In the Spring Festival I just attended at the Kadampa World Peace temple in the Lake District in England (laid back, relaxed, good Dharma, lovely Sangha, blessings all over), Gen-la Dekyong gave a talk on Friday night about the deceptive nature of samsara’s pleasures. In general, people think they will find happiness in eating, drinking, sexual activity, or watching television, or in a good job or nice relationship, or in lots of money, or even more money, or in a good reputation. If I have all this, we think, I will be happy, so we put all our energy into it. But we can see that even people who have managed to get a lot or even all of these things together are still not happy.
Thinking this through I have concluded, not for the first time, that the same does indeed apply to all the other things we grasp at for pleasure, without exception. We’ve tried it all enough times, in this life and in countless previous lives – trying to find happiness in things or people outside the mind. Every time we get excited, “Perhaps this is it! This is the ultimate café, town to live in, relationship, weather, job!!” But it never lasts, does it?
I think we have to check this point carefully, not in an abstract way but based on our own activities and experiences at the moment – where are we investing our happiness? For example, what did you do today? Did it deliver the goods? Or was it more reminiscent of the words of Venerable Atisha:
Friends, the things you desire give no more contentment than drinking saltwater.
(And we are not even talking here about the problems of samsara, just the pleasures!! Which can often end up, weirdly, amounting to the same thing.)
Okay, I’ll start. I was just contemplating this all a bit earlier on this plane when my vegetarian Asian dinner arrived, a delicious BA curry, so much tastier than the stodgy pasta and dead chickens that all those meat-eaters have to eat! Ravenous after several hours of packing, traveling, security, and powerlessly waiting around, I eagerly stopped what I was doing (actually writing this), put lime pickle all over it, and shoved it in my mouth, barely managing to remember that it was not an actual cause of happiness, even though I had just been thinking about this subject. The first few mouthfuls were fine and dandy, then, hunger pangs abating, it already got a bit boring, and I started to toy with it, roll it around on my fork, and wonder, “What exactly is this?”, and “What shall I eat next?” One mouthful of the lemon cake was more than enough. To eat the bread roll or not to eat it, that was the next question. I decided not, but I have hedged my bets by buttering it and
But my search for happiness on this flight is not over yet. Nowhere near. I still have 7 hours and 47 minutes to go. (And that’s just the first leg, getting me from London to San Francisco just so I can get on a whole other flight backward eastward to Denver, don’t even ask … ) When I watch a movie later, it may moreorless entertain me and keep me awake, but by the time I crawl into bed 5am UK time, I won’t feel I have accomplished much, really — just gone from A to C and back to B, killing time. If on the other hand I used this time in the sky
Gen-la Dekyong went onto quote the verse from Je Tsongkhapa’s Prayer of the Stages of the Path:
Samsara’s pleasures are deceptive
Give no contentment, only torment.
If we believed this from our own experience, we could reach a conclusion: “I don’t want artificial happiness. I want the real thing!” So what is the happiness we experience when we eat? It is actually just a reduction in our previous suffering of hunger. Buddha says that in this world no one has real happiness and their actions cause suffering. But we keep looking; we are absolutely convinced that within this cycle of impure life we can find happiness.
I find it very helpful to consider how happiness could ever possibly come from outside the mind when there isn’t anything outside the mind to begin with?! Attachment is based on ignorance, grasping at (pleasant) things outside the mind, so no wonder it is futile.
We can remember the story of the thief rummaging around in Milarepa’s cave at night to find something to steal, only to hear Milarepa’s voice: “I cannot even find anything in here worth stealing in the daytime!” Buddhas in the light of their omniscient wisdom have searched and failed to find any real happiness in samsara, so what hope do we have in the darkness of our ignorance?
Over to you, do you think we can find happiness in objects and people outside the mind?
21 Comments
Hi Luna, I think this particular teaching has started to resonate with me more this retreat season as my Heruka practice had become short and stagnate and our centre engaged in a Vajrayogini retreat. I felt during this retreat my inner spiritual being come alive again and connect more strongly with virteous minds. Gone were the feelings of ordinary mundane leading me to get hits from external attachments… pure relief !
🙂
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Thank you for sharing this. Wishing you a happy day filled with real happiness.
Thankyou!!!
Changing suffering has many degrees and is very pervasive. It isn’t only the pleasant feelings from regular enjoyments like food, music or companions, but even the slightest pleasant feelings that arise from a temporary diminution of even the slightest manifest pain, like when we adjust how we’re sitting, or when we distract ourself to relieve our mind from the pain of trying to have a still mind.
Generally speaking, we need these pleasures in order to be able to focus on the spiritual path, because when we have intense manifest pain it is hard to pay attention to anything else. This is why the human realm is ideal for training the mind. Once we conclude that temporary pleasure is really suffering, we develop a longing for permanent liberation. We actually start to understand what it means to find refuge in the pleasant feelings of virtuous minds. The renunciate can accepts good and bad conditions as entirely natural in samsara, and know their happiness comes from sustaining the continuum of virtuous minds. Contentment comes, so it is easier to enjoy without increasing attachment. Knowing that liberation requires merit, they constantly offer their enjoyment to the Guru in their heart, and the appearance itself of enjoyment increases their longing for permanent non-deceptive enjoyment. This gives the renunciate enough mental space and the impetus to delight frequently in the Union of the two truths.
Then we don’t think too much about changing sufferings, we just experience them within the context of our virtuous inner paths. How kind the Guru is!
Wonderful comment, thank you.
We make things up based upon our karma, mistakenly project a false reality and foolishly expect satisfaction, not too mention true happiness! Once we are aware of this ignorance we can choose to create a different reality based upon wisdom and fueled by compassion and loving-kindness. The article points out how our decision to remain ignorant is a cause of what appearances to mind we electively grasp on to. Like grasping a fist full of sand the temporary pleasures of samara eventually fall from between our fingers!
I vote for the blissful journey gained by realizing emptiness and then never to be fooled again by defective appearances to mind dressed up as a good time. We are so good at trying to make samara work we get caught up in it when things are going well. I wish I had a mental idiot light like the one on the dashboard of my car to warn me when I am being fooled. This article is such a reminder of the deception of samara’s pleasures. Thanks for a wonderful reminder of what I am supposed to be doing. Escaping samara not wallowing in it’s deception!
I always enjoy your comments, Ike! Keep them coming …
Great, hilarious piece. What about the pleasure of helping others, though? Doesn’t making other beings happy (for instance, making them laugh while reading a funny posting) cause real happiness?
I hope so 😉
I keep thinking of the little hamster on his wheel, samsara never changes, and the variety of special poisons are in a constant state of flux. More and more my dharma practice helps me to let go of some of the poisons…but that voice…self-grasping and her evil twin, self-cherishing (love this @joann100) keeps me in the mix. Thanks for this Luna!!
“Cyclic” existence, indeed.
Omg I so giggled all through this I see the same on the trains buses in sweet shops in smoking and drinking and I think to myself self cherishing causes more self cherishing and more self cherishing causes more pain as there is never happiness in self cherishing as your ultimate goal 🙂 I have just had a free day to sit in the garden to enjoy the sunshine which I took pleasure in while I sent out a healing thought for a young man who has stomach cancer and another lady suffering with mental illness for thinking of others with love and compassion takes away all desire to self cherish x
Yes, cherishing others does work every time.
just when i think
that they are making
me happy…
i think something
else 🙂
That’s true too.
thank you for sharing!
Thank you for reading.
I know we can’t find happiness in samsara, yet there is a little voice inside my head that keeps trying to convince me otherwise. Who is that voice, and why are they trying so hard to convince me that I will find happiness in the next samsaric pleasure? Oh yeah, it’s self-grasping along with her evil twin self-cherishing! They sure are annoying and persistent, but I’m determined to not let them win!
Ha ha! Like it.