The Spontaneous Moment: The beer is optional
Finding contentment in satisfaction

Satisfaction has two aspects: contentment and mechanical, obsessive addiction. We all think we know the effects of addiction: those little rules we make up or conform to, in order to justify our status and existence. We chug along finding satisfaction in this and that, be it beer, Mozart or even meditation. This is why we are limited, sentient beings, enslaved by our desires. Corporations and governments use psychologists to maintain this enslavement, through unseen but effective propaganda (look up Edward Bernays*).

Finding contentment.
If we want a beer, there is satisfaction in actually sitting down with one, and satisfaction in drinking it. Like anything else, there is satisfaction in starting something, and completing it. If we look closer, we see that we have described two moments. Moments! The beginning and the end. Being satisfied with those moments, we then desire more of the same, and that is how addiction starts, resulting a mechanical personality. That is the desire and satisfaction of corporations!

We have associated those moments of satisfaction and contentment with an activity – just like Pavlov’s dogs – and so we want more of the same.

Let’s take a closer look. The activity of drinking that beer was made up of many moments, each having a beginning and an end: a series of sips. If we are one with those moments, we need nothing else – we merely sip the beer and nothing else. There is our contentment. The activity allows us to be focused on the moment, in the same way as shamata meditation watches the breath. When we are not sipping, we are merely aware: that is vipassana meditation…the beer is optional 😉

When sitting, a realised person just sits. When eating, they just eat. When walking, they just walk. This is spontaneous presence, needing nothing else. We are usually so busy between the moments that we do not notice the moments passing. We fill them with thoughts, or a vacancy: “We sleep perchance to dream…”

When there are moments, there is time.
When moments dissolve into one spontaneous presence,
awareness rests in timelessness.

The obscurations of busy-ness and vacancy dissolve
and original wakefulness is revealed.

The body clock is still running, but essence just is.

* Edward Bernays was the master of influencing and shaping public opinion: he developed ideas of earlier social psychologists and the work of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, in order to create techniques to manipulate the subconscious desires of the masses.