Why It's Never Enough | A Meditation for Never Feeling Satisfied

[00:00:00][music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] All right, you have found yourself a sturdy and comfortable seated position.

[00:01:10]Your eyes are either closed or open.

[00:01:17]And if they are open, your gaze is directed softly and clearly downwards.

[00:01:36]So much of our life is focused or rather obsessed with gaining We treat life as this thing to get one up on to hack to get ahead.

[00:01:59]Meditation practice is not that.

[00:02:04]We are not getting better.

[00:02:09]We're not trying to become anything.

[00:02:14]In fact, meditation can be said to be the one thing we do for no reason at all because we are always striving ceaselessly without rest.

[00:02:29]Always trying to fix ourselves and fill that emotional hole that we always feel.

[00:02:42]Now meditation is simply being for no reason, no purpose, no future.

[00:02:54]It's being right here in this moment.

[00:03:02]It's not asking anything from the universe.

[00:03:09]Instead of always seeking something, we put it all down for no reason at all.

[00:03:29]And you may find yourself now agreeing or disagreeing with what I'm saying.

[00:03:37]And again, that isn't part of this either.

[00:03:46]We're just here to be nothing more completely ordinary.

[00:04:03]So I invite you to find the breath Wherever you feel it the most.

[00:04:15]You can feel the breath going in and out of the nostrils, the expanding and the contracting of the chest or abdomen, or the rising and falling of the lower belly.

[00:04:41]And your task here is simple.

[00:04:48]Your duty, you know, in other words, is clear.

[00:04:55]Follow the breath.

[00:04:59]In and out.

[00:05:59]And I'm probably catching you thinking right now. I've interrupted you talking to yourself in your head.

[00:06:09]And that's okay. This is normal.

[00:06:15]In fact, it's the reason we suffer because instead of just being, we decide to listen to the voice and follow it.

[00:06:27]Thoughts of the future and the past, what we want, what we don't want, who we like, what we don't like.

[00:06:36]Endless unsatisfactoriness.

[00:06:42]So again, your task is very clear and simple. When you notice that you are lost in thought, thinking about this or that, just return to the breath again for no reason at all.

[00:07:02]In and out.

[00:08:00]Come back.

[00:08:04]Come back to breathing.

[00:11:00]You are here.

[00:11:06]Return to the breath in and out.

[00:15:03]We are not waiting for thoughts to be quiet in order for us to notice the breath.

[00:15:13]We are not quieting the mind or hoping that the mind will soon stop talking.

[00:15:23]We allow thoughts to come and go.

[00:15:28]We let the mind chatter and think about whatever it wants to.

[00:15:34]You just don't have to give it your attention.

[00:15:39]We allow the attention to be with the breath instead.

[00:15:46]And if you're a beginner at this, this isn't so easy. And that's okay. It takes time to learn this.

[00:15:55]But do not expect your thoughts to quiet down.

[00:16:01]Let them do what they want.

[00:16:04]Let the mind think what it wants to.

[00:16:09]As the famous line goes, during meditation, leave the front door and the back door of your mind completely open.

[00:16:20]Let thoughts come and go as they please.

[00:16:24]Just don't serve them any tea because then they will want to stay.

[00:16:34]Notice the breath.

[00:16:37]As thinking happens, simply leave it alone for no reason at all.

[00:16:50]In.

[00:16:53]Out.

[00:16:57]In.

[00:17:01]Out.

[00:20:01]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Now, I'm not here to promote Buddhism or anything like that or this is a very secular channel. However, there's a lot to be learned from the traditions that give us meditation.

[00:21:16]Buddhism being one of them. There are many.

[00:21:21]And what uh what I think is really on point here is what the Buddha said, of course, in his four noble truths about the human experience or the human predicaments.

[00:21:37]And he says life is duka. And the word dooka usually is translated into suffering which isn't the best for our western ears. It's very like we think of pain and hurt and stuff like that. But really dooka means more unsatisfactoriness.

[00:21:56]It means the faster we try to get stuff, the better, the less we feel inside.

[00:22:05]Because everything we do in life, we're going to we're going to lose, right?

[00:22:10]All of your achievements, all of your attainments after you die, you lose them all. You can't take them with you.

[00:22:16]Everybody that you love will disappear one day. Everything that you have won't be yours one time. And in life, things come and go, right? Money comes and goes. People come and go. Life comes and goes. And the problem that we have is that we hold on to it very tightly and expect things to stay and when they don't we seek something else.

[00:22:44]Now the second noble truth of um of the Buddha said is that life is unsatisfactory because of desire.

[00:23:01]And it's something that we miss out as human beings a lot. There's this kind of subconscious belief that if I gain something then I'll be happy.

[00:23:13]To a certain extent this is true of course if you you know you need to have certain amount of well-being like a good social economics place you you know economically financially your health is in a good place but even then you can you can actually be very well even difficult situations but desire itself is actually painful and we seek to alleviate that pain by getting the object of our desire.

[00:23:48]Especially these days where boredom for instance is painful. So we pick up a phone and release bored boredom. We go straight into relieving that pain, that desire to get to do something. So let me relieve it. Bam.

[00:24:05]But how does that feel when we start scrolling and then we stop? Do we feel like we fulfilled something?

[00:24:12]No, we feel a little bit empty.

[00:24:15]And in in other things, you know, a lot of people have this anticlimactic feeling towards the achievements in life. They spend their entire life reaching for something and when they get it, they realize, oh, well, life, you know, maybe after a couple weeks or even a year, life kind of just becomes life again. It just feels the same, you know, and it's because we don't see something very simple in our lives.

[00:24:45]We think that getting the object of our desire is what's making us happy temporarily. But of course that that happiness fades and so we try to get something else. We desire something new, something novel, a new whatever.

[00:25:01]And we don't see that when we achieve that object of desire say it's sex or cake or a job promotion when we get that the belief is oh it's because of this thing that I am now happy I have fulfilled something within me and now I'm here but what we miss is that it's not the object that gave us happiness it's that desire itself as temporarily lifted upon achieving that desire. When we get it, we're no longer having this feeling of want, which is painful.

[00:25:42]I want this in life. I want that in life. I don't like this.

[00:25:46]Also, avoidance is a form of wanting.

[00:25:49]So, things that are negative or things that are difficult in life, we don't want them. We don't like that.

[00:25:57]But it's this whole wanting diswing this dislike like mind this desiring mind that actually is what is the problem here.

[00:26:09]So we have a whole culture a whole human race that is frequently and actively trying to fill an empty void inside. Whether that be eating too much, just consuming, consuming, consuming, feeling this empty emotional hole, or whether that be achieving, getting into the job, getting into your career, or whether that be going out and getting as many experiences as you can with friends, or whatever it is, we're trying to distract and fill this emotional hole inside by achieving the objects of our desire without noticing that it's not the object. objects that are making us happy temporarily. It's the sensation of desire itself.

[00:27:01]When we sit in meditation practice, this is why I emphasize for no reason at all.

[00:27:06]When we sit and practice, we are willingly letting go of the wanting thing. The one that wants something, the one that is always trying to reach for this desire, that desire, this want, that want. Even if it's a spiritual want, you want some spiritual enlightenment, some big opening and awakening experience. That is desire. That is wanting as Sunangim would say when he there's a book on it. Wanting enlightenment is a big mistake because that actual effort that actual sense of wanting is why we suffer.

[00:27:49]That's the pain that we feel. We don't know this desire. So when we sit in practice, we let go of thinking.

[00:27:59]The little mind that's talking here, there, wanting that, wanting this, going over there, what what are we going to do for dinner? That little chatter box is the desire factory.

[00:28:12]It's the thing telling you that you need to stop d, you know, drinking coke and switch to diet coke. It's the one telling you you need to go to the gym more or that you need to get this job or that you want this or you don't want that.

[00:28:27]When we leave that voice alone and just come back to the breath to this moment, then we can actually find a sense of contentment of well-being that is derived when we let go of our desires, of our wants, and of our striving.

[00:28:51]When we can see through practice that this what we desire which is the s the sessation of desire really it's happiness which is the sens the sessation of desire is already achieved if we just stop just stop and put it down and just be here Now, now be careful.

[00:29:25]If you're new to meditation or if you're you're knowledgeable of meditation, you know that there's also the the um the possibility of wanting to stop wanting the desire to become desireless.

[00:29:41]the desire to learn the desireless state.

[00:29:47]We put that down as well.

[00:29:51]Which is why I emphasize no reason at all. No reason at all.

[00:29:59]So don't if you practice for a reason, your mind's on the future. It's more desire and you're trying to achieve and you will not be practicing. You will be unsatisfied.

[00:30:09]In the same way that when you want that chocolate cake, it tastes so good and you get the ice cream and it's even better and you go to sleep at night and you feel like crap and you're wondering why you did that.

[00:30:23]Happiness doesn't come from the achievement of our desires.

[00:30:27]Well-being and contentment come when we see through them.

[00:30:33]It's just noise.

[00:30:36]It's just a little carrot hanging above the donkey. Don't chase it.

[00:30:43]Put it down.

[00:30:45]And that is our [music] practice.

[00:30:50]Now, as you may know, if you like what I'm doing here, what we do here, this is a completely free platform. There are no ads. I will never give you an ad. But there is a Patreon if you want to have a place to support your practice even deeper. We do live practices together. There's other videos that are longer, other things on there.

[00:31:13]It's in the description below.

[00:31:16]But again, thank you for your time today and I will see [music] you Wednesday.

[00:31:25][music] >> [music]