Spiritual Casino

A quote from my spiritual teacher: Put it all down & go for broke. He's not talking about going to Macau or Vegas. I guess he's a spiritual gambler of some sort. I want to piggyback on yesterday's blog. Personal awakening is multi-dimensional. While Western psychology narrows its focus on the individual such as recovery by healing the child within & authenticating the self; Eastern philosophy offers a broader psycho-spiritual bend. In Buddhist lexicon, Nirvana or Enlightenment means to wake up. Wake up to what, a cup of Peets? To the fact that most of our suffering is self-inflicted. Buddhist teachings tell us that the human condition is inherently dissatisfied with the way things are. We just won't have it! We want to control this & that, to own it. It makes us feel safe & puffs up the ego. Buddhists call this attachment. The wanting & controlling soon takes on a life of its own, creating a monster renegade which manifest in obsessive & compulsive behavior. Some would suggest that this is the underlying disease pervasive in all forms of addiction. Imagine yourself walking into a store, totally captivated by a Cartier watch. No doubt, the watch is aesthetically beautiful. But the wanting mind kicks in & you are grasping the thing. This is applicable to people as well. So, you stroll away & soon you find yourself right back at the counter, jonesing for that thing. You just keep picking it up, unable to put it down. This causes angst & pain. The Buddhist antidote is to relinquish control, let go. This is known as cessation, the ceasing of the endless cycle of cause & effect. Let's use the breath as an example. You inhale, the breath rises. You exhale, it falls. This is the natural condition & it just goes on & on. You can't say, Oh! I'm good with the rising part & I'll just hang here. But that's exactly what we do in life. At some point, the breath must fall. This is true for the body, love, stocks; anything that is part of the conditioned phenomena. By recognizing the totality of the natural cycle of the human condition, we begin to see that the world of duality can only bring suffering. Yin & Yang lies side by side, one can't exist without the other. This is the way of the Tao. It's silly but that's the way it is.