Unexpected Freedom

Contemplating Happinessthey would add quality to her life! We often believe that weneed such things when we’re fooled by the way desire appears.Desire has that apparent nature to it. There is nothing wrongwith this appearance as long as we recognise it.When desire arises there can appear to be some need. Inrelationships, for example, the feeling can arise that there issomething we really need to tell the other person. It is notuncommon for someone to come to see me to say, ‘I reallyneed to tell you something.’ They get it off their chest and feelbetter afterwards. I try to encourage people to slow down; Iask them if they could try substituting ‘I really want to tell yousomething.’ Then we can come to an agreement that if theywant to tell me something and I’m ready to hear it, we canenter into a discussion. We have these ideas of what we needin all areas of our life. There is an encouragement in ourpractice to investigate the relationship we have with what wefeel are our needs.So what this teaching points out is that, often enough,when we have less we actually have more. This is not to judgeapparent needs or desires when they arise, but to generate aninterest in looking deeper at how we are as we are. Forexample, over the last ten years, on two or three occasions, thefeeling has arisen in me, ‘I need to get out of here!’ Thankfully,I have had whatever it takes to not follow such impulses. Infact I’m very grateful that I didn’t follow them because behindthe apparent need there is generally something else. Wecultivate in ourselves an interest in what is taking place whenwe have strongly felt needs arising, in order to see beyond theway things appear. This is because there is something to beseen beyond the way things appear to be: reality or Dhamma.The way things appear to be is ‘the world’. The way thingsactually are is Dhamma. To see beyond the way things appearto be is a source of great happiness and pleasure.187