Breaking The Addiction
I still don’t exactly understand what the Wisdom of Insecurity might be, but I could always check out the book of the same title, by Alan Watts
I am naturally possessed by a deeply held insecurity: that I cannot explain the difficulties of life for myself and others. I don’t know how to avoid suffering and confusion, addiction or aversion—I can’t explain it or point to a solution outside of myself.
Therefore, I am afraid. I am afraid that I will not be able to solve all of the problems life confronts me with.
This fear leads me to feel that I should be able to find the right answers all the time. When I don’t, I feel defeated and helpless. Either I summon up more motivation, more energy for my next effortful attempt; or, I retreat and collapse into a position of defeat, no longer willing to exert myself again.
These strategies are carried out as delusional attempts for either more control or surrender of any responsibility whatsoever.
The reality is that there is a middle path, a way of living in which I interface directly with the nature of Truth, and Love, and God. This is a willingness to participate as “a part of”; not “apart from” or “in command of”.
Reading from Refuge Recovery, chapter 14
P 94
“The untrained mind is not trustworthy; it is filled with greed, hatred, and delusion. Only the mind trained in mindfulness, friendliness, and investigation can directly experience the freedom from suffering that will satisfy the natural longing for security. This is the wisdom of insecurity.”
- I cannot trust my untrained mind
- My mind defaults to greed, hatred, and delusion
- My mind can benefit from training in mindfulness, friendliness, and investigation
- Once trained, my mind can directly experience freedom from suffering
- This experience of freedom from suffering will satisfy my natural longing for security
- What is the wisdom of insecurity? That I can use the thoughts and feelings of insecurity generated by my own mind as a pathway to freedom from conditioned processes which usually result in an experience of suffering.
“With mindful investigation, we can see for ourselves what our patterns and habitual reactions are—and from that place of true knowledge, we can then begin to choose our responses, actions, and partners more wisely.”
- I can observe what my patterns and habitual patterns are, using mindful investigation
- This can bring me to a place of true knowledge
- From this place, I can make choices more wisely: how I respond, how I act, whom I choose as a partner
“Life doesn’t have to be so unsatisfactory. This is the good news; there is a cause to our confusion and suffering—it is our relationship to craving—and that cause can be altered to bring about a different effect.”
“No, the problem lies in our addiction to satisfying the craving. We all experience craving. When we have a pleasant experience, we crave more of it—we wish for it to increase or at least to last. When we have an unpleasant experience, we crave for it to go away. We feel the need to escape from pain, to destroy it and to replace it with pleasure.”
Pain for pleasure, Sum 41 cheesy cover band song
“This is especially true for the addict, who has set in motion a long-term habitual reaction of avoiding pain and creating pleasure with substances or behaviors he or she became addicted to.”
P 95
“That’s why we say that our relationship to craving is the problem, not the substances or behaviors themselves.”
