Once,
the Blessed One, addressed the householder Anāthapiṇḍika thus:
"There are,
O householder, five things that are wished for,
loved and agreeable,
yet rarely gained in the world.
What five?
Long life, beauty, happiness, fame,
and rebirth in heaven.
But of those five things, householder, I do not teach that they are to be obtained by prayer,
or by vows.
If one could obtain them by prayer or vows, who would not obtain them?"
"For a noble disciple, householder, who wishes to have long life, it is not befitting that he should pray for long life, or take delight in so doing.
He should rather follow a path of life that is conducive to longevity.
By following such a path he will obtain long life,
be it divine or human."
"For a noble disciple, householder, who wishes to have beauty, happiness, fame, and rebirth in heaven, it is not befitting that he should pray for them, or take delight in so doing.
He should rather follow a path of life that is conducive to beauty, happiness, fame, and rebirth in heaven.
By following such a path he will obtain beauty, happiness, fame, and rebirth in heaven."
(5:43) AnguttaraNikaya2
.................
When we don't get what we wish for, we become anxious.
This anxiety is one of the causes of suffering.
When we suffer,
we lose the path.
Desire
Anxiety and Suffering
When we wish to escape from the state of anxiety, all we have to do is desire something.
We can spend money,
on things we don't want,
take a pill, that we don't need, go on holiday,
and complain constantly.
Or we can pray for relief. Anything to escape from our anxiety.
We believe this is our way out of suffering.
We create a world for ourselves that doesn't actually exist.
This is our first attempt to escape suffering through desire.
We don't know that desire creates anxiety.
We don't know that desire is the root of all suffering.
We do know that humanity is based on desire and is anxiety driven.
We also know that we become anxious about everything we know,
and everything we don't understand.
In the world of a Buddha,
there is no anxiety.
A Buddha is Siddhas,
a being beyond mundane things.
No goal, no movement,
the journey complete.
Should we be able to see through a Buddha's eyes;
no anxiety, no agony,
no urge to do this or that.
No fever to become.
There is ecstasy,
peace, bliss, well being.
Love and joy.
The Buddha said that ignorance, including desire, is the root cause of all misery.
Our second attempt to escape, is to involve ourselves in misery that causes us to create a future, projecting ourselves into make believe and thus,
causing anxiety.
When we create a tomorrow, and start to live in it, that's when
today dissapears.
We cannot see today, when our eyes are clouded by what tomorrow may bring.
So, desire is born out of the past and projected into the future,
where once again,
we can repeat our mistakes from the past.
This projection causes anxiety, which causes more desire, to be something or someone, other than who, or what, we really are.
We then believe that the past and the future, constitutes our entire life.
Should we analyse and dissect our daily thoughts,
we find only two thoughts,
past and future.
We don't find a present.
The present however,
is our only reality,
the only existence.
Our only joy.
Present moment can only be found when our mind ceases it's chatter.
When it is stilled.
Silent.
Bliss.
Only then does anxiety cease.
Be still
and follow the path.
Metta
Nathan
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http://www.dharmamaster.com
With love
