Since birth, we have accumulated all kinds of worldly experiences we have so far come across. There is never a moment that we stop the instinctual habit of sensing and perceiving the world. The very act of stopping would render our life utterly meaningless (so we thought).
Our contemporary society has taught us to be well equipped with different kinds of knowledge and experience to excel in this competitive environment. By being the opposite, one is destined to be looked down on or even laughed at.
It never occurs to us that our many mental disturbances are mainly caused by the so-called accumulations. Credits to the act of accumulation, our sense of selves has become more and more complex to the point that many opposing contents inside our consciousness are constantly fighting each other for the sake of being the dominating building blocks that will soon take charge in defining our very own sense of existence.
The reason why we always never feel at ease with ourselves is due to our incessant need to harmonize the two opposing forces; what we really are and what we think we should be. As mentioned earlier, the very act of accumulation dictates who and what we are. To put it plainly, our current sense of self is nothing more than beautiful stories and self-deceiving narratives that we feel reluctant to get rid of.
We may think the ultimate goal of life is to accept who we really are and eliminating the ideals of how we should be is just the right way forward. However, I humbly do not think so. No matter how hard we try, the notion of “what we are” is inevitably plagued by many hidden motives and filtered intentions that we are too unconscious to be aware of; that being said, the moment when we think of being what we truly are is still no doubt within the same old context and has no significant difference when compared to “what we think we should be.”
The only remedy to our mental disturbances is to stop accumulating experiences and not have them permanently kept inside our consciousness. As long as there is something inside our consciousness, there will for sure be conflicts that will inevitably fight for dominance. We will understand this when we eventually acknowledge the uselessness of replacing old things with new things, old ideals with new ideals, and old identities with new identities. It may temporarily help us stitch our wounds, but there will still be blood as long as they are not healed.
Maybe the only way to be happy is to have nothing to retrieve from our memories, whether bad or good ones. Conflicts happen when we discard the pains and attempt to keep the ones that give us the utmost pleasure.
If we have nothing to discard or keep, what will we be? Pure awareness? And what power have mental disturbances in the vast sea of unmoved awareness?
Thank you for reading!