Image Credit: Stuck in Customs

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the motivations behind my behaviors…I’m trying to get to the root of what really makes me happy and what causes me grief. Although this process is never complete, I think this period of introspection has led me to some interesting insight that I’d like to pass on. Keep in mind that some of this might be difficult to hear, some of this might annoy you, and some of this might not fit your behavior, but I can’t do much about that.

As I continue to achieve many of the goals I’ve set out for myself, I’m finding that achieving the goal doesn’t lead to anything more than a brief moment of contentment. As soon as one goal is completed, another, more difficult one, replaces it. At first I thought this was due to my never ending quest for self-improvement, but I realized that this was only part of the equation.

Seeking happiness leads to emptiness?

More pressing than any desire to achieve, is the desire to be happy. I used to think that happiness would come from self-actualization, but now I realize that it doesn’t come from achieving a state of mind, but from fleeing states of mind.

What I mean by this is that many of my quests have, at the root, a motivation that is self-serving. I want to write words that people will like because when I receive feedback, it makes me happy. The problem is that it doesn’t make me happy and I believe that this is because I attach an expectation to my action. As a result, I set myself up to be disappointed, time and time again. And so this is true for all of my dreams, goals, and achievements. I think they will make me happy because I will finally have cracked the code or unlocked a new door in my quest, unfortunately it is because I want a result that I am become less happy.

As you succeed in achieving these goals and finding that happiness doesn’t meet you there, you start to feel a sense of despair. Why can’t I be happy? Is something wrong with me?

Planting the seed of truth

The truth is that as long as you seek to be happy, you never will be. And so I’ve finally realized how important the teachings of the Buddha have become, not because they enlightened me at the time, but because they planted a seed that would blossom exactly when I needed it to. Had I not studied Buddhist and Zen teachings prior to now, I wouldn’t have the frame-set to understand what I am going through. Since I have read these teachings, I can look back and say “Aha! Now I know what he meant!”

For years I wondered if I would ever fully grasp these teachings…I wondered if my faith would grow or shrivel into the dust from which it came. Looking back, I’m amazed at how the pieces fall in to place, even though at the time I thought “what the hell is going on with my life?”

So where do we go from here? Well, I’m starting to think that attaching any expectation from an action is going to lead you down a path you don’t want to follow. For instance, recently I helped treat someone suffering from dehydration and anemia. She was in a state in which she needed someone to take care of her. I enjoyed the feeling of helping and I didn’t even think about why or how I was going to do it. I just reacted and helped her. However, as I was driving later that day I wondered if maybe I should have been a doctor or work at a hospital so that I could help people. But…when I got to the truth of why I wanted to do that, I realized that helping people made me feel important, which felt good at the time, but still leaves you empty because the feeling doesn’t last. Helping people is great, but doing it for selfish reasons is only going to produce sorrow.

Feelings don’t last

The reason that it leads to sorrow is because feelings don’t last and as soon as the “happiness” fades, you instantly feel a void and search for more happiness to replace it. As a result, you are constantly in a state of searching, hunting, and desperately seeking a “happiness” fix. Eventually, you get so caught up in this trap that you lose site of what you were doing in the first place. This is how searching for happiness leads to despair.

The truth is that happiness doesn’t exist until you cease looking for it. When you do, without expectation or attachment, then you will learn what it is to truly find peace. This is what it means to chop wood and carry water. Let the Tao guide you in your actions…follow the middle way. This is what I’ve learned, how do you feel?

Image by Happy Tinfoil Cat

You claim freedom and free will, but how far are you willing to go to back that up? Given the choice, would you take the red pill and risk everything to gain it all, or would you be afraid to leave your “quasi” life behind and cower behind the blue pill?

Many people say that they want freedom, but I’m willing to be that they simply tell themselves that to mask the fact that they don’t have the strength or courage to do what they know must be done.

You have a choice…you can forsake everything you have for the sake of a spiritual journey, or you can remain in place, stuck to a body that will die and a life that will fade away.

How Much Control are

You Willing to Give Up?

The question isn’t so much, how much control do you have – the question is how much are you willing to give up? The true measure of control is the amount that we are willing to let go of and I’m willing to be that given the choice, many of use would retreat to our comfort zone.

You see, I know you feel it somewhere deep inside of you, that urge to break free of your cocoon and live the life of a butterfly. I bet that every day that passes where you haven’t shed a layer has resulted in another layer being added. Every day you feel the emotional energy build up inside of you, but you are afraid. You can’t take the pain of separation, of change.

So where does that leave us? You aren’t alone. We are all tied to our social and physical bonds. However, if we just realize that eventually, everything is going to fade away regardless, then we can accept our life as a butterfly much easier.

The truth is, once you face death and conquer it, you fear nothing. Doesn’t that sound like a wonderful way to live?

What may have started as an honest quest to generate wealth for a good cause, quickly turned into a cause strictly for wealth itself.  I did not even notice the transition because it happened so stealthily. After months and months of working my tail off chasing the dollar, I finally came to my senses and realized what had happened. It was one of those Voila! moments. So now, I understand why my struggles became struggles rather than successes. I’ve thought long and hard about this process and I think I may have found a few insights into how this happens and the effects it has:

1. My focus created my intent, which created a whirlwind of cause and effect that altered my course.
2. My course become less “pure” and more “greedy” and thus I found negative outcomes, including emotional struggles and exhaustion.
3. I started to wonder where my energy and exitment disappeared to and came to this moment.

So it seems that our focus does manifest itself into real-life outcomes, which in this case happened to be a shift from a noble cause to one based on desire. Instead of letting the positive intent guide me, my desire to create money for my cause outweighed the thoughts of the cause itself, which in turn caused the paradigm shift. Once the shift occured and the positive aspect of the intention was lost, the desire was able to wrap itself around my mind and take over.

The problem with desire is that it is a fire that cannot be put out on our own.  It feeds off of our energy and requires more and more fuel to keep burning. Soon, it consumes us and becomes who we are…that is if we don’t stop it. If left unchecked, desire can literally change our physical, mental, and emotional selves permanently! The best example of this I can give is if you have ever felt like you didn’t recognize yourself or your actions conflict with your thoughts, also called Cognitive Dissonance.  This eventually manifests into all sorts of psychological problems that are beyond the scope of this blog.

In the end, we can stop this and take back control of our lives, like I am doing today.  The key is to build up our inner strength so that we recognize these attacks earlier and nip them in the bud before it gets out of hand.  I think that as we continue to practice this, just like anything else, we will become better at doing it.

So yes, The Dharma Foundation will still be founded for all the causes I listed above and more, but until then I’d love for you to share the things you are passionate about and your stories of fighting against desire.

Stay on track and keep living your dharma

Now, what does this mean to you and I? For many of us, we have jobs and families that we owe an obligation to. Sure, these are wordly obligations, but to goal of maintaining karmic peace and/or removing ourselves from karmic consequences requires us to make positive action that would not hurt others. So although we cannot quit life and go into a cave and devote ourselves to meditation, we can take the urges we get to jump into something and instead transfer that power into meditation. I don’t see there being any reason we cannot push ourselves to get the most out of our short lives as possible, both for ourselves and our families, but if we can remember to transfer just a little bit of that energy into our own introspection, we can cut years off our path to enlightenment. I’ve found that every bit of time I invest in my spiritual future, is paid back with more insight and motivation than I can handle, and maybe that’s the key.