Paradox of Contentment

[convivium]

"Paradox" indicates that the intellect tries to grasp. But the intellect and contentment are not the same. Intellect can only grasp its own ideas which are not contentment either.

so contentment cannot be grasped by the intellect? intellect=consciousness?

[convivium]

If we don't see the harmful consequences of all our wrong views then we can't leave them, the practice is difficult. So we should listen. There's nothing else to the practice.
If we have right view wherever we go we are content. I have practised and seen this already. These days there are many monks, novices and lay people coming to see me. If I still didn't know, if I still had wrong view, I'd be dead by now! The right abiding place for monks, the place of coolness, is just right view itself. We shouldn't look for anything else.
So even though you may be unhappy it doesn't matter, that unhappiness is uncertain. Is that unhappiness your 'self? Is there any substance to it? Is it real? I don't see it as being real at all. Unhappiness is merely a flash of feeling which appears and then is gone. Happiness is the same. Is there a consistency to happiness? Is it truly an entity? It's simply a feeling that flashes suddenly and is gone. There! It's born and then it dies. Love just flashes up for a moment and then disappears. Where is the consistency in love, or hate, or resentment? In truth there is no substantial entity there, they are merely impressions which flare up in the mind and then die. They deceive us constantly, we find no certainty anywhere. Just as the Buddha said, when unhappiness arises it stays for a while, then disappears. When unhappiness disappears, happiness arises and lingers for a while and then dies. When happiness disappears, unhappiness arises again...on and on like this.
In the end we can say only this - apart from the birth, the life and the death of suffering, there is nothing [?]. There is just this. But we who are ignorant run and grab it constantly. We never see the truth of it, that there's simply this continual change. If we understand this then we don't need to think very much, but we have much wisdom. If we don't know it, then we will have more thinking than wisdom - and maybe no wisdom at all! It's not until we truly see the harmful results of our actions that we can give them up. Likewise, it's not until we see the real benefits of practice that we can follow it, and begin working to make the mind 'good'.
If we cut a log of wood and throw it into the river, and that log doesn't sink or rot, or run aground on either of the banks of the river, that log will definitely reach the sea. Our practice is comparable to this. If you practise according to the path laid down by the Buddha, following it straightly, you will transcend two things. What two things? Just those two extremes that the Buddha said were not the path of a true meditator - indulgence in pleasure and indulgence in pain. These are the two banks of the river. One of the banks of that river is hate, the other is love. Or you can say that one bank is happiness, the other unhappiness. The 'log' is this mind. As it 'flows down the river' it will experience happiness and unhappiness. If the mind doesn't cling to that happiness or unhappiness it will reach the 'ocean' of Nibbāna. You should see that there is nothing other than happiness and unhappiness arising and disappearing. If you don't 'run aground' on these things then you are on the path of a true meditator.
This is the teaching of the Buddha. Happiness, unhappiness, love and hate are simply established in nature according to the constant law of nature. The wise person doesn't follow or encourage them, he doesn't cling to them. This is the mind which lets go of indulgence in pleasure and indulgence in pain. It is the right practice. Just as that log of wood will eventually flow to the sea, so will the mind which doesn't attach to these two extremes inevitably attain peace.
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[ground]

"Paradox" indicates that the intellect tries to grasp. But the intellect and contentment are not the same. Intellect can only grasp its own ideas which are not contentment either.

so contentment cannot be grasped by the intellect? intellect=consciousness?

It produces ideas. It is like thinking about the taste "sweet" vs. tasting "sweet".

[convivium]

so you're saying contentment becomes a paradox (it seems hard to attain) only when we conflate suchness/emptiness with conceptual proliferations (papaca)?

[ground]

Anyone who has tasted what is called "sweet" knows what is referred to with "sweet". But one who has never tasted what is called "sweet" will never know what is referred to with "sweet" by means of relying on ideas but may pile up countless ideas on top of the mere idea "sweet".

[convivium]

i have semantics; i'm not talking mere syntax like a robot or computer is limited to. i don't think i have a qualitative or experiential correlate behind my talking about nibbana, but i think i know what contentment means.

[ground]

Whatever you have or do not have or know or do not know, you may be content or discontent.

[convivium]

Whatever you have or do not have or know or do not know, you may be content or discontent.

by "have" i take you to mean material possessions and external circumstances. by "know" i take you to mean ordinary intellectual knowledge. not having the wrong things/external circumstances and not knowing the wrong things, as it were, makes it a lot easier to be content (which is why people live in monasteries). having so-called needs met (not necessary for personal survival e.g. sex) and pleasant things/external circumstances in one's life makes it easier to feel content in a mundane way or at a mundane level; but theravada is looking for a more autonomous ground for contentment (in transcendental right view). so, means to achieving mundane contentment and means to achieving transcendental contentment can be (at least at a more refined level of scrutiny) mutually exclusive. i'd like to spell this out more.

[Bakmoon]

It is difficult to be content because one cannot gain contentment by willpower. It is only through developing wisdom that one can be content.

[Dan74]

so we have to deny or pacify the self-interested will to be content. then what about acting so as to have health insurance, good health, shelter, food, or time to sleep? can we act to self-interested ends, in line with the personal will, in a detached way so as to feel content in doing so? or would we just be fooling ourselves?

Contentment is in a sense a natural state but the greed and the worry lead away from it. Once we relinquish these, contentment naturally arises.

[Mr Man]

I think that we have to be careful about getting different kinds of "contentment" muddled up.

Prior to the Buddha's enlightenment he remembered and reflected upon the experience of "contentment" as a child. Something was remembered that was quite simple and that had been forgotten.

[convivium]

It is difficult to be content because one cannot gain contentment by willpower. It is only through developing wisdom that one can be content.

the will has to have some role in developing wisdom (namely, turning itself against itself, as it were); can we say more about the limits of this role (e.g. it should not be driven by a gaining idea or spiritual materialism, etc) and how exactly it should be used (e.g. in developing wholesome qualities, abandoning unwholesome qualities, keeping sila, daily discipline in practice, etc)? what about subduing the will by taking in great art (i experience this most often with music)? it's this theravada theme of using fabrications of the personal will to get beyond its fabrications.

Contentment is in a sense a natural state but the greed and the worry lead away from it. Once we relinquish these, contentment naturally arises.

do you mean according with natural law, i.e. dhamma, brings forth contentment? Otherwise, I don't know what's natural and not natural.

I think that we have to be careful about getting different kinds of "contentment" muddled up.
Prior to the Buddha's enlightenment he remembered and reflected upon the experience of "contentment" as a child. Something was remembered that was quite simple and that had been forgotten.

this is interesting with regard to my last post. i think you're referring to when he spontaneously entered jhana, upon seeing the suffering of animals and insects while sitting under a tree (as the story goes).

[Mr Man]

this is interesting with regard to my last post. i think you're referring to when he spontaneously entered jhana, upon seeing the suffering of animals and insects while sitting under a tree (as the story goes).

The story is in the Maha-Saccaka Sutta MN 36 http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html. Not sure if it is also related elsewhere. I was considering it in a rather loose and abstract way. The idea that contentment is possibly quite close and not that alian but we pass over it or do not remain with it.

[Dan74]

Contentment is in a sense a natural state but the greed and the worry lead away from it. Once we relinquish these, contentment naturally arises.

do you mean according with natural law, i.e. dhamma, brings forth contentment? Otherwise, I don't know what's natural and not natural.

I mean that contentment shines forth when the grasping and aversion are let gone of, even temporarily.

I don't even mean nibbana, just the letting up of the greed and the fears.