Difficulties - Wonderlands in Disguise!

     We all have the capacity to experience, embody & stabilize a qualitatively different aspect of our consciousness when we intentionally not react to desire eg scratching an itchy nose, or otherwise moving to get more comfortable, but instead respond with curiosity, closely observing what happens to that desire. This is a key component of meditation practice and evolution of consciousness.

     "... the human species possesses – has within its physical being – the capacity for a mode of conscious awareness that is qualitatively different from our ordinary form of consciousness.

      … getting caught up in our desires … we create suffering. … the mind says, 'I want something, I’ve got to have something.' So … as we buy into different forms of desire, we create the causes of dissatisfaction. … 

     'If you learn to watch desire, see it come and see it go, then that's the way to not create the causes of suffering. That's the basic engine of insight and liberation, seeing that desire arises and passes away and realizing that you don't have to be swept up in it.'

     Later, while sitting in meditation and feeling hungry, Ajahn Amaro noticed that he really wanted to have some pineapple. So he returned his attention to breathing, and noticed that his mind got caught up with something else. Then he "suddenly realized 'Oh, I’ve forgotten about the pineapple.' What hit him was that, Ah, I didn’t get the pineapple, and nothing is missing. That was a huge 'Aha!’ experience. … That’s it! All you’ve got to do is stay with this (practice) and it will be the way out."
       Richard P. Boyle. “Realizing Awakened Consciousness. Interviews with Buddhist Teachers and a New Perspective on the Mind.” Columbia University Press, NY, 2015. 

    Other perspectives: http://jglovas.wixsite.com/awarenessnow/single-post/2017/02/01/Difficulties---Objects-of-Meditation
     and: http://www.johnlovas.com/2015/08/desire-craving-clinging-suffering.html

Frida Kahlo