Whether it is a full-blown heroin addiction or an inability to stop eating cookies, addiction has a way of controlling our lives

Have you been chasing the future? Have you been constantly looking for the next fix, the next high? Have you been looking for something else, something more?
Does the present moment always feel as though it is missing something?

Does it feel like you can’t find the satisfaction you are seeking, no matter how much you look for it in the future?
. . . no matter how many drugs you take or drinks you drink?
. . . no matter how much “stuff” you buy?
. . . no matter how much you work?
. . . no matter how much love or sex you get?
. . . no matter how much you gamble or eat?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be suffering from addiction.

Whether it is a full-blown heroin addiction or an inability to stop eating cookies, addiction has a way of controlling our lives. It sets us on a course of constant, uncontrollable seeking towards the next moment.

As addicts we seek to avoid unpleasant feelings and thoughts that are appearing now. These feelings and thoughts are remnants of the past. We carry them around with us unconsciously. We then erroneously believe that the future will set us free of these unpleasant feelings and thoughts.

Yet no matter how much we keep seeking the future, we never find that freedom. In our addiction, we may find moments of release or brief periods of satisfaction when we temporarily satisfy our urges, but we never find ongoing and permanent release from the cycle of seeking.

Natural rest is the key to freedom from the addiction cycle.

What is natural rest? This question cannot be answered through concepts. It must be experienced.

As addicts, we are addicted to thinking that the future will provide our happiness.

This addiction to thinking cannot be released through more thinking. Don’t rely on thinking to find out what natural rest is. Instead, take up the practice proposed in this book and find out for yourself what it is.

The present moment, when we are not emphasizing thoughts, contains a “natural rest.”

This rest is “natural” because it is already here. All we have to do is relax into it on a repeated basis.

The natural rest of the present moment is overlooked continuously by addicts. In overlooking this rest, the cycle of addiction just continues.

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