The Buddha said “ people are easily caught by four traps. The first is attachment to sensual desires. The second is attachment to narrow views. The third is doubt and suspicion. The fourth is false view of self.” Old Path White Clouds, 414

I find this statement to be of great truth. So many of us on our quest for meaning in life stumble upon these four things and find ourselves lost. I also tend to get very stuck on my path and find that sometimes I am frustrated and filled with emotions for little reason. The Buddha adds to this the notion of co-dependant arising. He claims that “this is because that is as this is not because that is not.” The root of this belief is that all things come from everything. That when looking at the one you can see the all and when looking at all we can see the one.

Now obviously most of us don’t live our lives in this way. We are so busy worrying about the self that we fail to see our connection to the lives of others and the very earth. Our ego keeps screaming for more: more things: more love: more attention: more recognition….. We are stuck in the trap of attachment to sensual desires. Filling our faces with food, our pockets with money and our minds with smut we cannot grow. What a life we lead when we allow our appetites to direct.

Moving to the second attachment we can clearly see how our ideas tend to bind us. Even those ideas which once seemed so fresh and challenging may someday become weights that bind us. In my life my mind has changed many times and I have entered many new levels of understanding. Though my journey is still near the start I have seen how many ideas have become outdated. I know how hard it is to reject earlier hypothesizes in favor of new better information… Attachment to our thoughts is possibly one of the most difficult yet subtle challenges on the path.

Obviously we all know the dangers related to doubt and suspicion. Our world of material, positivistic science has grounded us to material facts. We are all so full of doubt that we don’t know what to trust. In our sophistication and advancement truth is becoming more difficult to observe. I myself and trapped with nagging fear that all my experience, knowledge and belief is just not factual and merely imagined.

The last I can’t really add much to. I see myself more often than not as an individual, as connected with my body. Maybe I identify with my body much more than I should. I am starting to see that I am not this mind or this body but I forget this more times than I remember. Maybe that is where fear comes from. If I am the body and the body dies than what happens to ‘me’. It’s a Big problem for most people.

I guess then it all leads to a life with suffering and pain. As I look around my friends and I see conflict and pain I don’t know what to do. I can’t solve my own problems yet and there is little I can offer to them. My hope is to continue on my path, that I will someday see the rise and fall of emotions as clearly as I can those of the ocean. I think that day is a long way off but my will is determined. Or so it seems at this moment.