Another take on addiction
Zen Master Yasutani, in his “Eight Beliefs in Buddhism”, said that a person commits suicide because he cannot live in the way in which he would like. At first glance, this seems a little cold-blooded; such a selfish explanation for a devastating act which can hurt so many people.
But when we think about it, we realize that it is true.
When someone is in such suffering, despair, pain or anger that they decide not to continue living, they are not accepting their life just as it is is at this moment.
They want something other than what they ended up with. They also are not accepting the possibility of change, either in their circumstances or in their own responses.
I think Yasutani could have extended his observations to addiction.
Notwithstanding physiological and biochemical changes which can eventually occur in the body, each addiction begins with one wilful act.
It is usually an act which we choose because it takes us away from life as it is just right now.
If we feel empty and unsatisfied we may try to fill the hole with shopping or gambling or eating. If we experience ourselves as not smart enough, funny enough, interesting enough - or just plain not enough - we may try to change the way we are through drugs or alcohol.
A central Buddhist teaching is that we cause much of our suffering because we try to form permanent attachments to things which are, by their nature, impermanent.
If we are lonely or in despair we attach to this feeling as if it will always be the nature of our lives. What we could do, instead, is to look at the situation, accept it for the way it is just now and take action to change things.
At the minimum, if we can’t see a way out from our unhappiness, we can look for other possibilities to change our own response.
The 12 step Serenity prayer illustrates this duality of controllability and non-controllability beautifully:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the Courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
It’s the last part that’s a little tricky for some.
An addicted mind can have difficulty in determining what’s within it’s control and what is not.
In fact, the only thing that any one of us can control is our behavior. We cannot control our thoughts, our moods, our feelings or the thoughts, moods and feelings of others.
We can, however, control what we say and what we do.
This is where our power lies.
