What is maitri – working with addiction?
The view that is presented in the Buddhist teachings is not one of becoming a better person, or finally getting it right, but is a view based on trusting what we already have, of starting and staying where we already are. So with letting go of an addiction, the instruction is the same, it is instruction to get in touch with our basic nature, to get in touch with the basic energy of the moment in which we are all caught up. Addictions can be to anything: we can use this process with what we traditionally call addictions or we can use this working with so-called negative feelings of all kinds. The moment in which we give in to our addictions is a moment in which we are all caught up —in which there is tremendous karmic momentum to go forward in the same old way —to scratch the wound. This can be a wound which really bothers us —we can see the wound bleeding, we can see it getting worse and we will not stop scratching. We can actually even feel quite nauseated by what we are doing, but we
