Our Dhamma is Embracing the Reality of Craving and Aversion

Recently a Vipassana Meditator, in one of the e-group chats, was talking about how during meditation he was getting distracted by fragrance worn by fellow meditators. He even thought he was allergic to fragrances. In wishing that he overcomes his problem, helped by the members of the Sangha, I posted the following message to the group which I share with the readers here.

We have to be sympathetic to our friend. He is not complaining. He is simply sharing his stuckupness. If he is stuckup on fragrances, someone else is stuck up on bad odor of the neighbor-meditator, or not-so-clean common toilets at the place of stay. We all come as packages of stuckupness. The mix may differ. Vipassana teaches us to identify bags and baggage of stuckupness we carry, and leave them by the wayside as we walk the path of dhamma. The process does not involve judgments. It involves loving acceptance and letting go.

I know a former diabetic who was stuck up on sugar. After diabetes was diagnosed in him, he tried to develop aversion towards sugary things as a means to avoid things he liked. The result was disastrous. It worked for days, but was followed by occasions when he would binge on sweets. As a Vipassi, he worked on his aversion and developed equanimity by understanding (meditating upon) that sugar is life giving; children thrive on it, lot of people get happiness because of sugar and so on. Ultimately, this man developed equanimity towards sugar. He now neither craves nor has aversion towards sugar. He has only loving equanimity towards sugar. May my friend’s example light our paths.

Sarva Mangalam Bhavatu, Shankar