The Permanency Trap
Losing your identity on the way to enlightenment.
“Ah Ha! I’ve finally got it, I’ve finally arrived” said the ego, “I’ve finally found that perfect philosophy, the right answer and the meaning to life.” This is the permanence trap. As soon as you think you’ve got it, you’ve gone astray, you’ve missed the point of impermanence and you are grasping at something conceptually secure to hold onto in this ever changing world.
The ego grasping onto permanence is so often an intellectual grasping, you think you’ve got it, the answer to your problems, the final conclusion. This is a trap. This dulls the sensitivity to the present moment, it breeds arrogance and ultimately brings huge disappointment. As Zen Master Suzuki says “…the minds readiness for anything is wisdom.” He goes on to warn “that in an expert’s mind there are few possibilities but in a beginners mind there are many.”
It is also very wise to always remember the first line of the Tao Te Ching when you think you’ve finally got the right answer: The truth that can be named is not the real truth.
Waiting for the spiritual enlightenment bubble to burst.
Thoughts and concepts are actually kind of permanent – they do not change like material things do. They may be replaced quite readily, but once you’ve decided on an opinion or a conclusion, that thought remains permanent and herein lies the problem. Reality is constantly changing, there is no blanket belief that will cover all events and situations. Alan Watts says it best:
There is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity. But the contradiction lies a little deeper than the mere conflict between the desire for security and the fact of change. If I want to be secure, that is, protected from the flux of life, I am wanting to be separate from life. Yet it is this very sense of separateness which makes me feel insecure. To be secure means to isolate and fortify the “I,” but it is just the feeling of being an isolated “I” which makes me feel lonely and afraid.
Tags: Observe Your Mind
