In life we all have myriad of expectations. From the moment when we are born to the moment we die, we live on expectations. We expect to be fed by our mothers, we expect love from those around us, we expect to get our salaries in the bank account at the end of the month, we even expect good weather according to weather reports. Our expectations our like soap suds. Subject to bursting at any given moment without our permission. Because of this we suffer. That suffering is called disappointment. Usually we blame something other than ourselves as the cause of our disappointment. Because we are never attuned to what really goes on in. The real cause of disappointment is what lies within. Our expectations are the cause. So, we always need to look within. Not look outside and look to find blame outside. Looking within we should not blame ourselves either.
Anyway, then comes letting go. The word has become famous now. Almost a fad in my thinking. But sometimes, I wonder whether people really understand what letting go really means. Anyway, whether there is real understanding or not, when one let's go of one's expectations, then there is freedom from suffering that comes from disappointment. Letting go doesn't happen in the outside. It happens in the inside. It's happens between you and the thing. It's a response. For example. Let's say you want to eat chocolate. The real letting go is being able to still like chocolate but not want to eat it. Nowadays what people do as letting go is, dislike what they don't want, so that it's easy to not to want what they actually want. This is wrong kind of letting go. Proper letting go is you still like what you want but you cannot desire it the way you desired it. I remember Ajhan Brahm saying it so aptly (I am not sure how exactly he said it but he said it something to the effect of) you love your enemy not hoping that he would change but so he could continue to be your enemy. Isn't that such a lovely freeing way of living and looking at life.
Anyway, today this hit home for me in meditation. I felt the depth of my expectations and the subtlness we have to develop in letting go. Our (at least my) expectation run deep. They have taken root like oak tree over many many life times and uprooting them it hard. It takes much effort. In order to uproot such deeply rooted expectations (desires) I have to cultivate such a subtle sense of letting go. It is only through that, that there is any hope of realising the Dhamma and the dept of a Buddha's teachings.
So in my meditations I realised how attached I have gotten to my own realisations. As a result I have developed expectations in my own meditation. While I am not suffering from it. I can see my expectation lurking in the depths of my mind. If I am careful and develop letting go at deeper levels I will eventually suffer and my meditation will fall apart. I realised that today. This came about in the most proper time. It was only a few days ago that I got an email from Ayya asking me to give up everything and her only advice is for me to let go of everything. Then only to find that I am hanging on to things in my own mind.
So I am writing my blog so that I remember in future how deep my expectations are. My desires. I celebrate thinking that I am letting go, only to find that I am getting trapped again in my own desires and own expectations. They may not seem obvious to the outside but they are as real as they can be in the inside. They are as strong in the samsaric cycle to keep me trapped for many many lifetimes if I don't see them. The only remedy to let go. But at much subtle levels. So hard to see. And so difficult to do I find. When my own ego rears its head up again and again wanting to assert itself. Wanting to heard again and again. To feel the need to exist.
No comments:
Post a Comment