Dependence makes the mind prone to deception, because the mind is blinded by its desire to depend. Dependence in relationship is the soil for manipulation, control, and abuse. Those who are aware that others depend on them psychologically can then use this dependence as leverage. When they do use dependence as leverage, abuse in ways of sex, money, emotion, and so on happens. Those who seek dependence in relationship are usually the victims of abuse. This causes pain, and the reaction to this pain is to reinforce dependence, because the mind thinks it is the severance of dependence which causes pain. On the contrary, the severance of dependence is the freedom from pain. The unwillingness to let go is the cause of pain.
The mind divides pleasure from pain. From one's own life, one can observe the changes in one's pleasure and pain. What used to be painful can now be pleasurable, and vice versa. Pleasure and pain are both sensations. Sensations are named, sorted, categorized, and one such scheme of categorization is pleasure and pain. When one is caught in this division, struggle is inevitable. Conflict is the way of pleasure and pain. Conflict is not only in the personal domain, but also in the social. One can also observe in the world, that the pursuit of pleasure is the cause of pain, not only in oneself, but also in others. This is the wheel of desire. This is the death and rebirth of sensations. In reality, there is no death, nor is there rebirth.
Addiction is attachment. Addiction is the repetitive seeking out of a certain sensation. This sensation can be sexual, intellectual, emotional, and so on. Thought is sensation, although we don't tend to think of it as such. There is the sensation of hearing, touching, seeing, tasting, smelling, and thinking. All that which the mind is aware of is sensation. Addiction is the search for something the mind has experienced before, repetitively. Addiction comes from a sense of emptiness. To escape this emptiness, one fills one's psyche with different sensations. Yet, any sensation is passing, transient, so satisfaction is never accomplished. That is why addiction is a vicious cycle. Addiction is self-fulfilling. Addiction believes that satisfaction through sensation is the only way to joy. It is unaware of the fact that it enforces itself. It is ignorant to the fact that no sensation can be fulfilling. This also means, the emptiness is not there actually, but created by craving, by addiction itself.
Identification with anything is the beginning of confusion. Identity is based on the opposites. To be a man, there must be the woman. To be of one country, there must be another country. To be human, there must be the non-human. All these identities can only exist in this field of the opposites. There can be many degrees, levels, gradients, but they are all fundamentally the same as the opposites. One must exist for the other to exist as well.
Are we followers? Do we believe in the knower, the expert, the gurus, the teachers? Do we have the capacity to inquire into a matter independently, without any help or guidance? Or are we always looking for guidance? Is it because we are lost, and unable to dissolve our own confusion, that we rely on the authority?
The word, perfection, has become a toxic word. It is loaded with so much expectation that any free understanding of this word becomes very difficult. To have freedom means, does it not, to be able to observe without fear or pleasure. There are no strings attached, not the driving quality of attraction or aversion, so that one is able to look at something with simple eyes, without the habitual motive or calculation.
I don't know if we ever feel anxious. That feeling of uncertainty, of not knowing, as if floating in mid air. There is nothing to grasp on, and everything, life, marriage, career, future, and all that is implied in what we call living, seems to exist on tenuous structures, a tower made of paper, and capable of falling apart any minute. I think this is our life everyday. This creeping anxiety, although we suppress it, or distract ourselves from it with music or shows or incense, this anxiety is always waiting to explode. And when it does, it might become depression, uncontrollable anger or loneliness, and all forms of neurotic breakdowns. If we could, from the very root, dissolve this sense uncertainty, then we could perhaps live with a background of absolute security. After all, security is what most of us seek. A sense of being safe, protected, certain. So, it is quite important to ask, what is the cause of our anxiety and uncertainty? How is one to live on a ground utterly immovable, like walking on earth, and therefore anxiety has no root to flower?
In our current society, the talk of creation is endless. There is the creative work of the artist, the poet. There is innovation in the technological world, inventing more and more gadgets, weapons. There is also a creative living, in which one encounters the new, the fresh and surprising aspects of life. So one may go on endless adventures, toy with endless gadgets and entertainments, mountain beyond mountain, skill after skill, in pursuit of something new.
What do we mean by the new? Can the new be brought about? Is there a path, a practice, a routine which might give birth to the new? Because a sense of freshness is quite necessary in life. Psychologically, we are aware of the daily boredom and routine, of countless repetitions and walking the same paths over and over. This is how we work, how we train, how we study, how we do most things in life. So we are caught in this boredom. Therefore, creation is a quite important topic, but do we know what is the creative, what is the new? If we are caught in illusions, then we might be deceiving ourselves, caught in miseries, a prison of our own making without even being aware of our imprisonment.
It was a sunny day. One rode a bicycle along an empty street. At the crossroad, one stopped to look at the sky, and the distant sounds of pigeons can be heard, as they circled in the sky in grand formation. The pattern of their flight was so harmonious, effortlessly expanding and contracting, yet maintaining an overall shape of togetherness. The scientists had tried to explain this flight pattern. Yet, without the scientific musings, or daily worries of work and life, this flight became something extraordinary. It was beauty beyond the words. It needed no description, and without the mind intruding, it was beauty. Then the birds, with great synchronization, settled on the side of a building top, and the distance between each bird was so exactly the same. That harmony, that space, was untouched by man.
Do we know what love means? Have we questioned our assumptions of love? Have we observed what we do in daily life, and see if there is love in action? After all, life is action. It is a series of action, of doing, and if love is to be expressed in any way, it can only be through our action. We talk, argue, struggle, have sex, work, and so on. We dream about the tomorrow. We live according to the tomorrow. Of what I will accomplish; what I will gain; where I will finally arrive. It could be a dream job, a rare opportunity, an accomplishment in some religion, a person I love, or some material possessions I wish to have. In all our myriad patterns of action, is there love? And what is love anyways?