach you out. All this drama is occuring in the mind, created by the mind and got threatened by mind. Like a child having an idea of what is in the dark, will be frightened by the darkness.
Over and over I observed this drama unfolding in the mind – creating an idea and got frightened by it, again creating another idea and got frightened by it, incessantly, unwarily, playing, unending, unquestioned – until a space is created for observation to take place, for understanding to develop and for freedom to arise, from the tyranny of this insanity.
If I think what I did is wrong, I will feel guilty and shame over it. I will also feel fearful what I have done will be known. Guilt is the present, shame in the past and fear is in the future. They are trio that never departs. If I think what I did is wrong, I will also think that “I should not have done it” as right. Wrong and right are duo that never departs. Is it possible “I should not have done it” arise at that point of my doing or is it just a wishful thinking of the past? If I don’t question this idea, I would have fully bought into my imagination. I would have, like any of my unquestioned seekers, think that I need to feel guilty to amend. The beginning of a wrong idea creates a stream of wrong ideas, strangling me tighter and tighter. One moment of awareness and wise questioning is enough to begin the ending of the stream of delusion.
Is there such a thing as wrong action? Yes and no. Depending whether I am seeing it from the perspective of ego or spirit (ignorant or wisdom). If it is seen from the eyes of ego, the result will be judgment and condemnation, and it binds me deeper into bondage, into distress. From the eyes of wisdom, it sees the cause of the guilt and the unprofitability of repeating it in the future. Both have different end results. One has fear of doing, the other has understanding of non-doing, seeing it as unnecessary and non-beneficial, instead of right or wrong.
In the eyes of wisdom it is not about the action per se that is right or wrong, but the understanding of the cause and effect of the action that necessitate me to take the right action. I can learn much from the danger of a drunkard murderer than from a restrained person who doesn’t drink. I am not meaning that I need to do wrong for me to understand cause and effect but to see any meaning of wrongness occurring in the mind as opportunities for understanding and wisdom to arise.
What causes one to remain in “bondage” even though it is against his “preference”?
As example, let’s take a smoker who is determined with the idea that smoking is not good, therefore seeks to quit smoking.
What makes him so powerless to overcome the addiction? It is very easy to fall to the addiction, then soon after smoking, the guilts surface making him swear not to smoke again, but then he falls again the moment addiction arise. Seems like hopelessly stuck in a whirlpool.
Let’s assume smoking is bad. What can be said of him when he seems to be stuck in a bondage that he himself wanted to be free from.
i view “what I can’t have” as an attack- sounds exactly like me… the more i want, the more i realised i cannot have it… i fear rejection as well… so what can i do about this what i can’t have and fear of rejection? is there any way to deal with it? i feel a lot of guilt, none that i remember of shame and a lot of fear…i am aware of this, as i am creating space to observe within…
Delusion. Ignorance of what is happening. Ignorance derive from the root word, ignore. Ignore is to mean what is already here that he is not willing to enter into, to see, to understand. When he ignore he delude himself in thinking he can escape from the discomfort. So in the example of smoking, there is an anxiety going on in him that he is ignoring, that he is not willing to look at. The more one ignore, the more powerless one becomes. Of course, if he has not been told how to look at, he will not even know the anxiety is in him. To think we can ignore is delusion itself, irrespective whether we are aware of it or not. Nature does not differentiate.
We normally want to be free from something because of another thing. So it is actually a wanting and not wanting rather than freedom totally. Freedom is non-doing, it is neither doing or not doing.
Wanting is the problem. Clinging to wanting is the root cause. Severing clinging ends wanting. How to severe? By understanding. By facing it and see the delusion of it. This takes practice. It is not about fixing it but in the space of non-doing, the clinging undo itself. Clinging is fed further by wanting. Clinging is the “king” of delusion. There is shame, you just need to observe without biasness….