When we buy into ‘I want more, just one more; I want to keep this, this is really great,’ then at that moment we believe the promise that ‘If I had just one more, then I would be happy.’

We’re feeling we’re incomplete, but if we get one more drink or one more piece of cake or one more profound meditation experience, then we’re going to be happy and satisfied. Whether the object of addiction is coarse or subtle, wholesome or unwholesome, it works in exactly the same way. We are pulled by that ‘just one more’ promise.

A good image to describe the process is that of getting on a train. From avijjā up to vedanā, that’s like arriving at the station and getting on to the train. The train isn’t moving yet. So when we’re at the realm of feeling we can taste the pleasantness of getting the meditation experience that we wanted, being praised or suchlike.

Once the change has gone from ‘I like’ to ‘I want’ (taṇhā), then the train is starting to move. As we know, trains tend to pick up speed fairly rapidly. Craving conditions clinging, clinging conditions becoming, becoming conditions birth. We can imagine that, as the train steadily increases speed, if the train has only just started to move, we could still jump off without causing ourselves too much harm.

When we recognize the ‘I want’ or the ‘Just one more’ feeling, then we can get off at this point without too much difficulty. But once it’s moved into ‘clinging’ and the mind is committing itself into ‘Yes, I’m going to pursue it!’, then the train is picking up speed, so it’s going to be a pretty uncomfortable if we get off at this point.

By the time we’ve got to ‘becoming,’ we’re pretty much out of the station, and it’s going to be a nasty tumble when we land. Once the becoming has changed to birth, that’s the point of no return. Then the situation has to be followed through and lived to its completion. After ‘birth’ has happened the thrill has already passed and there are the implications of having followed that impulse, the dukkha that follows: self-criticism, disappointment and every kind of grief. That moment of thrill is no longer filling the universe.

Starting from craving, the mind is narrowing and narrowing until the point of ‘becoming,’ the chief moment of thrill. Once we’ve already got what we wanted, then the universe starts to get bigger again and we realize that there are other things that come with it – the bill, the responsibility, the jealousy of others who did not get the prize, the painful realization that our heart has shrunk to be ‘two sizes too small’. It’s a rude awakening at that point. I realize modern-day trains are harder to jump off, but I’m sure you get the point.

The more we’re able to recognize that once the mind has followed such an impulse, it gets harder and harder to let go, the more that encourages us to pay very close attention to the issue of getting on the train – that is to say, how the realm of feeling works and how feeling transforms into craving.

As we’re developing a consistent, comprehensive mindfulness around feeling, we are training ourselves not to believe those promises, not to believe that ‘Because it’s a pleasant feeling, then more of it would be better’ or ‘If this is followed, then I would be happy.’ There is the capacity to know ‘this is a pleasant feeling,’ ‘here is the sound of a promise.’ We don’t have to hate the train; we don’t have to fear it.

We recognize that we have the power, the capacity to know that it’s there and to not climb on board. The more that we’re able to bring attention and clarity to the feeling of liking, the feeling of disliking, and to know them simply as that, as natural mental processes, mental formations, then we find a freedom in our lives that is never present if we have habituated ourselves to chase after what is pleasant and to push away what is unpleasant.

We’re learning to respond and to relate to the realm of feeling with a different attitude. In that change of attitude, we find tremendous freedom, a rich quality of peacefulness. The heart is no longer just reacting, and we’re able to respond to life: if something is useful and appropriate then we can do that; if we recognize it as being harmful and obstructive, we can leave it alone.

This reflection by Ajahn Amaro is from the book, Just One More, (pdf) pp. 27-31.