Belief Systems

When belief systems are examined, they turn out to be based on presumptions that are prevalent in society, such as right versus wrong or good versus bad. For instance, “I have to have chocolate ice cream” (content) “and then I’ll be happy” (context) is based on another positionality, that the source of happiness is outside oneself and has to be ‘gotten’ (in overall context). All these propositions indicate a series of dependencies (e.g., the Buddha’s Law of Dependent Contingencies or Dependent Origination), and when they are surrendered, the source of happiness is found to be in the joy of existence itself, in this very moment and, beyond that, in the source of one’s existence—God.

Attachments are to illusions. They can be surrendered out of one’s love for God, which inspires the willingness to let go of that which is comfortably familiar.

From: “I: Reality and Subjectivity” (2001), Chapter 20: Perspectives, pp. 351–353