Delight in the Dhamma

October 02, 2024

You may have noticed a phrase in the sutta we chanted just now—“The cause of suffering is craving accompanied by passion and delight”—which makes it sound as if all delight is bad, which sounds pretty discouraging.

Does the Buddha want us to have a totally equanimous blank emotional state? The answer is, “No.” He actually recommends six kinds of delight on the path—and not just for the path. He says these kinds of delight can take you all the way to the ending of the effluents. There are passages that talk about where the Buddha himself delights in some of these things even after his awakening.

The first topic is delight in the Dhamma—the fact that we have a Dhamma that teaches the way to true happiness. It wasn’t just thought up by somebody someplace. It was discovered, after lots of experimentation, on the part of the Buddha. And it’s been verified by many, many other people over the centuries.

Think about the Buddha’s position after his awakening: He had found a state that was not conditioned by anything at all. Most of our ideas are conditioned by our perceptions coming in from our past background. But the Buddha was able to find something that was totally independent of his past background. That’s why his teachings are true.

He came back to the experience of the six senses from a different perspective entirely. He could see clearly what led to the deathless and what did not lead to the deathless. This had nothing to do with his preconceived notions.

So we can delight in the fact that there is such a Dhamma. And it explains things very clearly: what’s skillful, what’s not skillful; when we suffer—what is the suffering, why we’re suffering, how we can put an end to suffering. It explains all these things. So we can delight in the fact that we’ve found this Dhamma.

Think of all the people who, on listening to a Dhamma talk from the Buddha, would say that he had turned right-side up the things that were upside down or that he had brought a lamp into the darkness so that people could see. A world without Dhamma is a world upside down. Dark. A world with the Dhamma is bright; everything is turned right-side up.

So delight in that fact—that you have access to that Dhamma. Then you follow through and delight in the fact that you can follow through. Those are the next two objects of delight that the Buddha mentions: One is to delight in developing, i.e., developing skillful qualities. The other is to delight in abandoning—abandoning unskillful qualities. These are things you can do. As he said, if people couldn’t do this, he wouldn’t have bothered to teach. So the fact that he bothered to teach means that you can do it.

Some of the qualities that we have to abandon can be pretty hard. There’s that passage where the Buddha talks about how you should abandon desire and passion and he gives the example of a man who’s been married to a woman, then they get divorced. Later he sees her laughing and chatting with other men, and he gets upset. He asks himself, “Why am I upset?”

He tells himself, “Because I still have desire and passion for her. So why don’t I just give up my desire and passion for her?”

So he does.

The passage makes it sound like it’s something easy—you just flip the switch. But you know how difficult that can be. You look at people who’ve been divorced and how long it takes them to get over the divorce.

In many cases, getting over the divorce from your defilements is just as difficult—sometimes even more so. So it’s not necessarily going to be easy, but it is something that can be done. We’ve got the example of many people before us. It’s not the case that their defilements were lighter than ours, or theirs were make-believe defilements. They were real; they were strong. But those people could do it—and it’s not as if they were superhuman either.

You read cases in the Theragatha and Therigatha of people who were so desperate that they got suicidal because their practice would develop for a bit and then fall apart. Then develop again, fall apart again. But they were able to pull themselves together and come out of that miserable state of mind and become noble disciples.

So even if the practice is difficult—as the Buddha said, even if tears are coming down your cheeks over how difficult it can be—stick with it because the rewards are great. You know that analogy he gave. He said that if you could make a deal that you’d be speared by 300 spears a day—a hundred in the morning, a hundred at noon, a hundred in the evening—every day for a hundred years, but you’d be guaranteed stream-entry at the end of that time, that would be a good deal compared to all the suffering that people go through from not having gained the Dhamma-eye.

So it may not be easy, but it is possible to abandon skillful qualities and develop skillful ones. And you should learn how to delight to whatever extent you can. It’s a reason for joy that you can say No to a defilement even if it’s just for a night.

As the Buddha said, just realizing that an unskillful quality should be abandoned: That in itself is skillful. Think that thought often and you finally get to the point where you say, “I might as well do it. Might as well try.” That’s something to delight in.

So those are three things to delight in.

The fourth one is to delight in seclusion—finding a space for the mind where you can put down your burdens, where you don’t have to deal with all the issues of other people, and you can focus on your own issues. Even if there are a lot of issues in the mind, the fact that you can focus on them and you don’t have to worry about other people’s issues, is something to delight in. It’s an opportunity that very few people have.

Think of that story of the bull elephant: He lives with cow elephants. He lives with baby elephants. He goes down to the river. Well, they’ve already gone down to the river ahead of him. They bump into him as they go down and turn the water all muddy. So he goes off and lives alone. When he goes down to the river, the water is clean, nobody bumps into him. And then, when he has an itch here or there, he takes a branch with his trunk and scratches himself here or scratches himself there. He feels gratified. He’s free from all that disturbance.

In the same way, learn how to delight in getting alone. Get the mind to settle down. Get some pleasure out of the breath. Get some pleasure out of concentration. That way, you allay your itch and find a well-being that comes from inside. So learn to delight in that.

And finally, the Buddha says to delight in two things that are actually epithets for nibbana. One is “the unafflicted,” the other is “non-objectification”—“unafflicted” in the sense that you’re not causing any pain to yourself, any pain to anybody else—totally without disturbance; a happiness that doesn’t have anything to eat away inside. As for “non-objectification,” objectification is the type of mind state where you create a sense of who you are and, based on who you are, you need to feed. And because you feed, you have to get into conflict with others. So non-objectification is a state of mind where you’re not getting into any conflict at all.

You delight in these two things, not because you have them, but to the extent to which what you’re doing is going to lead there. You’re on a good path, and it goes to a good place. Learn how to delight in that—because the world will have us delight in all kinds of other things.

There are people who delight in the idea that there is no real truth, no objective truth, so you can just make up whatever truth you want. There are even Dhamma teachers who claim that. They actually delight in non-Dhamma. But what kind of world is that, where there is no real truth?

There are people who delight in developing unskillful qualities and delight in abandoning skillful ones. For them, it’s a lot of fun.

There are people who delight in company, having lots of entanglements with other people, lots of networks.

There are people who delight in causing affliction and being cruel. There are actually people who choose war. There are people who delight in conflict—again, choosing war, and a lot of them have power.

They’re delighting in all the wrong things. That’s the way of the world.

The Buddha is offering a good alternative—a delight that leads to peace, harmlessness, truth, all the good qualities of nibbana. So delight in the fact that you’re on this path. It’s a good path to be on; it’s a good path to complete.

And we’re lucky we have it. We don’t know how much longer it’s going to be available. All the teachings of all the past Buddhas have disappeared. Each new Buddha has to discover them all over again. And even within the tradition of our Buddha, there have been times when the path has gotten obscured by popular versions of the teachings. Think of Ajahn Mun having to find the way again—and all the trouble he went to. But now it’s available to us. So take advantage of it. Delight in the fact that you have this opportunity.

When the practice gets difficult, delight in the fact that at least you’re heading in a good direction. You’re not afflicting anybody. That’s a cause for joy right there.