Ultimate & Temporary Happiness: The 1st Noble Truth

I recieved a question on one of my courses about the First Noble Truth. I got to approach it from the view points of Ultimate versus temporary satisfaction and how we use these in our daily life and meditation to further our practice and understand the Buddhist Viewpoint.

Transcript

I had a student on one of my courses on the Insight Timer ask a very interesting question that allowed me to talk about the first noble truth in a different kind of way.

Talking about it in terms of momentary satisfaction and temporary happiness compared to the viewpoint and practice of ultimate satisfaction.

I'm going to read through their question and then walk through my reply of it.

I hope this is helpful to anyone starting out on the path and studies of Buddhism or meditation as I feel as though it can be quite helpful in overcoming some of the beginning confusions surrounding this,

Specifically on the cushion.

The question is as follows.

Recognizing that my needs,

Wants,

And desires lead to my inability to change to a state of contentment feels like a paradox.

I am a solution seeker.

If I am discontent or suffering,

I seek to find out why and change it so I can become comfortable again.

Other times,

For example,

When exercising,

Working,

Or being creative,

I can get lost in the distraction and not be content or discontent.

Just be.

But I also know I can find happiness in those same activities.

But if I seek to recreate the process that brings me to my happiness,

I am only setting the stage for suffering.

Or I think that's how to interpret it,

According to the First Noble Truth.

I am new to this.

Am I interpreting this correctly?

To be clear on my thought process on this,

Experience falls within a spectrum from suffering to contentment to bliss.

For example,

Sadness,

Comfort,

And happiness respectively.

When I try to move to the bliss end of the spectrum,

Such as when I attempt to recreate a past experience,

I am setting the stage for suffering.

Because I will either not achieve that bliss,

Experience,

Or the experience will make all my other experiences pale in comparison,

Leaving me wanting until my next bliss experience.

That's a question.

I think that that is an absolutely phenomenal question,

Especially for someone that is just beginning their meditations or just beginning to look into Buddhism.

So bravo to this student.

They did a wonderful job.

And if you missed some part of the question,

Or I read through it too quickly,

Don't worry because I'm going to go through the question line by line and talk about it.

In the question she asks,

Recognizing that my wants,

Needs,

Desires lead to my inability to change to a state of contentment feels like a paradox.

To that I would say,

Ask yourself the question,

Why are you wanting?

Why are you needing?

Where do these desires come from?

Why are you discontent with reality as it is exactly right here and right now?

And so continue to seek out happiness other than that which is infinitely and freely offered at all times and places,

Directly.

This is not to say that we cannot be hungry,

Get sad when friends die,

And have a preference that we kind of have to be like a statue,

But on the ultimate and immediate level,

Try and think about where these cravings come from and why do they never stop coming when we apply the same logic that we always have to them?

Why are we never truly and forever satisfied by these attempts at filling that void?

The reason it feels like a paradox is because in our everyday life,

Most of us have spent the entirety of it chasing the sunset in hopes of catching the sun,

Thinking we have caught up a little when it's only the faintest and most distant warmth of it.

The question continues,

I am a solution seeker.

If I am discontent or suffering,

I seek to find out why and change it so that I can be comfortable again.

The end of that part of the question.

To that I'd say yes,

That's great,

You're a seeker.

So when you are hungry you eat,

And when you're tired you sleep.

But do you do just those things?

Or are you caught up in thoughts of the future,

Or ruminations of the past?

Are you fully engaged in those activities,

Or does the mind forever pull you to other places?

To what you need to do next,

To what you need to do that day,

To what you need to do tomorrow,

To what you did yesterday,

Or an experience that you had ten years ago.

How long does that comfort truly last?

I'd say seek out the root and the seed of those sufferings.

Where do all of these cravings stem from?

What is the root of all suffering and discontent,

And what can we do to do more than just put the most fleeting of band-aids on them?

Buddha told us what the root was,

But he also told us that we must be the ones to discover this fact on our own,

And that we shouldn't follow his advice because we thought of him special or having some grand thing,

Or because he was the teacher.

We do so through meditation,

And through our own practice.

We discover these things and do so through the radically direct observation of reality in this moment,

And the yoking of the mind.

The question then continued,

Other times,

For example,

When exercising,

Working,

Or being creative,

I can get lost in the distraction,

And not be content or discontent.

Just be.

End of that part of the question.

To that I say,

Yes.

The reason is,

Because you are much more fully engaged in this moment,

And your mind and body can't be engaged in the future or of the past,

But must be engaged in that very moment,

You are neither content nor discontent as you say.

You are beyond craving and before craving.

You are in a state which gives you a drop of rain in kind of the desert of suffering that our existence is most of the time.

You're not dissatisfied because you are radically engaged in this very moment.

You're concentrated.

The question continued,

But I also know I can find happiness in those same activities.

End of that portion of the question.

To that I say,

Yes.

But this happiness is not the same as other happinesses.

As you said,

I can get lost in the distraction and not be content or discontent.

Just be.

It's not that you are lost in a distraction,

But you're radically engaged.

The other forms of happiness that you're using as kind of a band-aid are getting lost in a distraction,

Momentarily.

This same pleasantness that you're experiencing where you're neither content nor discontent can be achieved and pushed to radical levels of you in samatha or shamatha,

Which is concentration style meditation,

Which can then be utilized in a different way through vipassana or insight meditation to investigate reality through the mind and body,

Cause and effect,

Dissatisfaction,

No self and impermanence.

What we discover and what the Buddha discovered is that when we are in those states of concentration,

We can escape suffering for a little while,

But the moment we come back into the everyday life,

All of it comes flooding back in,

Which can cause people to kind of become addicted to these concentration states,

But that's another thing entirely.

So he discovered,

And what we must practice to understand down to our marrow is that if we wish to be free of this underlying and ever present dissatisfaction is through the investigation of reality,

Which can be rather awful and not fun at all at times,

But leads to sustained and continuous freedom from that dissatisfaction rather than fleeting and temporary relief.

The question continues,

But if I seek to recreate the process that brings me to my happiness,

I am only setting the stage for suffering,

Or I think that's how to interpret it according to the first noble truth.

I'm new to this,

Am I interpreting this correctly?

End of that part of the question.

To that portion I say,

Yes.

Even the incredible blissful states of concentration in the highest of jhanas I think become boring and old news to us after a while,

Again,

Unless we become addicted to them,

Which can be incredibly dreadful and really really really really stunt your practice if they really grab hold of you.

Yes,

You are setting the stage for dissatisfaction,

For dukkha,

For suffering,

Whatever you want to say,

Because the temporary reliefs work less and less and less.

So yes,

You are understanding it correctly,

But there is still many aspects that I'm sure I'm leaving out and other practitioners and scholars will bring them up elsewhere,

I'm sure.

The question then continues,

To be clear on my thought process on this,

Experiences fall within a spectrum from suffering to contentment to bliss,

For example,

Sadness,

Comfort and happiness respectively.

When I try to move to the bliss end of the spectrum,

Such as when I attempt to recreate a past experience,

I am setting the stage for suffering,

Because I will either not achieve that bliss experience or the experience will make all of my other experiences pale in comparison.

Leaving me wanting until my next bliss experience.

End of that portion of the question.

And to that I answer.

The only thing I would change or comment on here is this.

The contentment to bliss scale is one in which it's contained within the material world,

A viewpoint which is future and past oriented,

Rather than ultimately oriented.

Trying to eat ice cream to attain lasting bliss will never work,

In fact,

Trying to do so will only make you sick and you will be begging to stop eating ice cream,

I think relatively quickly if you're attempting to do this.

Making more and more money will never make you forever truly happy.

You will always find more things to be dissatisfied with,

Trying to stay happy this way,

And this will fly between the peak moments of bliss down to depression and dissatisfaction.

Which is why we must root out the seed that causes all of this rather than just trying to trim it.

This is what we are doing in meditation.

Little by little.

This is what we are being mindful of.

I really liked this question and I think you're poking at something incredible and scraping at the ground of insight here.

To everyone listening,

Keep at your meditation and I would say up the dose a little if you're finding it too,

I don't know,

Not impressive enough,

Not hard enough,

Anything,

5 minutes,

10 minutes,

Half an hour,

Whatever feels comfortable to you.

But if you can,

Take a radical investigation of reality,

Your breath,

The moment,

As best you can and do fundamental meditative practices in high dose.

If there are any questions on this or anything,

Questions on anything I said,

Please ask.

I hope this helps a little for anyone that is curious out there about the First Noble Truth or the way in which satisfaction and dissatisfaction are viewed in one sense on the material and kind of the ordinary way of viewing them and on the other hand the ultimate sense of satisfaction.

Thank you and have a great day.

Reviews

Always thoroughly enjoy your talks, you present complex ideas about reality in an engaging and understandable fashion

Wonderful explanation for this beginner

Excellent question and excellent answer. However, it all moves rather too fast. It would be helpful to slow it down and use pauses to allow people to take in the complexity and information. This is a foundational principle of public speaking. These are not simple concepts for the uninitiated. The entire thing sounds like you're reading it rather than a discourse. Optionally, one more example in your answer to each part of the question might also help illuminate the points you're trying to make and help the listener understand that teaching. Well done otherwise.

Beautiful response to a great question👍🏼🙏🏼. Just keep at meditating 🧎‍♀️ Just Be!

Excellent question and response! Step outside attraction, aversion, the past, the future, and comparisons. Just be 🙏🏻🙏🏻

My dissatisfaction came I think when I found myself contained within an ego driven body. My higher self needed to find its way back to the connection with the Divine. That was reestablished through meditation and Buddhism. Thank you for a wonderful talk. Time with you is always well spent.

Thank you to both you and the questioner. Most helpful.💕
Namaste 🙏🏼

Thank you for your profound words and knowledge!