What do you really want?

If you exist in this world then you would want something. But by wanting you would start to suffer until you get which you want. You may get temporary satisfaction when you get it but you would ultimately have to let go of the things that you wanted. This would cause more suffering as you would miss the things you wanted.

Since Buddha’s suggestion, that “craving”, wanting a lot is ‘the’ cause of suffering is the wisdom we conveniently forget about in our daily life. It seems that without wanting nothing would happen in this world. But have you ever thought why do we “want” things?

As far I know, we want because we see ‘ourselves’. This person which is “I”, has to do something. Doing something is being. Therefore one ‘wants’ just to ‘be’. Therefore, sacrificing their ‘peace’ which comes when one sees beyond themselves. Which also means peace comes when one is not preoccupied with wanting anything.

Could there be a state of mind when it stops wanting. Could we exist without wanting. Could we stay in peace all the time? The answer is ‘yes’. To be in peace forever one needs to reach enlightenment. That is, one needs to let go of ‘self’ or the ‘ego’ completely to experience the complete peace.

But it is the ego that makes us experience anything. Does that mean that we have to let go of our experience to realise peace.

Buddha’s advice is to be in a “middle way”. Which means to stay in balance between extremes. This means to realise that there is actually no self, but there is self in conventional terms. Knowing that ego is just an illusion. Which means wanting things is not a bad thing, it’s just that wanting too much or carving is bad. Being in extreme brings about the suffering.