Giving up Dependency

“I can’t give it up; it’s my entire existence. Without it, I wouldn’t even be able to get out of bed in the mornings.” It’s my hope, my dreams, it is what fulfills me and gives me hope. Without it, I am nothing; I would have nothing to live for. Facing life is much too complicated and dangerous without it, and I couldn’t function. I am dependent upon it, and if it were gone, my life would in essence be over, there would be nothing left. I have relied upon it for so long that it is not only a part of me, but it is me. To lose it would be to lose my life – that is how dependent I am. Without it, I am less than nothing, I am zero.

In the above paragraph, substitute the word “it,” wherever it shows up, for your particular dependency. For example; “I can’t give (Jack Daniels, marijuana, ice cream, my family, my friends, Christ, Buddha, my pet) up; (Jack Daniels, marijuana, ice cream, my family, my friends, Christ, Buddha, my pet)is my entire existence.

Then look at the absurdity of all of this. You are a human being, free to exist and investigate life from fresh perspectives every day, yet your dependency, whatever it is, holds you back from this. No longer is there creativity, there are only dead thoughts and conclusions that keep your mind stuck in a groove, shunning the world and anyone who might think or act differently than you.

You might as well be dead, for you are only going through motions; motions that you feel will secure you, but deep down there is fear. You can’t deny that because dependency is the child of fear.

Fear causes us to do irrational things, such as drowning ourselves in drugs or alcohol, or more subtly, drowning ourselves in activities or religion merely to keep the 800 pound gorilla at bay; which is the truth that we are tiny specks of life in a big universe, and that our physical existence is irrelevant.

We create, in our minds, escapes from this fact, and hypnotize ourselves to the point of believing that this truth is irrelevant, and that we are actually immortal. But that is a lie, and lies have a way of catching up with us.

We watch movies of billions of people crawling all over the face of the earth, scratching our a living and reproducing, but somehow we are above all of that. For some reason, they are not the same as us, and we find ways to separate ourselves from the masses because the masses remind us of what we really are.

So we set ourselves apart, in clans, in countries, in religions, in habits, in languages. This helps soothe our minds so that we can ignore the gravity of the situation. When someone different from us comes by, we shun them. Why? Because to embrace them would be to admit that we are no other than the masses ourselves, and that would be too hard to face.

So our dependencies help to deflect a reality that is right in front of our noses, and without our dependencies, we would be truly lost. But then, how could it be that some without any dependencies at all are peaceful and calm, and not worried in the least? What is their secret? What do they know that we don’t, and what frees them from all of this turmoil?

The fact is; the one who requires dependencies, the one who worries, and the one who can find no peace, does not exist! This statement is usually disregarded immediately, but the statement is true, and the statement is radical, so radical that it goes to the very heart of dependencies, which is fear. If we don’t exist, there can be no fear; there would be nothing to be fearful of; it is only the illusion that we are real that perpetuates our bondage.

Is this statement true – that we don’t exist? Only when our minds become unobstructed and free will we answer this question for ourselves, and this involves ridding ourselves of dependencies. How to begin? We simply begin weeding out thoughts that reinforce dependency. We shouldn’t be fearful of losing the dependency, for it is only keeping us imprisoned. Like most dependencies, however, it has convinced us that the dependency is more important than our ultimate freedom, and this is a lie.

Be courageous. Take charge of your life. Freedom is possible. As a matter of fact, freedom from dependency, or freedom from the self which our fundamental dependency, is the purpose of life. The only thing we must be careful of is surrendering this self to something else, for when we do that, we become dependent again, because the one who does the surrendering of self is nothing more than the self itself.

E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers.