Let's start with an axiom: the primary thing everyone wants is to be happy.
Maybe "happy" isn't the most precise word, but everyone wants to feel content, satisfied, complete, okay, not troubled, whatever. That is the primary and ultimate drive. If we don't agree on this point, the rest of the post won't make a lot of sense.
Second: the mind is a seeking mechanism.
That is, the mind's main purpose in life is finding ways to fulfill the primary drive. Being a mind and all, it does this through conceptual mechanisms: calculating, predicting, estimating, etc.
Sometimes it comes up with short-term solutions: eat this delicious cake, get this fantastic massage, etc. This is a local optimization strategy. Other times, it has to do a bit more work and strategize. It comes up with an eight year plan to get a degree, thanks to which it will get this job, based on which it will achieve this income, at which point it will buy this house.
If all goes exactly according to plan (which I'm sure I don't have to tell you is rare), there comes a time where mind says "whew, got it." The seeking stops for a moment and all is well. Then, of course, it notices that the blinds don't exactly match the wallpaper, and it's off to the races again to earn its keep.
What it refuses to acknowledge is an equivalence so simple and obvious that it must be lying when it says it doesn't understand or agree:
The happiness felt when the house was acquired was a result of, or identical to, the temporary gap in which the mind stopped scheming ways in which to get happiness later. How's that for a conflict of interest? The mind's only job is to put itself out of a job. Don't say the universe doesn't have a wild sense of humor.
One way to see this firsthand is to put the mind under a microscope for long periods of time. Like a microbiologist might watch her protozoan specimen carefully for hours on end to precisely understand its behavioral patterns, it's possible to watch the mind contort itself in all sorts of fascinating ways to pretend to bring its stated project closer to the end.
When the mind suspects you're getting too close to the truth, maybe it decides to play along:
Le sigh. But of course this is disingenuous. Have you ever heard of someone realizing happiness by accepting this obvious truth? Of course not. The game is rigged. A simple refutation is always waiting in the wings.
Being happy with what we have is not how our hominid ancestors pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and got on with creating the awesome civilization we have today.
And with that bit of logic, the knot is tied: the seeking mechanism is necessary after all, and the mind retains its rightful place as Arbiter of Happiness.
But maybe doubts still surface from time to time.
There's really only one way to answer that question: try it and see.
Actually, if you've been following carefully, I have. You drop the seeking. You drop the mind. Utterly and completely. Doing it halfway is like jumping halfway out of an airplane.
You can spend years, decades meditating, but you'll never get one bit better at dropping it. What you may get, however, is tired of pretending that you can't. That you need more instructions, more time.
A great master once told me:
Didn't work right away? Welcome to the club. But at least now you can rest knowing that you've been told the answer.
(Okay, maybe "rest" isn't the right word to describe what happens once you realize with utter certainty that all your scheming plans are doomed to failure. But hey, maybe you can pretend you never read this. That's worked for billions of other people, after all.)
Maybe "happy" isn't the most precise word, but everyone wants to feel content, satisfied, complete, okay, not troubled, whatever. That is the primary and ultimate drive. If we don't agree on this point, the rest of the post won't make a lot of sense.
Second: the mind is a seeking mechanism.
That is, the mind's main purpose in life is finding ways to fulfill the primary drive. Being a mind and all, it does this through conceptual mechanisms: calculating, predicting, estimating, etc.
Sometimes it comes up with short-term solutions: eat this delicious cake, get this fantastic massage, etc. This is a local optimization strategy. Other times, it has to do a bit more work and strategize. It comes up with an eight year plan to get a degree, thanks to which it will get this job, based on which it will achieve this income, at which point it will buy this house.
If all goes exactly according to plan (which I'm sure I don't have to tell you is rare), there comes a time where mind says "whew, got it." The seeking stops for a moment and all is well. Then, of course, it notices that the blinds don't exactly match the wallpaper, and it's off to the races again to earn its keep.
What it refuses to acknowledge is an equivalence so simple and obvious that it must be lying when it says it doesn't understand or agree:
Happiness = Any pause in seeking happiness
The happiness felt when the house was acquired was a result of, or identical to, the temporary gap in which the mind stopped scheming ways in which to get happiness later. How's that for a conflict of interest? The mind's only job is to put itself out of a job. Don't say the universe doesn't have a wild sense of humor.
One way to see this firsthand is to put the mind under a microscope for long periods of time. Like a microbiologist might watch her protozoan specimen carefully for hours on end to precisely understand its behavioral patterns, it's possible to watch the mind contort itself in all sorts of fascinating ways to pretend to bring its stated project closer to the end.
When the mind suspects you're getting too close to the truth, maybe it decides to play along:
Hmm... maybe I could just be happy with what I already have....
Le sigh. But of course this is disingenuous. Have you ever heard of someone realizing happiness by accepting this obvious truth? Of course not. The game is rigged. A simple refutation is always waiting in the wings.
...but then I'd be a pretty useless human being. I'd probably just sit on the couch in my undies eating Cheetos all day.
Being happy with what we have is not how our hominid ancestors pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and got on with creating the awesome civilization we have today.
And with that bit of logic, the knot is tied: the seeking mechanism is necessary after all, and the mind retains its rightful place as Arbiter of Happiness.
But maybe doubts still surface from time to time.
Wait a minute. Might it be possible to feel grateful for and fulfilled by what I have now, and still be a productive member of society?
There's really only one way to answer that question: try it and see.
But how do I try it? You haven't given me any instructions!
Actually, if you've been following carefully, I have. You drop the seeking. You drop the mind. Utterly and completely. Doing it halfway is like jumping halfway out of an airplane.
You can spend years, decades meditating, but you'll never get one bit better at dropping it. What you may get, however, is tired of pretending that you can't. That you need more instructions, more time.
A great master once told me:
You don't need to prepare to drop it. You don't even need to know how to drop it. You just drop it. Spontaneously. Like this: aahhhh (head tilted back, tongue out, staring at the sky).
Didn't work right away? Welcome to the club. But at least now you can rest knowing that you've been told the answer.
(Okay, maybe "rest" isn't the right word to describe what happens once you realize with utter certainty that all your scheming plans are doomed to failure. But hey, maybe you can pretend you never read this. That's worked for billions of other people, after all.)
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