November 1_Breaking Habits

Breaking Habits

Let us find out how to understand this whole process of habit forming and  habit  breaking.  We  can  take  the  example  of  smoking,  and  you  cansubstitute  your  own  habit,  your  own  particular  problem,  and  experimentwith your own problem directly as I amexperimenting with the problem of smoking. It is a problem, it becomes a problem, when I want to give itup;as long as I am satisfied with it, it is not a problem.The problem ariseswhen  I  have  to  do  something  about  a particular  habit,  when  the  habitbecomes a disturbance. Smoking has created adisturbance, so I want to be free of it. I want to stop smoking; I want to be rid of it, to put itaside, so my approach to smoking is one ofresistance or condemnation. That is, I don’t want to smoke, so my approach is either to suppress it, condemn it, or to find a substitute for it—instead of smoking, to chew. Now, can I lookat the problem free ofcondemnation, justification, or suppression? Can I look atmy smoking without any sense of rejection? Try toexperiment with it now as I am talking, and you will see how extraordinarily difficult it is not to reject  or  accept.  Because,  our  whole  tradition,  our  whole  background,  isurging us to reject or to justify rather than to becurious about it. Instead of being passively watchful, the mind always operates on the problem.