To avoid suffering

Life is full of different kinds of events and experiences. Joy mixed with sorrow. Positive feelings and negative feelings. Successes and adversities. How we experience these is different for all of us, but one thing we all have in common is the desire to avoid suffering. I don’t believe anyone wakes up in the morning and thinks "May I be subjected to pain and suffering for the whole of this miserable day “.

Our efforts to escape suffering are different. Everyone has their own unique circumstances and abilities. We all have different needs which we try to meet in different ways. If every person and every life is unique, then can there really be a universal formula for how to find this sense of pleasure? Actually there is!

The Root Truth

Every sentient being searches for a deep feeling of satisfaction and inner peace.

Contentment

It is tempting to believe that contentment is something you find after achieving certain goals. I think that’s often the picture we have of the concept of happiness. "If only I could achieve my goals I would be happy." This is one of the reasons that I don’t like using the word happiness. Its meaning has become too much associated with things people chase after: car, house, family, career, wealth, beauty, vacation, social recognition, partner, fame and so on. Instead, I prefer the word contentment. Contentment is something you experience when you peel away all the meaning of all these material things and accomplishments - something you achieve by stopping trying to achieve, you could say.

There is nothing wrong with material prosperity, being socially respected, having an expensive car, a loving relationship or fine art on the walls. However, these are not the things that lead to contentment. It is a common but misleading idea to believe that. Letting go of this idea is an important part of creating a deeper feeling of contentment than you can get from material things, experiences and achievements whether at work or in private life. The less this feeling of contentment is dependent on external circumstances, the less sensitive it is to change.

Experiencing this vital feeling of deep satisfaction doesn’t mean that you will be free from emotional expression or fluctuations in your emotional life. Nor does it mean sitting apathetically in a corner and being bored. Actually it is a fundamental state that stabilises every other emotion. Like the depths of the sea give rise to the waves.

The Truth About Contentment

You cannot find true satisfaction and contentment outside of yourself!

Our Nature

Sometimes it’s hard to feel it – when everything is spinning round and life feels chaotic. It’s hard to feel that your natural state is silence and calm. This truth can be hard to absorb when emotions of stress, not having enough, fear of failure or generally unfounded feelings of dissatisfaction with life dominate your days. Perhaps you think you can’t experience positive feelings if you don’t also go through negative feelings as well.

And, yes on a superficial level, you are right. There have to be negative feelings in our life. They help us to avoid pain and physical damage. They force us to learn from our mistakes. They help us to survive. I am thinking about the pain when you burn yourself, the cold when you fall into ice-cold water, the hunger when energy levels are low, the worry when there is not enough money for basic necessities and the deep wound when someone close to you hurts you.

Negative feelings are control signals that force you to act so that the chances of survival don’t decrease. These feelings are about reactions to changes in your external circumstances. When these external circumstances do not need attention, there is no reason for any sentient being to experience negative feelings of any kind. Suffering is basically only a driving force for preserving life. A driving force for change and adaptation.

The natural state of the mind therefore must be related to positive feelings and the trust that everything will be alright. You will survive. Being at rest is a much more effective life strategy than being in a state of stress. Therefore the base state for a sentient being must be a feeling of satisfaction and inner peace. Or in other words, contentment.

Based on a positive foundation, stress and negative feelings are necessary but stress exhausts our biological systems and is only thought to be useful when survival is at stake. Any other approach would be counterproductive to our survival.

The truth about our nature

A deep sense of satisfaction and inner peace is the innermost nature of every sentient being.

The realisation of our innermost nature

It may sound very simple; to say that our most natural state is equilibrium, tranquility. Positive feelings. Harmony. A deep feeling of satisfaction, well-being and contentment. So why don’t we feel like that all the time? Is it even possible to feel like that all the time? Even when life is at its most hectic?

My understanding of the reason why we do not, is that we don’t really understand the basic mechanisms of ourselves! The first step then is to deal with this lack of knowledge. We need to understand our prerequisites. We need to understand how our emotional life is influenced by external and internal factors – and how our emotional life affects our thoughts and actions. In order to change this negative emotional state and get to a new, more peaceful place we need to have a completely new map. But that is not enough – we also need to interpret our map and find our starting point. The red dot that means, “You are here”.

The Aim of the Book

The aim of the book is to provide you with the tools to tackle the obstacles to realising your innermost nature.

Feelings and behaviour

What would happen if you saw life as something to practise instead of something to live? What would happen if you saw it as a painting that was never finished but was beautiful anyway? Or as a jig-saw puzzle for which you get the pieces in stages and which maybe never gets finished? What if you practise or create your life instead of living it, how would this change your experience of life?

What really controls your behaviour? What makes you act or react? What controls your decision-making process? Why do you sometimes do precisely what you know you shouldn’t?

What is your reasoning and what are your feelings when you decide on something? These are important questions. Let’s devote the next chapter to how feelings control your behaviour.

Two rules for change

1 If you really want to change your way of living then you need to change your way of looking at life.

2 If you really want to change your behaviour then you need to change your feelings. Feelings are the driving force of life!