When we see ourselves we see all our flaws and all our perfections. We see our scarred past and our uncertain futures. Look again at the wave. When you see it do you think of the long ocean currents and sandy shore bottoms that have affected its shape up to this point? Do you see the uncertain future of how the wave will break when it hits the shore? Do you worry that the wave will break too harsh or too mellow? No we just see the wave.
The quality of mind we are in when we see the wave is different than the mind we use when we see ourselves. Why is that?
When we see the wave we do not bring to mind our social conditioning. We were never taught to look at waves, stars, and trees with a wanting mind. We accept them as they are, we do not worry for their futures nor dwell on their pasts. We view them as they are in this moment.
When we look at ourselves we look with years of social and societal conditioning. We were taught to see people, places, and ourselves with a judging and desiring mind. We see ourselves not in the moment but in a mirage of past and future.
So how do we get rid of this social and societal conditioning? And once again this seeking for an answer proves we do not understand the question. There is no method to see the truth, all you have to do is look.
We need to see that the harder we grasp to ourselves, our desires, our futures, and our pasts the further they slip away. This dilemma is like a chinese finger trap, the harder we try to pull ourselves out of it the further we get sucked in.
We need to see that not only is it undesirable to cling to pleasure and security, it is impossible.
Remember when you were young, and you had to learn division. Given the problem of how to divide something by zero you seem to have been stumped. Counting on your finger how many zeros there were in a one you were exasperated. It was not until you realised that it is impossible to divide by zero that you were at ease with the problem.
We need to see that our quest for safety and pleasure is not just undesirable but it is impossible.
And that our desire to escape the cycle of suffering and anxiety is a form of the quest for security.
We want to be free of desire so that we are secure in not being secure. Just like the finger trap the harder we try to escape the further we are trapped. There is no answer to our question of escape, for it is the question that is invalid.
We need to understand that our basic desires to be or feel anything other than what we are in this moment are completely illogical and impossible to attain. We need to see that we like the wave exists in this moment the way we are and that is enough. We need not fret about our future for we cannot do anything about it except what we can do here and now. We need not dwell on our past since there is nothing there merely a mirage.
We need to see that we are like the waves and the trees purely existing in the moment and that any desire for anything else other than what is here right now is a problem that cannot be solved. If a person has no capacity for living fully right now then not even a guarantee of infinite pleasure and security would make him happy.
We have to exist as we are right now, like the wave, like the tree. We need to look at ourselves and our lives without the dogma of our social and societal conditioning, we need to see that we are what we are right now and there is nothing we can do about it.
When we realize that we cannot escape what we are in the moment that no amount of positive affirmation or negative criticism will change what we are right now.
What happens when you realize that there is nothing you can do about it? When you realize that no amount of squirming and writhing will free you from the trap?
Well then you are free. You are free to watch yourself and your surroundings as they are. You get to look at yourself and your inner world as a tree or wave, as a perfect expression of the whole cosmos at this point in time.
The way to be free of the trap is to simply be.