I have been smoking for 20 some years. I quit once for God, I guess when I became a Mormon, and once I realized that Mormonism was not the path I was to follow, I began smoking again. So here I am now 13 years later. Now I am at the point where I need to quit again, and I have been trying for a week now and have made quite a but of progress but I am still smoking. This need to quit, again it is being motivated by a seeking of the Divine. What does smoking have to do with being a good person or moral? Nothing at all. But for me, smoking is my Kryptonite. Kryptonite, that green stone that took all the strength away from Superman, made all of his extraordinary powers useless. A friend. when he tried to quit, called cigarettes his Kryptonite and this is a metaphor for me about smoking. So what does quitting smoking have to do with spiritual practice?
Attachment
According to many spiritual paths, our suffering comes from our attachment to a false self or a delusion about reality. In reality all of our attachments are really just addictions. I read an essay about reasons we like intoxicants, that in some way they are a search for meaning/identity. Being a poet, I have always identified smoking and drinking with the identity of being a poet. I know logically this has nothing to do with reality, but it has been a strong construct in my identity as a writer. Yet this attachment to a false self causes suffering, of my body as smoking will more than likely shorten by life, and in my suffering when I do not have a cigarette. In addition smoking has nothing whatsoever about being a writer. There have been times that I could not imagine not smoking or drinking because of the attachment these activities had to do with my construct of who I am as a writer. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I really thought that, of course while I was still smoking two packs a day. If this is not delusional, I don’t know what is?
The other attachment is more insidious. That is the attachment of addiction. With cigarettes I am happy, I get my fix and avoid the suffering of not smoking by smoking. If I quit I am miserable and suffer because I don’t have them. I am unhappy, incomplete, lacking. So in the happiness of the attachment is hidden the suffering. There is also the lower level of suffering, in the constant voice inside that says you should quit. This voice is always there with most smokers.
A Change of Focus
Ok so I am going to totally quit. How do I deal with the suffering of not smoking? One way is to look at it as a spiritual practice. In the Buddhist concept, we gain liberation and thus true happiness through our overcoming our delusions of attachment. Attachment in is the source of suffering. It is not something done to us but something that we do to ourselves. The practice is to face the attachment, realize the delusional thinking, (that I am lacking) and work to overcome the attachment with “Right Thinking” There is another line of thought in Buddhist circles, that the suffering we suffer as we face our delusional thinking and our attachment is a way to purify our karmic debt and find a path to liberation. The conscious or aware suffering is different from a reactive
So I no longer smoke, and I suffer. This is not the suffering of delusional thinking, because I am facing the lie. This is a process of purification, the process of facing the false self. It is also an act of presence. Presence presupposes intention or Will. I cannot be present without an act of will. The false self is reactive to all forms of external and internal fear motivations, it is not present it is reactive. So to quit smoking is an act of intention, an act of will an act of being present, of making a conscious choice. Helminski teaches that Will or intention gives way to more will and more intention. Is this true?
Effort us not to be understood as the clash of opposites, but as the creation of a conscious presence, an “I Am” Helminski
I know from my own experience, each time I give in to my addiction or my false self ‘s defensive fears, the weaker I get. Each time I give in to another cigarette, it is like Krypronite, I get weaker and weaker and it becomes more difficult to extract myself from the compulsive self. Each time we give into the compulsive self, we reinforce it.
This compulsive self is not the essential me, because I can observe it. The ability to observation the false self and see it as “apart” tells us that there is a higher self within us. With the intention or will of the higher self; with this practice of intention, I can become more closely identified with it and subsume the false self that can only bring emotional suffering.
So now what I do with this understanding?
Quit smoking once and for all.
