Whooh, that's a big question. Certainly the letting go of craving for the future helps to lessen the cycle of wishing to become. Because when we look at future thoughts and want to be in the future, craving for things in the future, what exactly are we craving? We're usually craving the sight, the sound, the taste, the smell, the pleasant feeling in the body. So we're actually craving this body and this mind in the future to arise. In Buddhism this is called the wishing to become, which fuels the cycle of rebirth, because we're craving for the body and the mind in the future to arise.
Now there's a difference between thinking about the future in a wise way, and thinking about the future in an unwise way. Because, actually, thinking about the future in a wise way and understanding that the one certainty in life is going to happen, that we're going to die, is actually a useful way of thinking to stop the cycle of dependent arising. It helps us to try to develop ourselves in this present moment. So it depends on what type of thoughts you are thinking about in the future.
If you are thinking sense desire and craving thoughts then this fuels the cycle of dependent arising, fuels the cycle of the wishing to become and birth and death. It can help to understand that because we are wishing for the future and wishing for the body, we are also wishing for aging, disease, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. This is the second Noble Truth. Dukkha arises because of craving. Because of craving and ignorance, we seek to become, not understanding that as the results of birth, we also get aging, disease and death.
What else is needed? A great deal more is needed than just stopping your thinking of future thoughts, because it is ignorance that is the root cause of craving. So we have to work at lessening our ignorance, and there are many different types of techniques that help to lessen ignorance. This is learning how to use Yonisomanasikara, Wise Reflection, to seek out our wrong views, and gradually learn how to transform them into Right View. Which then will lessen our ignorance, which is the cause of the arising of craving, which is the cause for the arising of birth.
That was a very brief explanation on dependent origination, which, according to the scriptures, the Buddha contemplated the night of his enlightenment, penetrated into the ultimate truth and became fully enlightened. However, I have been to one teacher who said to me, when he found out that we were contemplating dependent origination, "Oh, that type of practice is for a non-returner, you'd better start out on a lower level!" So he encouraged us to do easier, contemplations, until we became stream-enterers. He said that if we became stream enterers, then we'll have sufficient confidence and capacity of mind to then contemplate deeper subjects such as this. However, even on our level, understanding a little about the dependent arising nature of Dukkha is very helpful. Then we can work on the other levels he encouraged us to work on, such as understanding the impermanence of this body, the dependent arising nature of this body, death, how nothing is really ours. These are the types of subjects which we will be trying to give some of you in this retreat.