Mindfulness: A Way to Calm the Drive of Addiction

By Thomas McConkie, adapted from an episode of the Mindfulness+ podcast.

We tend to talk about addiction in our culture as though there are some people who have addiction problems and the rest of us don't struggle with that kind of thing. 

In point of fact, when you start to practice mindfulness — when you look really closely at the dynamics of experience moment to moment — what you discover is that at the heart of experience is a kind of addictive mechanism. Whether you have an illegal drug habit or a texting habit or a potato chip habit (like I am plagued with personally), what you realize through meditation is that the object of addiction is less important than the actual underlying structures of addiction.

The Buddhist tradition is exceptionally articulate about the mechanism behind what we in the West call addiction. The way it basically works is that we are attracted to things that are pleasant, and we have an aversion to things that are unpleasant. And when we investigate our experience directly we notice a very basic and deep-seated push and pull. We push things away from us that are uncomfortable, and we pull pleasure and more comfortable things towards us. 

This is described as “seeking” or “the seeking mind” in Buddhism. The Buddha had a term for this in ancient Pali: taṇhā, which meant thirst. And what he meant by thirst, as I understand it, is that we have a fundamental not “okay-ness” with what is. So, either we're thirsty for more pleasure or we're thirsty for less pain, and what the Buddha pointed out is that our lives are often characterized by this fundamental thirst. This thirst is at the heart of suffering.

So you might say that's the bad news, that human life is characterized by suffering, by a fundamental thirst. Even worse is that by this standard we're all addicts, right? If we take a moment to reflect on our lives and our behaviors, it becomes apparent to us pretty quickly which activities we engage in to mask over the thirst we feel at deeper levels. 

I know when I stop at a stoplight my right hand almost instinctively and involuntarily reaches towards my cell phone because I might have time to check out the latest headline on the newsfeed on my app. And when I take a moment to just pause with that, I sense into a quality of restlessness, and just beneath that restlessness I sense into a deeper and abiding peace. 

This fundamental dynamic of seeking is prevalent in all our lives and this seeking is in response to what is often very subtle, even unconscious, pain and suffering. And we search endlessly for different activities to busy our minds — to numb out, to anesthetize ourselves — to whatever’s happening in the moment that we don't want to be present for.

The good news is that mindfulness practice opens a new door of possibility to us. Without a mindful practice that opens up a quality of stillness and spaciousness in our lives, there would be no end to or recourse from this push and pull — this addictive mechanism at the heart of our experience. We would be stuck in this basic pain-pleasure principle, always chasing after more pleasure, always avoiding more pain. But it turns out that there's a whole different dimension in human experience and human awareness that I've come to call “the still point.”

I'm certainly not the first person to call it that, but when I talk about the still point, I'm talking about a place of profound stillness, a place of profound peace, something even beyond space and time, tinged with a quality of bliss. 

As we get more and more proficient at accessing the still point, we come to experience a kind of profound contentment — a transcendent contentment, happiness beyond conditions. By “beyond conditions” I mean when we come to this place of stillness in our experience, we find that we can be in a tremendous amount of pain, but that we don't feel the same drivenness, the same compulsion to avoid it. 

And on the other end of the spectrum we can be experiencing a tremendous amount of pleasure, almost unbearable pleasure, and yet we don't cling to it. When the pleasure subsides, we let it subside. When the pain wells up, we let it well up. This practice of living in the still point is a deep attitude of letting come, letting go. 

If you think about it, all of us as addicts tend to live a lot from the mindset that “I can't bear this pain; I need something to make me feel better" or “I can't bear for this good experience to end; how do I extend it? How do I prolong it and get even more pleasure out of it?” But when we take a kind of ninety-degree turn straight down into the depths of our awareness, we realize that we don't have to manipulate conditions. We don't have to avoid pain by engaging in some compulsive behavior. And we don't have to manipulate circumstances to prolong or seek more pleasure. We can rest in the still point, this profound contentment, letting life be exactly as it is. 

Let's take a moment to drop in to this experience together.

Find a comfortable position where you can settle in. And just allow a few moments for that body to settle in to the posture. Letting the mind unwind, unload any thoughts. You don't have to try and get relaxed or slow down, you can just trust the rhythm of your own body and mind to do the slowing down for you.

And as you do this, you can notice in the physical body in this moment areas of pleasure. Areas where the body feels just right. And you can just open up to that and receive that. Also notice different aspects of the body that might not be so comfortable. Maybe you can detect some subtle pain, or maybe the pain is quite intense. Just notice any discomfort in the physical body in this moment, without trying to make it go away, without wrestling with it. You can just notice. And notice that your awareness is plenty big enough to hold all of the pain and all of the pleasure of the body in this moment.

And you can bring your awareness to the thinking mind, noticing any pleasant thoughts you've had today or recently. Pleasant thoughts that drift through your mind. And just allow those to come. Notice any negative thoughts, any unpleasant thoughts that have been floating through your awareness today or the last few days, and just see what comes to you when you relax, open up awareness into this vast space. Notice that your awareness is plenty big to hold all of the positive thoughts, all of the negative thoughts.

And finally just take a moment to contemplate the conditions of your life at this moment. The state of your health, your relationships, your livelihood, dreams, aspirations. Notice the conditions that feel favorable, things that are going well for you, and notice the challenges. Conditions you might wish away if you could. Notice that whatever the conditions of the body in the moment, whatever the conditions of the mind, whatever the conditions of your very life in this moment, there's a part of you deeper than the body, deeper than the thinking mind, deeper than life conditions themselves, where you can access a quality of profound contentment. At the level of pure awareness, it's simply a  joy to be awake, to be present.

Allow yourself to relax, resting deeply in a quality of no-seeking. Life conditions ebb and flow, they surge and they fall. But at the heart of your experience, as awareness, as intelligence, you can be deeply present for all of life's experiences, all of conditions: pain and pleasures alike. And through this presence comes a profound freedom. A freedom to just be right here responding to life, just as it is.