The Ways of the World

We look for happiness in the world, but what does the world have to offer? Not much. There’s material gain; there’s status; there’s praise; there’s pleasure. But these things have their opposites as well. There’s loss of gain, loss of status, criticism, pain. These things go back and forth. As the Buddha said, these are the loka-dhammas, things appropriate to the world.

We want to find a happiness that’s better than that. We look inside. Then, as Ajaan Lee said, when you look inside and get a good, strong state of concentration going inside, the bad side of the world is actually good for you. It helps you to develop a sense of saṃvega, realizing that whatever the good things the world has to offer, they’re all going to be taken away. But the good things the Dhamma has to offer don’t have to be taken away. You can build them, and they go with you wherever you go.

So work on finding your happiness inside. Breathe with a sense of ease. Talk to yourself with a sense of ease. The way you talk to yourself is really important. Get the right perspective on things. Then the changes of the world just go right past you, and they don’t have to go into you, because you’ve put up a filter. Anything that has substance, you’re willing to take in. Anything that has no substance, you can filter out, leave behind, without any sense of loss, without any sense of nostalgia.

This is one of the reasons why the Buddha focuses on the unpleasant side of the aggregates. He says the aggregates do have their pleasures. There’s a happiness that comes with having a body. There’s a happiness that comes with feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, and consciousness. If it weren’t for this happiness, if it weren’t for this pleasure, we wouldn’t fall for these things. But we do fall for them, and then we get exposed to the suffering. If we focus on their bad side, it helps to develop dispassion. When we have dispassion, we can free ourselves from them.

So develop something really good here inside. Then it’s a lot easier to admit the bad side of the world, so that you can be freed from it. If you focus only on the bad side without having a sense of well-being inside, you get disoriented. You don’t know where you’re going to look for happiness. But the Buddha says, look for happiness here. And if you’re attached right here, that’s fine. It’s better than being attached outside, because the attachment inside is something you can cure.

So develop a really strong sense of well-being inside by the way you breathe, by the way you talk to yourself. That way, you have a foundation for freeing yourself from everything else.