efore training in a Zen monastery, my life could be summed up by this process:
 

• Become excited by something.
• Pursue that something.
• Get that something.
• Become obsessed with getting more of that something.

And then I would keep looping around-and-around doing that process all the time.

So, here is an illustration of how this played out:

I was an artist who loved to create. I had a great job that paid extremely well. So I only had to work part-time to be able to afford the beautiful apartment I lived in, pay the bills, purchase the food, and buy the stuff I collected continually. I told people that I was working part-time so I could spend my free time on my artwork, “my passion in life.”

Here’s the funny, or rather the frustrating, part. Whenever I managed some free time — time I had explicitly created so that I could focus on my artwork — I felt compelled to avoid doing it. Sometimes I would get as far as putting up a blank sheet of paper on the drawing board and proceed to stare at it. Then I would leave the apartment to shop for records. Or books. Or art supplies. Or all of them. I would spend most of the day shopping.

Then I’d come home, put on one of the new CDs I bought, begin listening to it and then…

…IT would happen…

My head would explode, “Wow! This music is amazing! I need more of this! What other bands out there are like this?” And then I’d be off to the races again. I’d be looking up that information, calling around to see who had it. The music was playing in the background, and I didn’t care. I was out on the streets hunting down more of it.

This insanity was non-stop.

I even started to do this process with the meditation books I discovered! I began collecting all of them, which is how I realized it was happening. The meditation books were teaching me about the process of dissatisfaction. And here I was LIVE in 3-D, Technicolor and Surround Sound doing that process while becoming aware of it!

After meditating and having this insight, I sat there dumbstruck. I saw the addiction. “Oh my God! I have been doing my whole life like this!”

Everything flashed before my eyes. I saw all the times I was eating my meal and thinking of the dessert I was going to eat afterward. I witnessed myself unable to read the book in my hands because I was obsessed with thoughts of the movie I was going to watch with my friends the following day. I saw myself talking to a good friend and knew all I was thinking about was shopping for more music.

This phrase from one of the meditation books stuck out in my mind:

One process does not lead to another. You can’t “want” to “have.” “Wanting” leads to more “wanting.” “Having” leads to more “having.” If you want to “have” just “have.”

Of course! Of course! Of course!

I was on the runaway train of “wanting” in the pursuit of “having.” It was never going to give me what I longed for because I was never present. I was on to the next thing, never in the moment, and so joy was always evading me.

I began to cry when I realized what was going on. I was on the wrong train going in the wrong direction!

Once I began meditating, I was able to articulate how I felt. I described my life as being stuck in an invisible box with myself while Life was happening “out there” around me. I was always out of touch with it. It was always beyond my reach. Nothing was meaningful, conversations were shallow, I was hiding behind my mask of interests, and I wasn’t enjoying anything I thought I should.

What’s worse, I saw that everyone else was caught up in doing the same thing. Or their version of it. I realized that we are all completely screwed up and pretending like everything was just fine.

When I saw how it all worked, I realized that I didn’t want to play this game anymore.

That’s why I say people can try to convince you to pursue your passions, to get what you want. They can tell you that when you do something satisfying, it will lead to an extraordinary life.

But I learned that this isn’t the way it worked.

I realized that I needed to learn firsthand how to be satisfied so that I could lead an extraordinary life.

I needed to start, end, and be with satisfaction if I was to experience satisfaction.

It wasn’t the other way around.