To Crave Or Not To Crave

Monday, January 11, 2010

The second noble truth of Buddhism states that suffering has its roots stuck in the universal human malady which is our proneness to craving. A craving is an intense desire for a particular thing, an idea, a grand concept or a person, or an animal if you like. The harder I try to grasp the deeper meaning of this statement by pretending to meditate, the more I feel like a mystique wannabe with half a rotten brain. It’s of no use.

So, we are at the pinnacle of this brand new year. A 2010 at its fresh new bud. And as always, the new year always calls for this global fetish of mass resolution-making. It doesn’t even matter if you care about it or not, but it’s all around you. You indulge in it without thinking. Okay, maybe just for some of us.

Before you even think about it, your ears would hear the sound of the words rolled off of your tongue “Yeah mate, I’ve got meself a list of awesome to-do resolutions for this new year, ey what about you?” The other party then mutters some gibberish of his own resolutions and life goes on.

It is a freaking resolution-making time of the year! So, why not? My primary goal is to arrange a meet-up with Obama and have a grand picnic with Mr.President preferably at the front lawn of his pure White House, just to discuss the weather. No that’s not a resolution you moron, that’s a dream.

The thing about making resolutions is that people tend to confuse them with their own personal pipe dreams! These resolutions are often tagged along in the vein of what you want for yourself but are just that. A noise to feel up the silence. A wanting.

If you’re a kid you might want a kite. Yeah a flying kite. If you’re a young lonely single adult, you might set a goal to search for potential lovers so that you might actually have a real love life outside your Facebook world where you are the charming Casanova or the wild seductress. For those who are in the ripe golden age, you might want to realize that dream for a new young life partner. Forget about your old partner in crime. She’s just a little too into spinning threads to make your favorite blue sweater, day and night, to notice the old wrinkly you. Well you get the idea.

According to the Buddha, the cause of suffering is THIS. This craving for something external. It is the desire to satisfy the yearning that grows inside of us; a craving for an existence, or a lack of existence, that keeps repeating itself.

If you say, nah you don’t want anything, but just to maybe kill yourself? Don’t fool yourself, or try to outsmart the Buddha, as that, my friend is still considered as a craving, albeit how twisted it is. Even if you are slowly trudging down the road to suffering, you should give yourself a pat in the back right now, for reading this post!

Now, all you need to do is throw your bucket-list of resolutions down the trash. You don’t need them! WHY, you might ask? Well, if it is to end the endless suffering, you scatterbrain!

We humans get frustrated outrageously easily. Say you order a pizza specifically with a particular demand on an extra load of the cheese, but end up munching on a piece that has too little, some poor soul would be mentally tortured the next day listening to your sob story on replay about the whole tragic affair. I’m not saying that this is true for everybody, however. That’s just preposterous. I am just merely making a point that people are prone to suffering even without seemingly making a grand act of resolution-making that is synonymous with hey-what-do-I-crave-for-this-year?

For me, I am just a fool who is too afraid to think of a single material thing that I want, for fear that I might jinx my chance of ever getting it in the first place. Talk about being insane, yeah that’s me.

For the most part, I am just grateful for the things that I already have and want to keep having! Now say hello to attachments. Yes, the invisible icky glue that makes you hold on to things, ideas, people and furry animals a little tighter than you ought to.

It isn’t wrong to love the people or ideas but we tend to become fixated with the whole thing and start creating too many nonsensical expectations. I am sure, I speak for the rest of the un-enlightened people out there (If I'm not, just hate me) So, here lies a deep sense of suffering in the heart, a disease that plagues the soul and traps the spirit in a dark contained gloom.

With material things, I realize that I can’t be wishing for things to materialize unless I have a load of ka-ching. So, the main theme of the resolution for this year would be to get more bucks flowing in my lonely bank account. Donations are readily accepted, and I also welcome people to pay my bills. Thanks to the all-wise Mr.Stupid's idea!

Ok so I lied about wanting nothing. I want tons of things! I want money, and a whole load of it. I want a great piece of property near the beach so I can watch for tsunamis (and also a jet to rescue me off a safe distance). I want to have that seriously sleek sporty metallic black Maserati GranTurismo and more money that grows on trees. I want I want I want!

See, we’ll never rid ourselves off these things at all. I don’t know why I care to bother.