The root of suffering.
What keeps us unhappy and stuck in a limited view of reality is our tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain, to seek security and avoid groundlessness, to seek comfort and avoid discomfort. This is how we keep ourselves enclosed in a cocoon.
Out there are all the planets and all the galaxies and vast space, but we are stuck here in this cocoon. Moment after moment, we are deciding that we would rather stay in that cocoon than step out into that big space.
Life in our cocoon is cosy and secure.
We have gotten it all together. It is safe, it is predictable, it is convenient, and it is trustworthy. If we feel ill at ease, we just fill in those gaps.
Our mind is always seeking zones of safety. We’re in this zone of safety and that’s what we consider life, getting it all together, security. Death is losing that.
We fear losing our illusion of security, that’s what makes us anxious. We fear being confused and not knowing which way to turn. We want to know what’s happening. The mind is always seeking zones of safety, and the zones of safety are continually falling apart.
Then we scrambled to get another zone of safety back together again. We spend all of our energy and waste our lives trying to recreate the zones of safety, which are always falling apart.
That’s the essence of Samsara, the cycle of suffering that comes from continuing to seek happiness in all the wrong places.
27.05.2015
