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Hope

I picked up a tweet today about hope and it led to some interesting thoughts for me and possibly some future warm discussions. A central theme of the article is this:

‘In my experience and spiritual practice I’ve found hope is not a good thing. It’s limits ones spiritual development. It isn’t good because it in fact is a very subtle form of desire and control that makes us cling to our sense of self and our suffering, prolongs our suffering and keeps us suffering. It is an illusion of a sense of control that we don’t actually have. Hope is nothing, it’s not even a tangible ‘anything’, it’s just a subtle desire for a future positive event or away from a future negative event.’

There were comments on the site, many agreeing. And this one here too, not-so agreeing.

‘I’m sorry but you have misunderstood something here. You are discussing the ultimate truth in terms of the relative. Ultimately, we wish to cling to nothing, but in the relative world everyone needs some hope. The problem for many people today is that they lack hope. I find your message here rather nihilistic and that is not what Buddhism is about. The enemy we face is clinging not potential objects for clinging. This is a fine point that many seem to miss.’

Wadaya reckon?

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