On being non-suffering

Let’s not complicate a simple Life!

The key to Happiness is dropping all your wants

Drop all the wanting in you and be soaked in gratitude

It is not necessary that you must win every argument

Flow with Life than resisting it

Live Life unconditionally

Today’s Podcast says that there are no methods or mantras to live Life. To avoid suffering we must simply stop wanting our Life to be any different from what it is.

Listen time: 7:14 minutes

An old man sleeping on a busy street serves up a Life lesson

Develop the ability to stand in the throes of everyday Life situations and be peaceful.  

Yesterday, on a busy street, I found a man sleeping peacefully on the pavement. It was rush hour. Traffic came from all directions. People honked mercilessly. The din was unbearable even within the air-conditioned Uber I was riding. As the traffic choked for a while, I kept looking at the man on the streetside, on my left. He didn’t appear drunk. He must have been in his 60s. He had a thick woolen blanket covering him. The temperature must have been 35 degrees Centigrade around then. Rather unusual, I thought, for someone to cover himself with a woolen blanket. May be he was sick. A half-full, one-litre Aquafina bottle stood beside him. Two-wheeler riders came perilously close to falling over him as they balanced themselves against the narrow pavement on which he lay. But the man went on sleeping. There was a certain peace about him. An equanimity that was unmissable. I didn’t want to intrude on his privacy so I did not take a picture of him.

The irony was not lost on me. Here was a man, perhaps surely homeless, whatever may be his physical condition, who was at peace with himself and his Life. And here are so many, many people searching for inner peace all around them. Isn’t it strange, I thought!

The very fact that we search for “inner” peace outside of us should tell us that we have got it all wrong. Which is why we find our peace so elusive! Second, anything that we seek that is impermanent – all our material wants – cannot get us to anchor in peace. You may want a car today. But once the car arrives, you will lose your peace trying to protect it from getting dented on our unruly Indian roads. Then when it is dented you will grieve over your insurance claim not being enough to fix it. Over time, you will want a bigger car. And so the quest for satiating yourself with material things is an endless one. When you tell yourself that you will be peaceful, happy, when you have this or that, you are actually kidding yourself. Unless you drop all your wanting and just be, you cannot be peaceful, you cannot be happy.

This is an irrefutable, unalterable truth about Life. The faster you internalize this truth, the sooner you will anchor in peace and the happier you will be. The man sleeping on the street is but a metaphor for all of us. He invites us to pause and reflect. He reminds us that anyone can be calm in their bedroom or in the protected confines of their homes. But can you stand in the midst of your battle-ridden, stress-laden Life and be peaceful? If you can be that, in whatever context Life has placed you in, then, and then alone, would you have found the greatest secret there ever is to Life!  Which is this: the ability to sleep peacefully, regardless of circumstance, is the greatest wealth, the greatest blessing!  

Eliminate the wanting to be in peace and to be free!

To have wants is not what hurts us. To keep wanting does.

Desire by itself is normal. You see a beautiful woman and you say, “Wow!” That is a normal reaction. If you said, “Gee, what nonsense?” that would be abnormal. You see the waiter at a restaurant taking away your plate, without asking you, while there’s still some food you are finishing over a conversation. Quite obviously, you will want that plate to stay. If you said, ‘By all means, thank you!’, while you were still intent on eating, well, that will be abnormal. So, as long as we live, wants will arise. Who doesn’t want more money? Or a more fulfilling relationship with a companion? Or children to behave well? Or bosses to be more empowering? Or who doesn’t want more comfort in Life __ a bigger apartment, a bigger car, business class travel?

Wants are not lethal. Fueling your imagination basis the want is what is dangerous. You keep thinking about that woman, night and day, and your Life will become miserable. You keep expecting your boss to become more nurturing and dignified, when he clearly is a tyrant, is making your own work Life a drudgery. You continuing to think of a bigger car, pining and lusting for it, when you can’t afford one, is sure to depress you. Don’t, therefore, try to eliminate desire. Eliminate the thinking that continues to dwell on that desire. Eliminate the wanting. Move on.

This does not mean you should not be ambitious. There’s nothing wrong in wanting a more successful, profitable, happy future. But when you have an ambition like that, a vision, a goal, go to work on it. Ambition always is a call for action. Merely wanting, with no follow through action, is a surefire way of inviting suffering in Life. Know also that desires are also contagious. One will lead to another. The big car in your driveway, the woman in your bed, the properties in your name, the money in your account, the desire for more and more will create more and more wanting. Endlessly. And that means more suffering.

Legendary playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856~1950) says in his 1905-released four-act drama, ‘Man and Superman’, “There are two tragedies in Life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.” The long third act of the play is Don Juan in Hell and consists of a philosophical debate between the play’s lead character Don Juan and the Devil. Shaw’s play’s third act covers much ground on the debate between desiring and not getting what you want. But the key learning here for us is that we have a choice of journeying through Life, hopping from one want to another or moving from one joy to another. To kill the wanting process, all you need to do is to simply interrupt the thinking that follows a want. Interrupt it with either action to go after what you want or with action to stop the wanting. In either case, replace the wanting with a simple ‘Do I need it now or can I do without it?’ question, and believe me, all will always be well! You will always end up being happy, in joy, with what you have, than live suffering, wanting! Try this test on the next desire that pops up in your head. It works! 

“wotsubusu” craving, feel liberated!

No object of desire is the cause of any agony in itself. It is your craving for that object that makes you suffer.

Take for instance, a hot summer day. And you are thirsty. You see nice juicy watermelons on the street and want to stop your car. But you find the parking slots by the stall crowded and you see a policeman standing under a tree nearby. You believe the cop will object to your parking your car outside of the earmarked space. You are miffed and drive away cursing the crowds and the cop, ruing the missed opportunity to take some of those melons home. Even when you narrate this experience to your wife when you get home, you are complaining and are not merely reporting. There’s a sense of loss and evidence of frustration in your reportage. Now, did the humble melon on the street cause your agony or did your craving for it__and your eventual inability to buy it__cause it?

Think about it. All of us are victims of this cravings-brings-suffering trap. What we crave for is not the cause, it is the act of craving that causes misery. We crave for attention, adulation, understanding, respect, fame, rewards, recognition, wealth, opportunity, love and followership. And when we don’t get it, we are disappointed. Now, if you are disappointed and if your disappointment doesn’t affect your Life, it is fine. But when you are disappointed, you are mourning. Your energies are low. You start operating in a low energy__scarcity__spectrum. This naturally affects the way you live and experience Life. On the other hand, consider the situation when there is no craving, and so there’s no disappointment, so there’s no suffering. In such a scenario, you are operating in a high-energy__abundance__spectrum. Remember: Wherever your attention goes, your energy flows. In Buddhist teachings, they advocate the complete cessation of craving. Which means to eliminate all craving. In Japanese, the word wotsubusu means to annihilate. When you wotsubusucraving, you feel liberated. Such freedom opens up a whole new opportunity spectrum of playing to your strengths – to what you have. Than to worry about, lament over, what you don’t have.

Simplify Life: Give up the craving. And you will immediately stop suffering!