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.