The monster of more and the antidote of enough
“The opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It’s enough.”
— Brene Brown
Helllllloooo Practitioners,
There is a monster lurking in our midst. A monster of more. An always-hungry never-satisfied beast that lives in our bellies. We can blame advertising, marketing, and planned obsolescence. But this creature existed before capitalism. From the Upanishads and the Gita, the Buddha and the Bible, from Rumi to St. John of the Cross another name for the Monster of More is desire.
“Now that I no longer desire all, I have it all without desire.”
― St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul
"The grief you cry out from draws you toward union."
― Rumi, Love Dogs
All spiritual traditions wrestle with it and all spiritual traditions emerge with a similar solution. That ache, the yearning, the burn of desire, the bottomless pit of want is spiritual longing. Turned in the right direction it’s a glorious thing. It calls you home to a creator, a divine source, a wholeness. Turned towards the world it fuels greed, scarcity, and feeds the monster of more.
Now, if you’re not into spiritual longing… I understand. I grew up in Southern Indiana after all. But ask yourself, how often do you feel satisfied? Content? Complete?
Rarely? Never?
Read on!
Desire is innately human. Yoga encourages you to examine it. Watch how it works. Notice that as soon as you satisfy one desire (you buy the thing!) almost immediately another desire replaces it (I need another thing!) or “satisfying” the desire does not feel how you thought it would (I got the thing but now I have this/that issue!).
When you watch desire, you notice its recurring surge. There is an underlying force. And when you attempt to satiate with things “of this world” - money, material possessions, status, power, experiences- there is constant craving (because you haven't touched the underlying issue).
The spiritual traditions recognize that when you channel desire in the direction of spirit or service, a funny thing happens, it's not quite satisfaction, but the longing becomes sweet. Rather than gnawing, it's a pleasant motivating aching.
I’m reminded of David Foster Wallace in his truth pounding speech This is Water:
Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
And later in the speech:
The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
To keep the Monster of More at bay, to keep it from eating you alive in a culture that constantly feeds it, turn craving, desire, elsewhere. Inward or upward or outward. This is the invitation of practice. To channel the energy of your body, mind and spirit towards something satisfying and enriching rather than something depleting and devastating.
So how do we do this in practice?
I was in a therapeutics workshop years ago and someone asked the presenting teacher how many repitition of cat/cow to do. The teacher paused and consciously replied, “I do it until I’m content.” A bomb went off inside of me. Because I didn’t know what “content” felt like. I knew what effort and striving felt like. I knew accomplishment and pride. Frustration and despair. I had no idea how to sense content.
So I went inward to feel it out. It took a while. But I started to sense contentment, satisfaction, and perhaps most valuable: how much is enough? How much stretch is enough, how much strength is enough, how much time on the mat is enough. This has become it’s own practice and taught me volumes about inner listening.
This week, I invite you to wrestle with the Monster of More. Observe desire. Get curious about the assumption that more is better. Experiment with content. What does it feel like to be satisfied? At a meal, with your circumstances, on the mat? Can you settle into the joy of enough?
When I write them, these practices sound peaceful. Like they’d be easy-breezy. But they’re not. Not at all. Because you’re swimming up stream. Against cultural conditioning and innate human hunger-ing. Next time you feel the craving for more, the burning of desire, remember, it’s the soul. Asking you to explore. Instead of trying to fill it from the outside, can you fill it on the inside?
May your practice be fulfilling,
Alison
