The Danger Of Expectation

Expectation: a strong belief that something will happen.

Ordinary human happiness is based on the expectation of fulfilling a desire. The expectation makes us feel happy, but it’s never completely satisfying because it doesn’t last, and so we seek more of the same, hoping that it will finally give us what we want.

This addiction isn’t based on any reality; expectation is a hinderance to reality.

All esoteric teachings result in the same realisation of the true essence of our being – which is a rare event – but, because we live in expectations, we turn these teachings into the exoteric, which is merely the form or act.

Hearing fantastic stories of miracles, we think this is the ultimate goal: these stories are exoteric teachings meant for the many to inspire us, but they have no reality (otherwise, miracles would be happening right now).

Sitting in front of a thangka painting of Chenrezi, the lord of compassion, will not give us compassion. It merely reminds us to apply compassion through empathy, which comes about through experience, rather than through beliefs and expectations.

There are practices that we can do,  exchanging self for other, but do we actually go that far? No. We just hope, or expect it will work without us actually becoming involved …