Chapter 12: I Must Have It

Two in the morning, he holds his phone; on the screen is a name.

They split up a year ago. Everyone has tried to talk him out of it: don’t call, it’s no use, she won’t come back, you’re only tormenting yourself. He knows it himself. He understands the reasons better than anyone; he has read those books, heard those words, knows he should let go, knows attachment is suffering, knows one should look ahead. He could even explain these reasons to others, and explain them very well.

Yet he still holds the phone, his finger hovering over that name.

In his heart there is only one sentence: I must have it.

This book, written this far, has said a great deal. Being does not wait for me to be good enough, does not wait for me to feel all right, does not wait for me to let go, does not wait for me to understand. Said clearly, and the reader sees it clearly.

But there is one sentence it has not yet met head on: I know all this. But I still want. I still can’t let go. I simply must have it. So I know—so what?

This sentence must be caught. If it can’t be caught, everything said so far is only reasoning.

First, honestly admit one thing: knowing does not mean not wanting.

Everyone trying to quit smoking knows smoking is harmful; it is printed on the packet, the doctor has said so, and when he coughs he understands it himself; yet the hand still reaches for the packet. Everyone trying to lose weight knows that piece of cake shouldn’t be eaten, knows it perfectly well; yet the fork has already gone in. A mother knows her child is grown, has his own road, and she shouldn’t interfere any more; yet the moment the call connects, the first thing she says is: when are you getting married? Someone knows that person isn’t worth it, knows the relationship should have ended long ago; yet every time the other beckons, he goes back.

This is not stupidity, nor a lack of willpower. It is that knowing and wanting were always two things. Knowing is one time of being, wanting another; both happen here, they meet, they pull on each other, and over time they change each other bit by bit. But no time of knowing can guarantee that the wanting will stop at once. Just as knowing what hunger is can’t make a person not hungry; knowing what a heartbeat is can’t make the heart stop for a moment.

So this book must first say something many books won’t: having read it, you may want all the same. Having understood, you will still fight for things. Having seen clearly, you still won’t be able to let go. This book is not a pair of pliers for making people stop wanting. If it were taken for such pliers, it would become another door: only having understood can you stop wanting; only having stopped wanting have you arrived. There is no such door.

Then where does this “I must have it” come from, really?

People think they decided it: I chose to want, I insist on wanting, I must have it. As if there were a me standing behind, mind made up, teeth clenched, gripping hard.

Try it. Right now, decide not to want something you are wanting. Not to hold back, not to refrain from taking it, but to make the wanting itself disappear. You can’t. Try the reverse: decide to want something you don’t want at all, and make a real must-have-it force arise in your heart. You can’t do that either.

Wanting is not decided by the “I.” It arises by itself, as hunger arises by itself, as a flare of anger pushes up by itself.

Where does it arise from? From the whole of this place: this body, these years, these events, that wound once suffered, that sweetness once tasted, the way that person looked when she smiled, that night walking home alone. These things meet and strike out a direction, and the whole of this place tilts toward that side. When it tilts hardest, that is “must have.”

It was said earlier that being, the moment it is, leans: the flower grows toward the light, the root pushes toward water, the iron filings gather toward the magnet. “I must have it” is this leaning, in a place that can speak, remember, and hurt, leaning at its tightest.

So the source of “I must have it” is not that teeth-clenched “I” behind. The source is being itself, right now, in this place, moving wholly toward that side. That teeth-clenched “I,” like the “I” in “I’m hungry,” arrives afterward: the wanting rises first, and only then does it follow, claim it, and say: it’s I who want it, I must have it.

Seen this way, “I must have it” is one of the changes of being. Being is always changing: sometimes into hunger, sometimes into sleepiness, sometimes into a wave of sadness; sometimes into a force twisted hard in one direction. This force, like the other changes, is how being looks as it happens. It is not being breaking down, nor a person making a mistake.

And when it can’t be had?

In the end he did dial that number. It rang a long time, and no one answered. He dialed again. Still nothing.

The pain of that moment is real pain. Leaning at its tightest, reaching over, and what it reaches is emptiness. Not a bit of this moment needs to be made light of.

But look at what else was pressing on him that night.

Not only the pain. There was another layer: she won’t even answer my call; I’m nothing to her any more. Is this how my life is going to be? Am I ridiculous? Am I a failure? Why should it be like this?

This layer and that pain are not the same thing. The pain is the leaning reaching emptiness; this layer is, after the pain came, another “I” popping up, standing behind the pain, saying: I’ve been destroyed.

What people can least bear is often not the pain itself but this layer. Pain comes and also goes, like a shower of rain; but that “I’ve been destroyed” me seems to stay forever, stays as a verdict, a scar, never healing in a lifetime.

But where does that destroyed “I” come from?

It too arrives afterward. The pain comes first, full, stabbing again and again; then an “I” follows, stands behind the pain, and says it has been knocked flat by this blow. But the moment of pain has no behind. Pain is pain itself, in this place, hurting now. There is no one hiding inside the pain, waiting to be hurt.

Many, when consoling others, say: don’t let it affect you. And there is a more refined version: the real you is unaffected by these feelings; there is a place in the heart that never hurts, never moves; hide there, and you’ll be fine.

There is no such place. We have searched all along the way: no master standing behind could be found, no ground, no lamp always lit. If there were an “I that is never affected,” it would become another ground to hide in, another place reachable only by practice.

But in the moment of pain, there was never a second person. There is no other person standing behind the pain taking the blows; what hurts hurts wholly: pain, wholly pain; sadness, wholly sadness; missing, wholly missing. When it hurts, the pain is pain itself, and behind it there is no second person being beaten.

So “unaffected” does not mean hurting a bit less; it means that behind the pain there is nothing that can be destroyed by the pain.

Pain is this place, hurting now; behind the pain, there is no other being.

However hard it rains, it can’t hurt “raining”; the rain is raining itself. However fierce the fire, it can’t burn up “burning”; burning is the fire itself. However bad the pain, it can’t destroy being; pain is just how being, in this place, is happening now. A person is not the one standing beside the pain taking the blows; this place called a person is just this spell of wanting, this spell of pain, this spell of not getting, happening.

Then what can a person still do?

There is another way of consoling: go on doing things, but keep a calm in your heart, a stillness, a “I don’t really care.” So people, while doing things, install another gatekeeper in their hearts to watch themselves: am I caring too much? Am I attached again? Am I calm yet?

This is that doorway again.

While doing, there is no need for an unmoving place in the heart that never moves. Each time of doing, the doing is doing itself, with no other driver, manager, approver behind it. The moment of making the call is making the call; the moment it doesn’t get through is it not getting through; the moment of sitting there staring blankly is staring blankly. Behind each moment, there is no second doer. It is not that some thing stays unchanging behind; it is that every moment is like this, without a single exception.

That force of wanting is real; whether to dial the number is another matter. Dial, and there are the consequences of dialing; don’t dial, and there is the pain of not dialing. Wanting does not become false because of this, nor does doing become free to ignore all measure. When wanting, the wanting is whole; when dialing, the dialing is whole; that spell of putting the phone face down and holding back is wholly him too. When the hand is ready to loosen, it will loosen of itself; if it hasn’t loosened, it hasn’t. There never was anyone behind staying back to watch coldly.

Doing is this place, doing now; behind the doing, there is no other being.

Is there still a way out?

When people meet an “I must have it” that can’t be had, they look for a way out. Look at these ways, and where each leads.

Letting go. But the one letting go stands at the door; the more one lets go, the less one can, because “I want to let go” is itself another “I must have it.”

Enjoying the present, allowing everything to happen. But “I want to enjoy the present” is another wanting; the allower is back at the door, notebook in hand, checking whether he has allowed enough today.

Working it out. But knowing does not mean not wanting; having worked it out, people often want all the same.

Getting it. Getting it sometimes really does make things better; but very often, once got, the gap changes shape and waits for the next thing. The lack is not in the thing.

Holding it in, pressing it down, not letting oneself think of it. Pressed down, it still pushes from underneath; pressing is itself an effort, itself a time of being.

Swapping to another wanting. Not wanting her any more, wanting a career instead, a new person, a new calm. Swap and swap, and it is still that same force, pointed another way.

Walk them one by one, and each is another “want”: wanting to let go, wanting to enjoy the present, wanting to work it out, wanting to get it, wanting to hold it in, wanting to swap it. No road leads outside “wanting.”

Having come this far, a person feels backed into a corner: no way out.

Yes, there is no way out. No road leads outside this time of being.

Roads within this time are still growing, one after another: you can not dial the number, you can go and talk to someone, you can move house, you can slowly carry on living. These roads are all real; walk them, and the days will change. Only none of them escapes from “wanting” to the outside of being.

But this corner is exactly the place that has been sought all along.

A way out means going out of one place into another. But outside “wanting” there is no other place. Being has no outside. People struggle desperately to escape from “I must have it” to a place of not wanting, not hurting, calm, thinking that is where being is. But this moment of wanting is already being; this moment of pain is already being; this moment of wanting to escape is already being too. There is no outside to escape to, and so no need to escape.

This is not a solution. It is exactly this: there is no problem here needing to be solved, set outside being. “I must have it” is not a fault outside being, to be repaired before a person can return into being. It is being, in this place, twisting hard.

Whether one sees this clearly or not makes no difference. Seen clearly, that layer of “I’ve been destroyed” sometimes loosens a little; not seen, that layer presses, and the night it presses is fully being too. Being does not wait for this layer to loosen before it is.

Wanting changes too.

Some “musts” come fast and go fast: a garment, a toy, thought about for three days and forgotten on the fourth. Some tangle on for many years: a person, an event, a dream that never came true, and the moment it comes to mind, the heart still tightens. Some slowly become something else: many years later, the must-have-it force is gone, leaving a faint missing, a concern, remembered now and then, and simply remembered. Some, once got, turn out not to be what one wanted; some, never got, in old age one suddenly finds one stopped wanting long ago, and can’t say on what day. And some tangle on until the very last day.

The ones that change fast are being, the ones that change slowly are being, the ones that never change are being, and the ones that have turned into something else are being too. Sometimes a person struggles to make it stop, and it won’t; sometimes, as the days go by, it fades by itself. Doing things—moving house, changing jobs, going to talk to someone—also tugs at it. It changes because it is; being is changing, moving, becoming. Only there is no me standing outside these changes who can give one command and make it never come again.

One more thing must be made clear: “I must have it” is being, but being does not speak well of it on its behalf.

Must-having someone who doesn’t want you, following him to his door, blocking him there, not letting him go; must-having something that isn’t yours, and reaching out to take it; must-having a child grow in your own image, hitting him, scolding him, forcing him. These “musts” are being too; the one blocked at the door, the one whose things are taken, the child forced to grow into someone else’s shape—the pain in their places is being too. Alike in being does not mean alike in good and bad. Wanting can be wholly wanting; whom the reaching hand touches, whom it hurts, where the consequences fall back, are wholly being too, falling on this place and borne by this place. These will be made clear later.

A river comes down from the mountain and is blocked halfway by a great rock. The water does not let go of its pull downhill. Before the rock it rises higher and higher, presses heavier and heavier, swirling as it looks for a crack. Finding a crack, it squeezes through; finding none, it spills over the top of the rock; unable to spill over, it collects there into a pool and waits for a heavy rain.

Water has never “let go.” Nor, when blocked, has there ever been an extra water saying “I’ve been blocked, I’m finished.” Blocked is blocked; collecting is collecting; spilling over is spilling over. Every moment it goes wholly downward, and every moment there is no second one taking the blow.

In autumn, salmon return from the sea to the river where they were born, swimming upstream against the current. The river has waterfalls, one after another, the water crashing down, white and churning. Again and again they leap up, get washed back, leap again. Some get over; some leap many times and never get over, and in the end, their strength used up, they stop at the foot of the falls.

Every fish leaps wholly. The one that got over is being, the one that didn’t is being too; the moment of leaping is full; the moment of being washed back is full too. No fish at the foot of the falls thinks: have I lived my whole life for nothing?

These beings are all must-having. Their must-having is more single-minded than any person’s. Yet in their must-having there is only the wanting itself, no destroyed “I” behind it.

Where people differ from them is that people hurt in two layers: one, wanting meeting emptiness; the other, “I’ve been destroyed.” The first layer is being; the second is being too, something extra grown in this place. Neither is outside being. Only, seeing that the second layer arrives afterward, people sometimes carry a little less; not seeing it, it is the same: both are being.

That night he dialed twice, and no one answered. He put the phone face down on the bed and sat a long time.

Later, as it was getting light, he lay down and slept a while. When he woke, someone outside the window was sweeping, one stroke, another. He lay listening a while, got up, washed his face, and went to work.

That name is still in his phone. He is still here too.