The Vajra Parrot Squawks!

Our tendency to 'cure' unhappiness is to treat the symptoms and not deal with the cause. Whilst treating symptoms sometimes makes one feel better, it is only an alleviation - there is no removal of the instigator of the malaise. When we bleat about how unhappy 'I' am, or what is making 'me' so depressed we get a glimpse of the cause in all its simplicity: attachment to the self - the big I AM.

Where is the 'I'? Where is the 'self'? It is not in the body, it is not consciousness, feelings, perceptions, impulses, memories, likes or dislikes. There is no such thing: only a subjective label which doesn't stand up to reasoning or meditative experience. Like a Mercedes that can be taken apart, broken down to its components, and even to its constituent atoms, where does the car begin and end? In the same way, where does the self begin and end? Whether car, washing machine or self - they're just terms of convenience. Labels.

We may love our car, but we are really loving the appearance of something pigeonholed by the mind. If we were to say 'I love my collection of atoms' it'd sound very strange, but it's closer to the truth. We are attached to appearances, though we don't like to admit it.

If we really want to treat the cause of unhappiness we have to give a big injection of Vitamin I (insight) to this sense of a necessarily existing self in the same way as we dismantled the Mercedes. The experience of the self is like mistaking a piece of rope for a snake in the middle of the night. We project form and meaning onto something which doesn't necessarily possess those qualities and we jump through the roof. When we turn on the light, however, our pulse rate goes down and our sense of relief increases.

In fact, a sense of relief, lightness of mind and happiness flood back when we examine phenomena, including our sense of self, in this way.

It's rather refreshing living in a country where Christmas is a total non-event.

Everything is as normal: no decorations, no hype, no crowds of people crawling over one another to buy presents nobody actually wants anyway. No schmaltzy Coca-Cola ads. No pressure.

The West perceives places like this (Nepal)as somewhat less developed, backwards or even primitive... whilst its own citizens are herded like mindless sheep into shopping malls and supermarkets by the sound of sleigh bells, glitzy jingles on TV and bits of hanging tinsel, to spend money they don't have on things that are not needed.

It's fine to buy things for the people we care about, but we also need to keep some sense of perspective.

If, for you, Christmas is about showing others how much you care about them then why not just be nice to them or even tell them how you feel - rather than rack up a tonne of debt and create a mountain of plastic gifts to hide behind.