JW: Right. You don't say what you want because you don’t want to be seen as needy. You’re trying to be nonattached. But that is like an unripe fruit trying to detach itself prematurely from the branch and hurl itself to the ground instead of gradually ripening to the point where it’s naturally ready to let go.
The question for dharma practitioners is how to ripen so that we become naturally ready to let go of clinging to self, just as a ripe fruit naturally lets go of the branch and falls to the ground. Our dharma practices of wisdom and compassion definitely help with this ripening. But if we’re using our practice to avoid our feeling life, this will definitely stunt the ripening process, rather than support it.