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Western people think that it is natural to show appreciation when you are happy, “Oh, I am happy,” and when you are uncomfortable to just say, “I am uncomfortable.” That seems natural for Westerners, but Buddhism says that this is a wrong conception, so what to do? This monk is making you angry now instead of making you happy!
Okay, now I have to explain this unusual concept. This is what happens: In a situation where we experience pleasure, we grasp; we grasp and we won’t let go. Is this the experience of Swedish people or not? When you have a pleasurable experience, does your mind start craving and grasping instead of just having the experience of pleasure and then letting go? That is the problem.
When you feel unpleasant, when you are in an unpleasant situation, then again you crave. You crave to be free, “I want to be free of this!” Again you are craving.
When you are experiencing neither pleasure nor pain but are medium, sluggishly comfortable, you have no wisdom and again you crave, you crave for the sluggishness to vanish. Again you are craving.
This is the situation, so what to do? Cry? I am sure you have heard that Lama Je Tsong Khapa said: “Wherever you are in samsara, you never have happiness.” Sounds depressing, doesn’t it? What he meant was that what we think of as self-existent pleasurable experiences are not really happiness, they are not real happiness.
Lama Je Tsong Khapa gave this example: When you are hungry, you are suffering. If you don’t eat when you are hungry, the hunger becomes greater and the hungry feeling of pain gets bigger and bigger, doesn’t it? Then when you begin to eat, you stop the hungry feeling and you call that happiness: “Oh, now I am happy.” Just stopping the hungry feeling is called happiness. Are we communicating or not? Not communicating? It doesn’t sound right?
You call eating happiness, but what is really making you happy is the fact that you are stopping the suffering of hunger. Just stopping the strong hungry feeling is the reason for saying, “Now I am happy, now I am comfortable.” Communicating or not? Yes!
Do you think that is happiness? Just stopping the strong hungry ghost feeling, is that happiness or not? That is the real question, isn’t it? Okay, this section of people, do you think that just stopping the strong hungry feeling by beginning to eat is happiness or not? No? Okay, all right, think about it. This is just a scientific way of talking, not some religious thing, so what do you think? Now I have to ask the other section of people: just stopping the strong hungry feeling means a happy life or not? (Someone says, “Temporarily.”) Temporarily? And you, what do you say? (“No.”) No? You are right.
Normally I ask these Buddhist questions to children, young Western children, they answer PAM! like that. They give the right answer. When I ask Western adults they go like this! (screwing up his nose) Right, so why? For what reason? Okay, you don’t have to answer, that is good enough. Thank you, all right.
Then also Lama Je Tsong Khapa gave these simple, very down-to-earth examples. We should have a down-to-earth understanding rather than just spacing out. He said that when you are very hungry and you begin to eat, the pleasure of beginning to eat is on the way to pain. Doesn’t this make sense to you? To me it makes sense: when I begin to eat my dinner, to begin with there is always a sort of pleasure; but after eating I become uncomfortable—unfortunately, I must be a greedy monk! Anyway, it always becomes uncomfortable.
This is very simple. In the beginning there is pleasure, and you call it pleasure. In other words, that pleasure is your projection. Remember this morning we talked about projections: you project that something is happiness, you give it the name ‘happiness’, but it leads to pain. This is just an example of how for most of us whatever we consider to be pleasurable, any condition, leads to misery.
Here’s a good example: In the West when people marry, they go on holiday, for a honeymoon; that is the Western custom. One day they marry, the next day they go on holiday to the beach or something like that—and after one week they crash! After one week the marriage is finished. There are many people like that. I do know people like that.
Okay, I won’t make many examples, there are many good examples in the West, plenty of them—every Western pleasure. Going to the beach, for example, I am sure all of you have been to the beach this year. You stay at the beach; after one hour you are burnt and uncomfortable. You made up your mind beforehand that going to the beach meant happiness, but the result is that physically you feel unhappy and mentally you feel bored. Myself too. Before I came to Europe, I was in California and my students invited me to go to the beach. So I went to the beach and took off my things and got burnt here (Lama points to his back). I got burnt too much here, in this area, and then I felt very uncomfortable. For a few days it felt burnt out just here and it hurt just to wear this (Lama’s robes).
(c)
Okay, now I have to explain this unusual concept. This is what happens: In a situation where we experience pleasure, we grasp; we grasp and we won’t let go. Is this the experience of Swedish people or not? When you have a pleasurable experience, does your mind start craving and grasping instead of just having the experience of pleasure and then letting go? That is the problem.
When you feel unpleasant, when you are in an unpleasant situation, then again you crave. You crave to be free, “I want to be free of this!” Again you are craving.
When you are experiencing neither pleasure nor pain but are medium, sluggishly comfortable, you have no wisdom and again you crave, you crave for the sluggishness to vanish. Again you are craving.
This is the situation, so what to do? Cry? I am sure you have heard that Lama Je Tsong Khapa said: “Wherever you are in samsara, you never have happiness.” Sounds depressing, doesn’t it? What he meant was that what we think of as self-existent pleasurable experiences are not really happiness, they are not real happiness.
Lama Je Tsong Khapa gave this example: When you are hungry, you are suffering. If you don’t eat when you are hungry, the hunger becomes greater and the hungry feeling of pain gets bigger and bigger, doesn’t it? Then when you begin to eat, you stop the hungry feeling and you call that happiness: “Oh, now I am happy.” Just stopping the hungry feeling is called happiness. Are we communicating or not? Not communicating? It doesn’t sound right?
You call eating happiness, but what is really making you happy is the fact that you are stopping the suffering of hunger. Just stopping the strong hungry feeling is the reason for saying, “Now I am happy, now I am comfortable.” Communicating or not? Yes!
Do you think that is happiness? Just stopping the strong hungry ghost feeling, is that happiness or not? That is the real question, isn’t it? Okay, this section of people, do you think that just stopping the strong hungry feeling by beginning to eat is happiness or not? No? Okay, all right, think about it. This is just a scientific way of talking, not some religious thing, so what do you think? Now I have to ask the other section of people: just stopping the strong hungry feeling means a happy life or not? (Someone says, “Temporarily.”) Temporarily? And you, what do you say? (“No.”) No? You are right.
Normally I ask these Buddhist questions to children, young Western children, they answer PAM! like that. They give the right answer. When I ask Western adults they go like this! (screwing up his nose) Right, so why? For what reason? Okay, you don’t have to answer, that is good enough. Thank you, all right.
Then also Lama Je Tsong Khapa gave these simple, very down-to-earth examples. We should have a down-to-earth understanding rather than just spacing out. He said that when you are very hungry and you begin to eat, the pleasure of beginning to eat is on the way to pain. Doesn’t this make sense to you? To me it makes sense: when I begin to eat my dinner, to begin with there is always a sort of pleasure; but after eating I become uncomfortable—unfortunately, I must be a greedy monk! Anyway, it always becomes uncomfortable.
This is very simple. In the beginning there is pleasure, and you call it pleasure. In other words, that pleasure is your projection. Remember this morning we talked about projections: you project that something is happiness, you give it the name ‘happiness’, but it leads to pain. This is just an example of how for most of us whatever we consider to be pleasurable, any condition, leads to misery.
Here’s a good example: In the West when people marry, they go on holiday, for a honeymoon; that is the Western custom. One day they marry, the next day they go on holiday to the beach or something like that—and after one week they crash! After one week the marriage is finished. There are many people like that. I do know people like that.
Okay, I won’t make many examples, there are many good examples in the West, plenty of them—every Western pleasure. Going to the beach, for example, I am sure all of you have been to the beach this year. You stay at the beach; after one hour you are burnt and uncomfortable. You made up your mind beforehand that going to the beach meant happiness, but the result is that physically you feel unhappy and mentally you feel bored. Myself too. Before I came to Europe, I was in California and my students invited me to go to the beach. So I went to the beach and took off my things and got burnt here (Lama points to his back). I got burnt too much here, in this area, and then I felt very uncomfortable. For a few days it felt burnt out just here and it hurt just to wear this (Lama’s robes).
(c)