Simply This Moment - Buddhist Meditation and Theravada ...

what he wished did even better than wanting a billion dollars, he said, “I wish I hadthree wishes, so that I could wish for an ice cream factory with my first wish, a billiondollars with my second wish, and with my third wish I could wish for another threewishes.” They thought, ‘wow! You can’t do better than that.’ Can you think of awish that is even better than that – to have three wishes and the third wish is that youcan wish for another three wishes? But the last child did surpass that, he was theBuddha to be, and said, “I wish I had no wishes.”Isn’t that interesting? Because when you have no more wishes it means that you arecompletely content. You’re free from all desires. You’re free from all that wanting.You’re free from all feeling of lack, the feeling that somewhere in your life,somewhere in your body, somewhere in your mind, something is missing. Imaginewhat it would be like if you had no more wishes, completely happy with whatevercomes along, completely happy with this present moment. You don’t wish for it to beanything else. You look at your husband and he’s absolutely perfect. You don’t wishhim to change at all. You look at your wife and she’s so beautiful. You don’t wishher to be anything different, neither better nor worse. No more wishing is goingagainst the grain of modern society isn’t it? We want to have the freedom to havemore wishes. We want the freedom to have more choices and more money to expressour choices. We want more freedom to express our individuality.Buddhism says the cleverest child is the child who wishes for no more wishes. So,the freedoms that people celebrate and enshrine in such documents as the Declarationof Human Rights, are basically the freedom to follow desire. I remember reading inone of the great philosophical cartoon strips, ‘Calvin and Hobbs’, about an Americanboy who had just learned from his teacher that ignorance is bliss. He knew it wasguaranteed by the American constitution that you had the right to the pursuit ofhappiness. So he added the two together and said, “If I’m guaranteed my right topursue happiness and ignorance is bliss, why am I going to school?” It’s strange, isn’tit, what we talk about as freedoms in the world.Freedom of Expression117