Consciously dealing with deprivation helps us deal with the number one cause of suffering, our dissatisfaction caused from our attachments. Where I was trying to push things away or crave different circumstance. Until we can land in satisfaction for what is, we can’t sustain a sense of satisfaction.
When we can let go and experience what it is like without, we’re letting go our craving to have things comfortable. With a courage to move into that space of uncomfortability we can explore the support and Grace given to “just be“.
Someday I imagine a politics and religions based on gratitude, peace, moderation, and a deep desire to understand through listening. Today, we are being led by those with an insatiable appetite for more and more. They have not found the value of conscious deprivation. They don’t know what it’s like to be deprived of food or shelter. When they have never had this experience of deprivation, they have less capacity for empathy to the vulnerable. Their sense of collateral damage from actions taken simply doesn’t seem to be there. They failed to realize that the more they grasp what they think they own or the more they crave more power and wealth, the more they suffer. These are the poisons of fear and greed. The failure to break through the illusion of separateness causes an inability to see not only they’re suffering, but the suffering of others as their own.