A Mind Without Dependencies

Thanissaro Bhikkhu, The Dignity of Restraint, Tricycle Magazine Spring 2004

"As the Buddha said, if you see a greater pleasure that comes from forsaking a lesser pleasure, be willing to forsake that lesser pleasure for the greater one. Sounds like a no-brainer, but if you look at the way most people live, they don’t think in those terms. They want everything that comes their way. They want to have their cake and enlightenment, too; to win at chess without sacrificing a single pawn. Even when they meditate, their purpose in developing mindfulness is to gain an even more intense appreciation of the experience of every moment in life. That’s something you never see in the Buddha’s teachings. His theme is always that you have to let go of this in order to gain that, give this up in order to arrive at that. There’s always a trade-off.

So we’re not practicing for a more intense appreciation of sights, scents, sounds, tastes, smells, tactile sensations. We’re practicing to realize that the mind doesn’t need to depend on those things, and that it’s healthier without such dependencies."