“I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?”

-Rumi

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?

There are some that teach us to feel guilty for being born in this skin. Others will have you believe we are less than perfect. All of that may be true, but I refuse to believe it.

We’ve been given a gift of seeing what it is truly like to live. We struggle, sometimes alone and sometimes together. We suffer, we laugh, we cry…we love. We spend our lives hoping, searching, and sacrificing our lives for love. We all feel deeply tied to each other, even though we try to forget.
Sometimes the suffering is too much and we quietly return to our shells…hoping that our luck will change. We often feel alone, but we know that we are not. Somewhere, someplace, there is a being or a spirit that lives within us.

We should not feel guilty, for we are born to be exactly as we are. Perfectly formed beings filled with the intention of our creator. Whether or not you believe in a god is irrelevant. We are the very act of a nature so great and powerful that we do not understand.

Universes bent to the will of fate…by the hand of nature herself, in order for this miracle of life to take place. By chance or by fate, it has happened and the likelihood of it happening anywhere else or at any other time is virtually nonexistent.

Celebrate who you are, even if your times are dire. Someday we will all realize that we are in this together. Someday the consciousness of man will shift further toward the divine and when we all wake up what a glorious day that will be.

Don’t feel guilty in your own skin, be thankful for the chance to shine. Be grateful that you’ve been able to see what it was like to suffer, for now you understand joy. Be thankful for war, for now you know peace.

In the end, whether our souls move on our perish forever, our memories will be imprinted on the very space we inhabit. We will remain forever on the fabric of time.

Although future generations may not know us, the universe will forever keep us in her memory. That my friends, is why we do matter. Just as we learn from the universe, the universe learns from us. Let us cherish that.

Image by Younglings

Do you live with a panic deep inside of you? You might not even know it is there, but you can probably feel it. It drives you to continually find new ways to improve yourself and to better your life. It drives you to eat more, drink more, or spend more money. You keep trying to find a new rush to fill up the gaps in your life, but you keep ending up in the same position.

The panic I’m talking about is a hole that doesn’t seem to fill up no matter what you try to fill it with. Some people think money will fill it, some think that family will fill it, while others think that helping others will fill it. However, every time that you do something that you see as the peak experience, every time that you reach a goal, this feeling doesn’t go away. In fact, you start to get more desperate…you try and try until it begins to eat you alive. Then it hit you, maybe like it hit me: no matter what I do, I am never going to fill the hole…ever.

You see, the hole I am talking about is a hole in your spirit that keeps telling you there is something wrong in your life. The problem is that in most people, it manifests in material ways, rather than spiritual ways. You think that becoming a millionaire, helping the poor, or finding love will all help to fill the hole. The problem is that it doesn’t work…none of it does.

I thought that money would help me, but it didn’t. Then I started running, but I kept wanting more. I started competing, but just competing wasn’t good enough. I wanted to win…then I wanted to always win…can you see the pattern? Every time we reach what we think is the “peak experience,” we realize that the experience wasn’t what we expected at all. I was thinking about my personal goals and I kept noticing that every time I thought I’d found the true path to happiness, it never came.

That’s when it hit me – like a ton of bricks actually, that no matter what pursuits I go after or achieve, I will never find a physical way to fill that hole. All my striving, all of my hope, was based in a physical world that relies on that hope and striving to pull you deeper into it. You see, that is the trap that binds us to suffering. This ego creature is so masterful that it will find any way that it can to trick you into thinking you are on the right path. Only when you realize that you’ve lost your way will it give up and try something else.

This is what happened to me. I thought I was on my path, but I was being tricked into thinking that. I was never going to fill that hole, instead I would just be travelling further and further down the rabbit hole until I reached a point of no return.

The only true way to fill that hole is by spiritual experiences. Even those are fleeting, but they are much more real then the physical experience. I don’t care what religion you follow, but the truth is that if you want to stop striving then you have to find a way to satisfy your spirit. For me, I know exactly what I must do, and it is something I find a way to avoid every day – meditation. I know that I must withdraw myself from the world of Mara and go inward, but I keep getting tricked into giving up. Realize that when you are tricked into physical pursuits, that even should you accomplish them your cravings will still go unsatisfied. This monster is never full and it will devour every part of you that it can. Stop feeding the monster and go inward, toward the spirit. Only then can you find your true path and only then can you fill the hole.

Don’t live a life of quiet desperation where you feel a panic inside of you every day. You know the way to happiness and you know it is the right thing to do. Escape the trap of suffering and follow the way…live your Dharma.