Hi James,
I was listening to you talk about desires being painful today and also about the zero- sum idea. For me, my few desires are not painful, nearly all of my desire thoughts are pleasant thoughts. For example, when a desire, say, in the afternoon to go for an evening walk in nature with beautiful New Age music, that desire is a pleasant thought, then the desire goes away quickly, no problem. Also there is no suffering between the time of the desire and the waiting for it to happen hours later. The same is true for other desires like sungazing, shopping at Whole Foods, driving to Petrified Springs Park and other examples.
Something else to say is that the zero-sum idea doesn’t apply to these kinds of upside events. Like, after walking in nature with music enjoying it very much and then when I get home and turn it off there is no suffering at all because of the fact that it’s over, I simply go to bed happily and fall asleep all relaxed. This is what happens most of the time with a few exceptions like a food indulgence, wrong combinations or just too much. Much more often there are upsides with no downside. Because the contentment from the music is over, for example, I don’t experience/feel that to be a downside.
There’s a clear near full moon tonight, bye for now!
Just thought I would share that with you.
Ramji: Now that’s a proper share. No advice because you don’t need it. Keep the faith, baby!!! Â
