Giving Up on Cures

  When we say that something is a "problem" (or define it as such), we have already created a label or box around it. In psychiatry, labels can be a healthy way of diagnosing an illness in order to treat the illness, but thinkers such as Thomas Szasz have lamented the way that labels can make us feel that we are predetermined to act a certain way, which can inhibit the sense of choice. But I am thinking about a deeper issue here, and that is the tendency for the label of problem to isolate something and exaggerate its intensity. This happens a lot in meditation, but it also happens in life as a whole. When I complain that work "gives me pressure", I am reifying a concept called "pressure" and making into a thing that can somehow be grasped in isolation of all the elements that compose it. In reality, pressure is not necessarily the result of something external pressing down upon us, but it is more so the result of resistance within: there is something out there that feels separate from me because I am subconsciously resisting its pull, and thus making it to be more of a struggle than it actually is.

   I think that when we give up resistance and embrace the now, we are no longer so inclined to look for cures or even isolate specific problems that need to be fixed. More so, we are not trying to isolate anything, but are seeing it as part of a greater totality. The pain that we feel in daily life is no longer linked to a specific narrative about how it's unbearable, boring, cruel, etc. but instead, we are able to see it as one phenomena among many that need not be actively grasped or resisted. When this happens, there is no longer a need to fix the problem itself. Of course, this means we still do need to practice self care and protection but it need not be something burdensome, like something that requires a remedy. I think it's a good idea to practice this flowing non-resistance toward things.