Illusions . . .
When you feel a craving for something – a cookie, a beverage, anything – what does the craving say?
It says, “You need this. Right now.” And our default response is to believe what the craving says. But it turns out that both the need and the now are lies. In fact, cravings aren’t just lies, they’re illusions.
Although I love sour candies, I never crave them out of the blue. It’s usually something external like a movie or date night that triggers my sweet tooth. Some restaurants purposely pump French fry smell out towards the street to trigger a craving in passing pedestrians. They know that sensory exposure leads to desire.
These two examples show that we experience cravings primarily when our senses remind us that something desirable exists.This is the basic principle behind fast food advertisements, beer vendors at baseball stadiums, and candy in the check-out lane at the grocery store.
These external stimuli trigger cravings, which cause people to make purchases they otherwise would not. More importantly, the fact that cravings are externally triggered means they don’t come from something real inside of you. That’s the first reason why cravings are illusions. The other reason has to do with the timing of cravings.
Anyone who’s had a chemical addiction to something like alcohol or cigarettes is probably thinking that I’m full of crap. When you have a drug addiction, your own body and mind produce cravings. That’s how chemical dependency works. Or does it?
Two groups of flight attendants who smoked were sent on two separate flights. One group was sent on a three-hour flight to Europe, while the other group traveled to New York, a ten-hour flight. All the smokers were asked by the researchers to rate their level of cravings at set time intervals before, during, and after the flight.
When the flight attendants flying to New York were above the Atlantic Ocean, they reported weak cravings. Meanwhile, at the exact same moment, the cravings of their colleagues who had just landed in Europe were at their strongest. What was going on?
The New York-bound flight attendants knew they could not smoke in the middle of a flight without being fired. Only later, when they approached their destination, did they report the greatest desire to smoke. What affected their desire was not how much time had passed after a smoke, but how much time was left before they could smoke again.
If cravings were real, internally generated feelings, then the flight attendants would have craved cigarettes at the same time – as soon as it had been too long since their last nicotine hit. Instead, they only felt strong cravings when cigarettes were almost available. Those on the shorter flight did not actually need to smoke right when they landed in Europe; the near-availability of smoking tricked them into feeling that way.
When I feel like I need something right now, I don’t have to act on that feeling. I can wait. I can sit with the discomfort of delay, training myself to tolerate it better.
This not only produces better behavior, but it also feels better. Buddhism teaches that the source of unhappiness is desire: We crave something, and when we can’t get it, we suffer. Or we do get it, but the satisfaction doesn’t last, and we’re left craving more or craving something new.
The antidote to this kind of suffering is acceptance: accepting that we want something that’s out of reach, accepting that we can’t have it, or accepting that we have to wait.
And through our patience and acceptance we gain the most valuable of things – understanding and wisdom.
Peace and Love, Jim
#illusions #thedailybuddha
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