Afternoon Meditation

"I should be suspicious of what I want" ~Rumi

This is a follow up to last evening's post where I examined Pema Chodron's question "Death is certain, the time of death is uncertain, then the question becomes, what really matters most in your life?".

There is a quite a difference between "what matters" vs. "what I want". I think Rumi addressed the issue succinctly by saying we should be suspicious of what we want. I also think we can take that one step further and state "I should be suspicious of what I want beyond what really matters".

Let's say I win the scratch lotto and I instantly have $1000 dollars. I know that would make me happy, so the flawed logic being if $1000 dollars makes me happy, $100,000 dollars will make me 100 time happier. Unfortunately, that is an illusion. You're either happy or not. It's a lie the consumer based economy wants you to believe. It's what we are taught from the time we are children to adulthood in today's modern society. We are bombarded with advertising and propaganda to reenforce the idea all through our lives. In reality, we are happiest when we do what really matters to us. What really matters is not the same as what we want. Thus the phrase, "you can't buy happiness"might come into play.

Once "what really matters" is taken care of and the wanting begins, so does the needful pain involved in obtaining those wants. This wanting usually leads to unhappiness, or suffering to use a Buddhist term. Not good. There goes the happiness we had doing what really matters, only to be replaced with the unhappiness of needful wanting.

So, should we sacrifice the happiness of doing what really matters for the illusion that our wants will bring us more happiness?

I think you know the answer. Shaking a lifetime of societal programmed ideology based on an illusion is hard, but not impossible. Doing a task that really matters to us often can be very uncomplicated and simple, yet it makes us very happy. Chasing an illusion of "more happiness" quite often brings suffering.

 The trick is making the commitment to practice recognizing what really matters and being suspicious of what we want. That's an interesting one to sort through in our head. Does it really matter, or is it just something I want.

Artwork: Despair ©Alex Grey