When we're at our casino - when we're really waiting to win or wanting to win
and not quite there yet - and it might be because we're seeking the
approval, or we're trying to
in some way get something we don't have - a job or whatever - we're not present.
It's kind of like we're leaning forward wanting the next moment
to contain what this moment does not.
And this is the heart of the suffering that comes with hungry ghosts, with wanting mind
with addiction, with attachment:
that we can't be present - we're on our way somewhere else.
And how many moments of our life is there some sense we're on our way to something
rather than: 'This moment counts.'
It's like in this, right now, listening to this talk; we on our way to the
the hub of the talk or to the end of the talk or
to what we're doing later tonight or to the weekend, or...
It's such a deeply grooved habit to have some discontent and feel something's missing
and that we need something more that we can skim over the surface and
not really arrive and take in the sunset, or feel the wind on our cheek
or see the gleam in a child's eyes or hear the child's laugh...
You know, we're not able to connect, be right here, which is ultimately what desire is wanting
it's like we're away from our star; can we come back?
So we can't be happy and
the deep teaching here is that the real way we meet desire,
the real way we find happiness, it arises from presence.
The only place you can really be happy is when there's an openness
and a wakefulness and a tenderness, right here.
So the pursuit of the Hungry Ghost actually blocks presence;
it blocks us from feeling the light of our own spirit, the light of that star.
The word 'desire' - 'away from our star' - the satisfaction of desire,
is recognizing that our star, the light and love we seek, is here; it's in this moment.
And as long as we fixate outside ourself, we can't experience that.
At an MIT conference there was a room full of scientists and addiction researchers,
and this is Bill Moyers who writes this, he's there and he's been asked to speak,
and he says: 'I have an illness with origins in the brain, but I also suffer
the other component of this illness' - this is alcoholism -
he told the gathered researchers and scientists: 'I was born with what I like to call a hole in my soul,
a pain that came from the reality that I just wasn't good enough,
that I wasn't deserving enough; that if you weren't paying attention to me all the time,
that maybe you didn't like me enough.'
The conference room was as quiet as it had been all day.
'For us addicts, he continued, recovery is more than just taking a pill or maybe getting a shot;
recovery is also about the spirit; about dealing with that hole in the soul.'
So this is key: that the healing from attachment or addiction
is really discovering how to find the spirit
that's always been here but feels like it's been draining out or empty;
how to discover that star that's inside us, the light in our own heart.
Because when we do, when there's a sense that it's right here,
there's still a natural play of desires, and we can enjoy when those
particular focused desires are met and we can
not enjoy it when they're not but there's a basic sense of contentment;
there's not craving.
[bells]