Zen and the Art of the Grasping
Mind
It is reported that George Bernard Shaw once said: “What am I going to do
next?”
Then he apparently replied to his own question, “Well, I'll just get
some more.”
And that was followed by a gifted insight. “There are two great
disappointments in life: not getting
what you want and then, getting what
you want.”
The process of such unskillful desire is endless, because peace comes not
from fulfilling your wants. It comes from the moment that dissatisfaction ends;
when the need for wanting ceases. When this happens, there comes a moment of
satisfaction, a moment of clarity. Not from the pleasure of gaining the want or
wants, but from the peace that comes with the release from the obsession of
wanting. Peace comes from stopping the
grasping at imagined delights.
As you name the wanting mind and feel
it carefully, notice what happens just after
it ends, and notice what states then follow.
The issue of wanting and desire
is a profound one. You will see how often our desires are misplaced. An obvious example is when we use food to
replace the love we long for. To explain
this, one teacher, who works with eating disorders, wrote a book called Feeding
the Hungry Heart (G Roth).
Through the practice of naming our demons, we can sense how much of our
surface desire arises from some deeper wanting in our being, from an underlying
loneliness or fear or emptiness.
“But This Is The Necessary
Process Of Unmasking The Grasping Mind”
Neil Tubb
Into the Light
No comments:
Post a Comment