WISHING FOR MORE

A shiny, turquoise Volkswagen beetle from the 1960s.

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It seems a natural restlessness we have as humans, to be always wishing for more. If we haven’t a car, we wish for a car, but as soon as we get one, start wishing for a better one. We are then always proceeding from a feeling of lack.

Wishing is proceeding from lack

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How simple it is to turn the mind the other way! It is no more than flipping a switch or turning the physical body to face in a different direction.

Instead of looking for a better house, or car, or partner, or whatever, what if you remembered all those, so many, who have less than this, and to whom everything that you have would be riches beyond imagining.

Instead of grumbling about what you have, and slighting it, give thanks for everything you have in this moment; it is all contributing to your being.

When I am inspired to complain mentally or aloud about my dwelling: the bathroom smells, the drain is slow, the floor is always dirty, everything is old-fashioned, let this prompt me instead to give thanks that I can take care of all my body’s needs in dignity and privacy, in the name of all those who cannot, and in whose hands are the barest, or no, means of changing their situation. Then taking my mind back to what I was a moment ago complaining of, let me ask that all beings may be as well provided.

If I lament the lack of people in my life: my children don’t visit, my brother is estranged, my son is in jail, no one returns my e-mails, my boyfriend is dying. To any of this you give thanks for whoever is in your life, not should be, but is. I am thankful for the landlord; sometimes we talk together and it seems real. I am thankful for people at work, for clerks who serve me, for the neighbor.

Give thanks for each person in your life, as you think of them. Take two minutes now to think of some. As you think of each one, you can say, “Thank you for being in my life. I wish you peace and increase.”

As you do this, each one leads to another, and another, until you realize there is not enough time to bless as many as are in your life.

Do this bearing in mind all those who believe they are alone, and hopeless.

Enough is plenty

May all beings be as well-provided

REDIRECT YOUR THOUGHT

Expand me.

What if I have a limited capacity, like a water balloon, and overfilling me might make me burst?

What if I am an earthen pot that can be cracked and broken, made useless for any purpose. I am afraid to say, “Expand me”. Some part of me resists this.

It can only be the ego. That cliché, “some part of me” is a recognizable part of the ego’s armory. “Some part of me” comes into conversations that feature drama and difficulties. Beloved ego territory. When you hear, “some part of me”, listen.

You are hearing the ego making its arguments, roiling you up, leaving you unsure and questioning. Some part? Which part? Then you get sidetracked into thinking of yourself as parts that can cause different things.

You are one thing

The ego knows this, but desperately needs for you not to know. Hence its need for diversions, distractions and drama. Whenever you feel these things, hesitate. Withdraw.

Some part of me resists saying, “Expand me”.

You are looking at the situation from a human perspective. You believe you are a human, but want to be changed. This is followed by intense fears because you really fear change and don’t know what it means.

Instead of wasting time, think about how you might rather use time. What would you use time for? Another way to ask that is to say, what would you pay attention to? Because what you pay attention to is how you are using time.

What would you pay attention to?

Well, of course, peace. Personal peace, world peace, complete peace.

Can you take five minutes now to devote to your ideas about peace? That is all you need to do. Redirect your thought.

The ego has many tricks to keep you afraid.

You have the power to redirect your thought at any time.

There is no reason to feel afraid. It is needless and meaningless suffering.

Stillness and tranquility set things in order in the universe

Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching

WHAT WERE YOU SO WORRIED ABOUT?

The mind likes to dwell on frightening outcomes. That is its default position. It doesn’t matter what the frightening outcomes are. If one becomes obsolete, or, as you think, solved, the mind can choose from among fifty others. There is never any shortage of frightening outcomes.

But what becomes of any of them? What were you so worried about five years ago? Did you cause anything good to happen with your worry? Was all the stress and anxiety worth it? Do you think it was a good strategy? If you could talk to the person you were then, what would you tell her?

Relax and let go. Find activities that induce relaxation: running, yoga, swimming, walking, meditation, reading a book.

Be wholly grateful for any instant of peace.

What were you so worried about ten years ago?

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That they would discover my lack of worth. There was little joy in being that unhappy, insignificant, self-loathing person.

What would you tell that person?

Desire change, wish for change, ask for change, be alive and mad for change. I am willing to be changed. I allow it. I allow change.

How?

By letting that concept occupy your mind for at least seventeen seconds, letting a new neural connection form. Do that now.

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What were you so worried about twenty years ago?

I was completely taken up with status and wanting. I admired fancy houses and cars. I wanted everything to look good, but I didn’t know what good was. I had so little contact with good, and thought of it so infrequently, that I couldn’t recognize it.

But now I can: by giving thanks. There is so much to give thanks for. Start now by giving thanks for two minutes. Set a timer.

This interesting game does good on many levels, many of which you cannot see. But you will feel the good in doing it. You can shorten the time frame of your question. What were you so worried about last month? What troubles did the mind harp on last week? What was the flavor du jour yesterday? What would you tell the person you were then?

You are but a guest in this world

Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching

PROBLEM OR SITUATION?

Do not try to solve your problems; that just gives them life.

To be solving a problem means you first decided a situation was a problem. Would you agree that two people could approach the same situation, in two different ways?

Whoever designates a situation as a problem will be defeated by it. He will always have it. Even when it appears to be solved, it is a sleeping dragon, a dormant volcano, ever capable of coming back to life. Dormant or active, dead or alive, what you name as a problem will rule you.

To name a problem is to give up your free will. Free will and fear cannot co-exist. A problem is something you potentially cannot handle. Here is something I fear. I will spend my time learning how to deal with it and how to tame it. I will look at how others deal with the same problem. I will study it and master it.

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Who will be master?

It will not be you. By naming anything as a problem, you have given yourself up, betrayed your true Self, admitted you do not believe you have access to that perfect creative power that sets to right each tiny gnat’s feeler, and each galaxy in each imaginable universe.

If you had access to that power, allied with the most exquisite intelligence, how could anything be called a problem? By admitting to a problem, you cut yourself off from this perfect Knowing, Seeing, and Loving that brought you into being.

If God is with us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:31

Life is full of situations. How could it be otherwise? The more you pay attention to the vicissitudes, the constant changingness of life, the more you encourage that kind of energy to come. Whatever you pay attention to increases.

What would you increase?

I would increase peace in the world. That is the first order of business. How would I do that? All I have is my mind, my power of choice, but it is enough. I would give my mind to peace, think on it, dwell in it, imagine it. What would it feel like? How would it sound? This I would do for five minutes, because that is five minutes more than I am doing right now.

I will take time away from incubating whatever I have designated as “my problems”, and give that time to increasing what I would increase. When I find myself thinking about what I have called “my problems”, let me remember it was my decision to name a situation as a problem, rather than as an occasion for light to shine. I would now like to become part of that light.

A lighthouse shining out against a dark, starry sky.

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And, as often as you may find yourself giving time to a “problem”, use this occasion to remind yourself, “I choose instead to give this time to peace.” And then do so.

What power in broken habits

PROBLEMS? DENY THEM

What is the difference between problems and situations? A situation is information merely; it is what presents. It can be captured in a simple statement of fact that all parties would agree on. “They are getting a divorce.” “You graduated high school.” “I live alone.”

A situation is information, merely. You could picture your reality as one situation after another, presenting.

When you designate a situation as a problem, you are introducing what was not there before. You bring in the idea that any situation could warrant being taken seriously enough that you could be downcast. You experience emotions: despair, panic, anxiety, all of fear’s other names, which are legion. You are a puppet whose strings are being pulled. You are having a knee jerk reaction.

Are you consciously choosing to have these reactions ? Was it your intention to feel depressed, dispirited, powerless?

A reaction is never conscious. It is involuntary, the fright of your animal self, who is convinced that nothing can exist outside of his five senses. See him. Thank him for being here. Let him go now.

Entertain no fears. Deny them space, send them away if they try to come. Instead, be still. Remember who you are, unlimited and peaceful. And then choose the response you would delight to have.

Deny problems, and you turn yourself into a surface upon which problems cannot stick. Problems are perceptions, unlimited and relentless. To deny problems is to deny them even one receptor cell within you, and it is to rise above them until they quickly crumble away as worthless dust already shaken loose.

If there is a situation to be dealt with, then let me deal with it. Show me how to address it, direct me what to do, and make me open to all the help I need. That is all I want in response to anything that presents. To entertain fear and anguish at the arise of any situation is an absurd overreaction. It is like having a fit of the vapors because a wave is going to break.

Every wave is going to break. Every flower will bloom and die, as you think. It is not necessary, it is folly, to pay much attention to the happenings of this world. Ask instead to be helpful, relax, be open and let everything fall out as it may.

How may I help?

NATURAL: MAY I BE MORE

You tell yourselves that natural is good: free of additives, free of artifice, free of tampering, as nature intended.

Kiwifruit slices and blueberries in mid air against a gold ground

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It is only natural

You use this comforting, exonerating statement when you have done something foolish, in haste, or less than forgiving. It is only natural to favor one’s biological children over others, to strike back, to exact revenge, to punish those who deserve it, to mistreat people who are acting like doormats, to look after your own needs first, and to want more than you have.

Everybody does it

If it is acceptable to be only natural, and no one expects more from us than fulfilling our needs, then what are we? Are we self-determining creatures? Is there any choice at all in a situation devoid of moral dilemmas, where nothing more is expected of us?

If we are to be no more than natural, why bother even to exist? If anybody at all could play my part, why should I? If there are no choices to be made, why am I here? Without choice, all beings are interchangeable machines, perfectly adapted to the environment, and perfectly without power to change any of it.

A humanoid robot, skin covering its neck and thoughtful face, but with the top of its head and below its shoulders without skin, so as to expose the machinery beneath.

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The last thing we should wish to be is natural. Let us rather transcend our natures. Let us stop thinking we have to look out for ourselves. Let us stop favoring our own group or kind. It is only natural, but it is small. It admits that there are differences between people, that we are not all one.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

Let us stop returning evil for evil. It keeps us in place forever. There is no way out, if we are satisfied to be no more than natural.

Let us stop being relentlessly focused on ourselves. Let us begin by seeing how focused we are on ourselves, and in that seeing, help us to drop it.

Let us stop tending our egos, let us stop focusing on what we may think of as our personalities and our problems. Let us realize they have no more power over us than we are giving to them.

May I be more than natural

Let me be more

Let Me Maximize You

Transformational change: the least you need to know