Knowing Dissatisfaction and Its Causes
I can’t get no satisfaction.
— MICK JAGGER
I remember going on holiday with a friend to a luxury resort in Southern California. We had booked a deluxe cabin on the bluff overlooking the ocean. It was a spectacular setting with a stunning vista of ocean and sky. The cottage was well appointed in a Cape Cod–type beach style. I thought it was a dreamy place to vacation. My friend, however, had a very different standard than I, and she was not altogether impressed. She was used to high-quality hotels, and no sooner had we walked into our suite than she ran her fingers along the wooden blinds in the window and noticed a thin layer of dust, which in her opinion should have been cleaned prior to our arrival. This set a tone of disappointment for her, though I would have never noticed or cared.
This is just a small example of how we can find dissatisfaction in any experience. This quality is referred to in the Pali language as dukkha, a characteristic that runs through every human experience. This complex word has multiple meanings, but essentially it refers to the unsatisfactory nature of all things, the perennial disenchantment or disappointment we can feel about any experience. It is also translated as “stress,” or the frustration of nothing ever quite “doing it” for us. As a result, we perpetually seek pleasure without ever quite quenching that need. No matter how good something seems to be, we often have a niggling sense of dissatisfaction.
Consider this for yourself. How often are you excited for an event — attending a concert, joining a family outing, playing a sports game, watching a movie, or simply relaxing in the garden — and when that experience comes, something interferes with that pleasure: some persistent back pain, your neighbor’s lawn mower, performance anxiety, people whispering during the film or concert, or simply being too tired to fully enjoy what is happening? Few moments live up to our anticipation, which can leave us dissatisfied, no matter how pleasant things are otherwise. This experience of dukkha is like an ill-fitting wheel that creates a slight rub of discord with every turn. This feeling is subtle but enough to impart discontent.
Rather than ignore or turn away from this dissatisfaction, with mindfulness, we can inquire directly into the unsatisfactory nature of things. How does this help? The more we are aware of this quality of experience, the less reactive and surprised we are likely to be when things are not quite what we’d hoped. With awareness, we can notice how experience often falls short and even peak moments fail to last. This enables us to appreciate each moment for what it is, with all of its imperfect and fleeting beauty. This interrupts the frustrating tendency to want or demand more from experiences than they are able to deliver.
The world is full of pleasurable things, but there is always some kind of subtle rub that accompanies them. The laws of entropy and impermanence mean that everything changes, all highs are sure to fade. All pleasures suffer from habituation, in which their impact inevitably diminishes. No matter how delicious fresh-picked strawberries are, by the fifth or tenth piece of fruit, the taste will fail to deliver the same punch as the first. That rule runs through all sensory experience. I happen to be a chocolate lover, but there is only so much I can eat before it all starts tasting the same and ceases to interest me.
The real question is, how do we respond to such disappointment? Often we complain or feel dissed, and we hunger for more. Sometimes, we don’t even wait for the pleasurable activity to end: as we eat ice cream or enjoy a sunset, we sense its demise and start chasing the next pleasure. However sublime a conversation or a concert is, if it goes on for hours, our interest generally wanes and we start to muse on what’s next. Relationships are not spared. They often begin with a passionate honeymoon phase, but as we all know, the honeymoon high rarely sustains itself. Given this reality, how do we step off the wheel of relentlessly reaching for more?
By discerning how no experience can provide lasting satisfaction, we stop expecting that some experience might. We unhook from the painful tendency to grasp for the next shiny thing, and we learn to meet each experience as it is, without clinging or holding on. We simply enjoy each moment while it is here, and for what it is, not looking for or demanding more. This can bring a huge sense of relief.
However, just because we cultivate mindfulness, we don’t suddenly stop seeking pleasant experiences. But we can understand that such pleasures are transient by nature, and wisdom can help keep us from seeking happiness in the wrong places or demanding lasting fulfillment from things that can’t provide it. We abide in a middle way between indulgence and rejection. We appreciate when beauty and pleasure arrive and remain untroubled and not disappointed when such moments pass.
The Buddha, in his insight, spoke to the deeper layers of dissatisfaction in the human condition: being alive means we must inevitably confront the hard realities of aging, sickness, and death. In addition, he said, life involves a triumvirate of challenges: (1) not getting what you want; (2) losing what you have; and (3) being separated from what you love. These painful situations run through the veins of life, and however blessed our life may be, we will have to face such difficulties.
The point isn’t to avoid being deprived of what we want nor to prevent losing what we love, since these things happen to everyone. The question is how do we relate to these vexing challenges when they occur? As Professor Randy Pausch spoke about in his book The Last Lecture: “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” This is what determines our well-being more than the particular circumstances or challenges we face.
For example, Aishin, a mindfulness student in her thirties from the San Francisco Bay Area, attended my nature meditation teacher training. She is a living example to me of how one learns to skillfully and eloquently play a challenging hand. In her teens she came down with a very painful joint condition, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, that made every physical movement a challenge. It literally hurt to move, walk, sit, and even lie down. Upon waking, pain wracked her body, and it didn’t let up until she fell asleep. She came to meditation desperate for some relief, but it did not deliver in the way she hoped. Meditation did not make the joint cramps go away. However, she learned important skills that helped her navigate the adversity.
Drawing on her mindfulness practice, Aishin began to shift her harsh attitude and judgment toward the pain. She saw how contracting against the pain just created more tension. Instead, she learned to meet her searing sensations with a kinder attention, which allowed some ease in relation to the discomfort. In addition, she realized she was not beholden to always attend to the pain. The freedom of awareness, she discovered, allowed her to direct attention in ways that created a sense of ease or space. This is an essential skill when pain is your constant companion. Making peace with the condition of her body enabled her to find peace in her heart, despite the burden.
Not only does life teach us that we can’t always get what we want, but life can also give us what we don’t want. Most of the time these are temporary problems, but not always. No one wants their child to bring home head lice from school or catch a cold; no one wants to hit traffic on the way to work. More seriously, nobody wishes to contract a degenerative illness or lose their youthful vigor or vitality. No one desires to lose their job, their house to a fire, or their savings to an economic downturn. No one wants to live in constant pain or to die, and life can often seem random and cruel when it challenges us with these things. Yet such adversity is simply part of the human predicament.
What can we do? We can, and sometimes do, collapse in self-pity, rage against God, or blame ourselves. However, we can also learn to adapt and embrace such conditions with kind presence and self-compassion. Not only can mindfulness help us meet and accept our difficulties, but it helps us have compassion for ourselves when acceptance is hard, when we fail or struggle to find a skillful response. We can’t take misfortune away, which comes with the territory of being human. Loss is part of the harsh fabric of life. But through practice we can learn to navigate this terrain, to meet challenges as they arrive, to not take them personally, and to avoid judging ourselves for doing something wrong. As we mature, we can learn to meet loss and change with tenderness and surrender and find an ease with it all that we didn’t think was possible.
• PRACTICE •
Contemplating what is unsatisfying is not a popular pastime. However, doing so can be remarkably fruitful. As you begin any activity, like taking a walk, eating dinner, or exercising, bring awareness to whatever is pleasurable about the experience. Then notice how your experience of it changes. Become curious about the entire process — about the complexity of whatever you enjoy, and how any delightful experience has a beginning, middle, and end.
For example, when you eat, fully enjoy what is delicious about your meal, and then consider how you feel when your plate is empty. Are you satisfied or disappointed? Do you long for more? If we follow that longing, we could make ourselves sick by overeating. The body reminds us to stay in balance, even though our mind often overrides that sensation, such as when we eat too many chocolates! By bringing awareness to the fleeting aspect of simple pleasures, we can discover how we relate to all experience. That pleasure is temporary is no reason not to enjoy it. However, why let enjoyment, simply because it’s temporary, lead to dissatisfaction, stress, and suffering?
Just as pleasure has its unsatisfactory side, so too does every other human experience. Bring this same awareness to any moment of gratification. Be curious about your own reactions when life is flourishing. Can you simply enjoy it, or do you anticipate its ending and so become anxious or restless and undermine your own positive experience? Be aware even in times of contentment how easy it is to feel an itch of doubt or discontent. Can you recognize that dissatisfaction within even the greatest of experiences, with the awareness that it is a natural part of human experience? As we explore our experience in this way, we come to hold things and experience more lightly, neither demanding that they continue nor fretting when the highs begin to change and fade.
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