Longings

We met two weeks ago, went out twice. Each time a good time, laughing, chatting, sharing and bonding. He  made an impression on me, made me think perhaps that there is a possibility here, and I thought perhaps those feelings were mutual.  

I left for 12 days for my retreat and to visit family. We said we'd keep in touch. In those days in the forest, without access to phone or internet, I thought of him at times. Sometimes wanting to write to him, at some points during my retreat even starting to compose emails in my mind. During some sitting sessions, my mind would wander and daydream in the future, would conjure up images of us meeting again and what we could do together.... even as mundane as what I could cook for us if he were to come to my place for dinner one night.

The mind is such a treacherous being that makes everyone of us a fool by filling our heads with imaginations and wishes that are so abstract and so wonderful. The mind is such a mastermind at trickery and deceit, conjuring up all sorts of powerful cravings and longings that mislead us into believing they are real. But it's all in the mind, and I guess I've been had. All those moments I was sitting in that monastery, in that tranquil setting of an isolated forest in the middle of nowhere, my mind was wandering around, grasping onto pleasant past experiences and projecting them into future fantasies. Fantasies that do not exist, and never will materialise.

We said we'd be in touch when I come back. It's been already a number of days since I got back. I wrote to him almost a week ago. No reply. No news at all. 

I'm not particularly sad or let down (or perhaps I'm in denial...? Another trick the mind is playing on me...) I just feel fooled by my own foolishness in letting my mind get the better of me by taking me on rich fantastical journeys filled with improbable events and unlikely scenarios. Events and scenarios that seem so real, but are in fact fictions of the mind. 

And from this I realise once again how foolish we are, and how we too often add to own suffering. Just as the Buddha taught... we live in a world where we are constantly driven and bombarded by craving (greed), delusion and dislike (hatred/aversion). Whether it's a thing, a moment in the past or future, or whether it's a person I have met only twice, the memories and experiences of the past beguile us to believe a reality that is fictitious and fake, and distract us from living in the here and now. Oh, how we really suffer because of the mean tricks the mind plays with us.... and we seem to relish and enjoy it every day with every thing we do and think about!