Question

Sometimes in Buddhism I hear about the dangers about the desire for "becoming". Can you talk about what this means? Is this something to watch for in our practice? If so how do we see it, and what is the best way to work with it?

Answer

A few days ago, I was talking about Dependent Origination and this kind of wheel which can be looked at in two ways; of past life, present life, future life, or past moment, present moment, future moment. OK, within that wheel, it basically says that because of ignorance we're born, because we're born we get the six sense doors, because of the six sense doors we get contact, feeling, craving, and then becoming. OK, and then because of becoming we just get reborn again. We're getting reborn every moment, whenever we have a desire for something else, something in the next moment. You start thinking about the fruit salad, you want to be reborn in that moment when there's fruit salad. You think about doing your laundry at noon-time, you want to be reborn in that moment, and so on. So, you're making the conditions for becoming in your desire to become. That's really where it comes from, a desire to become something in the future.

Now about the practice centering around being in the moment, being content with the moment. If we're absolutely content with this moment, then there's no wish to become anything else. And for probably all of you who have experienced even little moments when you're actually there, there's absolutely no Dukkha, you're just there, you're just doing something. There's no wish for becoming. The minute the wish for becoming comes in, you're not satisfied with the moment. It basically means you don't want this moment, you want another moment. This desire, the wish for becoming, is something that we're working with all the time to try to let go of. I don't think I have to give specific methods for working on it as this person asks. There are lots of methods, especially death reflection in particular.

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