A person is satisfied not by the quantity of food, but by the absence of greed. Gurdjieff
If we are silly enough to remain at the mercy of the people who want to sell us happiness, it will be impossible for us ever to be content with anything. How would they profit if we became content? We would no longer need their new product. The last thing the salesman wants is for the buyer to become content. You are of no use in our society unless you are always wanting to grasp what you never have. The Greeks were not as smart as we are. In their primitive way they put Tantalus in hell. [Advertising]…on the contrary, would convince us that Tantalus is in heaven.
Thomas Merton
We often have expectations about the way things are and the way things should be. We have expectations about life, practice, and the results that we should get. How many of us are really willing to simply be aware and present with the mind, here and now, and see it clearly as it is? Isn’t that what the teaching is constantly pointing to? The cultivation of awareness, the development of wisdom, and the Four Foundations
As we approach the end of the year we are surrounded by voices which encourage us to reflect on how we have done and make changes. While some reflection may be good, it usually falls into the “I am not good enough” category and “I should be otherwise”, a variation of the judgmental thoughts which we try to let pass through in practice. Ajahn Sumedho’s words here are the perfect response to this tendency, simply noting thoughts, even worthy ones, as thoughts, which pass away, and reminding ourselves to stay close to how life actually is, and not our judgments about it.
We have lived,
We may think that letting go means not having, or getting rid of something; but actually we can just allow it to go, rather than holding on to it or trying to throw it away. Sometimes just accepting and recognising is enough. It is a way of letting go of the aversion, the negativity. Like every other condition that we experience: if it arises, it will cease. And usually it ceases much more quickly if we can really let it go. Sometimes people use the expression ‘just letting be’.
We are born with only one obligation – to be completely who we are. Yet how much of our time is spent comparing ourselves to others, dead and alive? This is encouraged as necessary in the pursuit of excellence. Yet a flower in its excellence does not yearn to be a fish, and a fish in its unmanaged elegance does not long to be a tiger. But we humans find ourselves always falling into the dream of another life. Or we secretly aspire to the fortune or fame of people we don’t really know. When feeling badly about ourselves, we often try on other skins rather than understand and care for our own. Yet when we compare ourselves to others, we see neither ourselves nor those we look up to. We only experience the tension of comparing, as if there is only one ounce of being to feed all our hungers.
Mindfulbalance 