There are personally and culturally conditioned parts of us that hold onto a problem orientation. If we want to think in evolutionary terms, the habit of having a problem probably goes very deep. There is a survival advantage to those who stay alert and stay on guard against danger and harm. I see a deep evolutionary habit of never relaxing, never taking for granted that you are beyond harm. We probably share that habit with most creatures and as it manifests in the human experience it becomes part of our culture. It isn’t necessarily a reflection of the actually danger we are in at any given moment. It has become a habit of assuming that something is wrong. And as you said if we start to feel like we don’t have a problem, if there is nothing wrong that we need to work on or worry about, we start to make a problem out of not having a problem.
We often feel guilty when we don’t have a problem. We start to worry that we are lazy. In fact as we approach the possibility of having no problem many of us become aware of a voice that says, “Well, if I don’t have a problem why will I do anything? What will motivate me?” We fear that if we give up the sense of lack and deficiency and the assumption that something is wrong, we won’t do anything. We don’t trust that something other than lack and deficiency can motivate us.
It is a common assumption that there is no other motivation in the universe except those that come from deficiency and lack. What you discover in mediation is that when you stop being preoccupied with the motivation that is born out of deficiency, another motivation starts to reveal itself. It is born out of abundance and wholeness and compelled by possibility.
The risk we have to take to discover this new motive is to let go of our sense of deficiency. We have to let go of the operating system that’s been running the show for longer than we can remember and trust that when that operating system is gone a new one will replace it to take us to the next level. Meditation is an opportunity to let go of the old operating system and discover that a new has been waiting for us all along.
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