pleasure vs happiness

Pleasure vs happiness. There is a definite difference, but for some reason the two are often confused, the latter being undistinguishable from the former. In reality, the constant pursuit of pleasure is a barrier to sustainable happiness for the simple fact that pleasure is needy and very much not sustainable. Examples of things that give me pleasure: dancing, the feeling i get in my chest from running long and fast (runner's high?), working out at the gym, doing handstands, eating good food, having good laughs with good friends/family, listening to good music, watching/listening/reading something that really resonates with me, spending time with people who share my perspective on whatever it is we are communing over, learning something new, lattes from starbucks, experiencing the sudden chill of fall.

But none of these things are sustainable.  I can't run, do handstands, eat chocolate, laugh, listen to music, watch good videos, spend time with likeminded people, read, learn, drink lattes, and experience fall constantly and infinitely because all of these things come and go. Everything in life comes and goes; good people, good music, the seasons, good food, good media. Eventually we become immune to the pleasure we get from these external things (anything external) because ultimately pleasure is a chemical thing that has something to do with the dopamine in our brians.  I can't even dance forever and feel happy because even my body is finite and limited in terms of how long, how deep, and how much it can move!!!

Happiness, on the other hand, is something that is cultivated internally, by training the mind through meditation and stillness. And it's potentially infinitely sustainable if we just take the time to train our minds to perceive the ultimate futility of pleasure and discipline ourselves through meditation to see that pleasure is only a distraction!!! 

But life is NOT empty! it is not meaningless! it's FULLLLL! if only we take the time to meditate, get rid of our stuff, and realize how very real our capacity to see beauty is.

More and more I've been experiencing moments of bliss. And they happen so spontaneously! And they never involve attachment or pleasure-seeking! They never involve the attraction I feel towards anything external or an internal feeing of ecstasy. They are the residual effects of my efforts to meditate more deeply, to shut off my mind and just breath and JUST BE THERE. This enables me to identify patterns, to trace my lines of thought back to their source. .

One of my favorite fortune cookie lines ever reads "Keep Up." I never understood it until I started meditating. It's about BEING THERE! Keep up with the present moment - it's always happening. But we go so many other places - we go forward into the future, we go backward into the past, or we numb ourselves and become ignorant to the present and although we are there, we really aren't. If we're constantly there, then we cannot help but be happy because life becomes SO FULL! And to think that we shouldn't experience a moment, a place, a person, because we've experienced it before, to think that we shouldn't hike to the top of a hill or stand at the shore and watch the ocean because someone has already been there done that becomes the most childish sentiment in the world!

simplify. 

simplify your physical stuff

simplify your mental stuff

simplify your emotional stuff

being empty is being full

being empty is being full

living simply is living fully