Wants vs. Gots

[AlanLa]

I had this talk with my mom over the holidays. She's into new age spirituality stuff and was talking about past and future lives in reincarnation, and I pointed out that all we have is the life we got now and that reincarnation (real or not) doesn't really matter. In trying to explain this to her I came up with this (false) duality of wants vs. gots. It is often material or spiritual wants that dominate our lives (better car/house, better rebirth, heaven/hell, etc.). We spend more time and energy thinking about what we don't have (wants) instead of paying attention to what we already do have (gots). Humans, for some reason, seem predisposed to focus on wants instead of gots. Buddhism helps us focus on the gots of life, and the wants tend to take care of themselves. In some ways, maybe Buddhism is all about exploring all the different gots of life.

Anyway, thought I'd share.

[KellyRok]

Re: Wants vs. Gots

Hello Alan and all,

What a neat way of describing an important human folly! Thank you Alan for sharing your thoughts with us. I'm constantly trying to tell my children that they should be happy with what they already "gots" (how's that for proper English :lol: )- this gives me more to talk about now.

Gassho,
Kelly Rok

[replicant]

Re: Wants vs. Gots

i really like this post, straightforward and to the point