The Prison Is Made Of Wanting

Over the summer I had the opportunity to do a ten day meditation retreat in New Mexico at the Vallecitos Mountain Ranch with teachers Michelle McDonald and Jesse Vega Frey.

During one of his dharma talks, Jesse said something that resonated with me and has become a bit of a koan over the last few months.  This post is an exploration of Jesse’s message and much of it was drawn from his dharma talks.

“We want freedom.  But the prison is made of wanting.”

We want freedom- freedom from dissatisfaction and suffering.  We want to be happy. We want to have more control over our experiences so that they are more pleasant and less painful. We want to be free from the bonds of our conditioning that cause us to enact the same old behavior patterns, react in the same way to stress.

We want our life to match up with our idea of How Things Should Be.  Except it usually doesn’t.  This is true for everyone, and especially for anyone living with a chronic disease or parenting a special needs child.  I want a cure for Dravet syndrome.  I want my child to be well.  I don’t want my days to consist of endless appointments, IEP meetings, phone calls with the insurance company, seizures, autism meltdowns…

We experience a certain unsettledness with reality – a sense of anxiety about the way things are; we don’t like it and want things to be different.

The prison is made of wanting.

My teacher Howie Cohn calls this “postponed happiness”.  We think we can’t be happy until things are a certain way.  I can’t be happy now. Things are too stressful right now. If I can just get through (fill in the blank) then I can relax.

When will you be happy?  When you get that new thing you want?  When you finish your education or get that perfect job? When you find the perfect life partner?  When you retire?  When the current political situation changes?

We are the eternal Goldilocks – always searching for the porridge that is not too hot or the bed that is not too hard.  We will never find happiness – we will never find freedom- if we wait for things to be perfect.  The prison is made of wanting.

Rumi asks, “Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?”

The first time I visited Vallecitos, back in 2014, Sarah was having a really rough time.  She was having lots of seizures.  We were up most nights of the week, and I was fighting sleep deprivation. We had no answers and no new treatments to try.  The retreat was an amazing experience- my mind became blissfully quiet, everything just slowed down and I developed a deep sense of peace.

Now, four years later, Sarah is on a new experimental drug and is doing much better with only occasional seizures. We’re getting more sleep, we have nursing and respite care, and things are much less stressful. It was amazing to return to such a beautiful setting: I had forests, mountains, a supportive community of teachers and practitioners … and TOTAL CHAOS OF MIND.  For whatever reason, my mind never settled down.  I was never really quiet or peaceful throughout the entire retreat. On one memorable day I experienced near autism level sensory overload.  The lights were too bright, the textures too abrasive, and every sound was like an explosion.  By the end of the day I found myself hiding in my cabin with my sleeping bag pulled over my head.  Instead of blissful, by the end of the retreat I was exhausted.

Ultimately, it’s not about conditions.  Think about what life was like during the time of the plague or during the Buddha’s life.  Imagine you were born as some dirt farmer in the 11th century – no electricity, running water, flush toilets, health care – eking out an existence until you stubbed your toe and died from gangrene.  We live in a time of great comfort compared to most of the history of the human race, but we’re still unsatisfied.

In his dharma talks, Jesse says, “On the one hand we see that there will never be enough.  We will never have enough satisfaction to fulfill us.  And yet, we still yearn for it … We yearn for things to be a certain way.  We lean toward pleasure as a refuge, even though we know that ultimately, it won’t be satisfying.  It won’t last and then we’re left looking for the next pleasant experience. Seeking perfect circumstances does not lead to ultimate freedom for us.”  Jesse also says, “It’s not about how enlightened you are.  It’s about how enlightened you want to be.”  Can you be at peace with the way things are even while working to change them?

We want freedom, but the prison is made of wanting.

Can we completely let go of wanting things to be different? (No!)

The practice is to recognize that desire and aversion are part of the human experience.  There will always be things we want more of and other things we want less of.  It’s human nature.

With mindfulness, we can notice that this is the way things are at this moment – in my body, in my life, in the world – we can apply mindfulness to both immediate experience and extended circumstances.  This is the way things are at this moment.  The experience right now is like this.

Reflect on impermanence in order to understand that all experience, all phenomena, are changing – are impermanent, and therefore we should not base our ultimate happiness on them. We work to develop equanimity- true freedom – in the midst of the chaos, the stress, the imperfect circumstances. Then, we can practice wise action to change the things that lead to greater suffering for ourselves and others.

Metta 

Jesse’s Dharma Talk: It’s Not About How Free We Are…

Howie Cohn Dharma Talk: Unconditional Happiness

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