The Problem of Misery and the Insight That Brings Relief

Do you think if you won the lottery you would find a lasting happiness? Of course it would take care of your financial worries, but if you look at the the richest and most powerful people in the world, you don't see true happiness. They're still fighting for more and more. The richest person in the world doesn't seem to be mentally happy; a content person.

They're worried the second richest person in the world will overtake them. Or beat them in the race to get to Mars.

But one could say there would be a point where there will be enough to be content. To just stop. Not want more.

But why is that point not this point?

Why can't you just be content for a few moments right now?

If you compare your life to all the lives that have been lived here on Earth, we can just think of humans for now, it's definitely not the worst life. In the past most of us ended up being slaves to others.

Exploitation. Violence. That's what has ruled humanity for most of its existence.

And that's just humanity.

If you consider the true scale of the problem it is heartbreaking. All the lives being lived in this struggle to survive.

Somehow one animal has to consume another. To kill and devour it to have any chance of survival. And we are set on these paths where there must be violence, there must be death.

And then there's disease, the passing of time, the breaking down of our bodies, losing everyone, everything, that you love.

All turning to ash.

And if you consider the complete scale of it, life probably does not only exist on this one planet. There are countless lives being lived in this one universe. Maybe multiple universes. All these lives being lived in this struggle, mental struggle, of suffering.

Hardly ever having a glimpse of the joy that life can bring; the potential it has.

This is the 'problem of misery'.

And for most people the defense mechanism is to turn a blind eye to it. Evolution gives us these blinders.

Puts us on this path of personal glory. To get as much as you can for yourself and at some point you will be content.

But that is a lie.

There is no contentment on that path.

As is quite obvious if you look at the rich and the powerful.

The mind is deranged and should be set right.

So to me it seems like there's a law of nature, that if you only pursue your own personal happiness and peace of mind, well you can't have it.

Instead you have to go in the opposite direction.

Have to truly look at the scale of the problem here. It's not a personal problem.

So what if you personally were in a perfect state of bliss for the rest of your life? What difference does that make in the entirety of this problem?

That is just one life. It does not balance the scales against the immensity of suffering and misery.

And if you consider religions, they fail to give any answer here. They end up offering even more misery in an afterlife.

At least for most of us. A select few get to live in happiness.

How is that different from what the world seems to be like? It's still unfair. It's no answer at all.

And then there's atheism, which does not leave any possibility of the scales ever being balanced. If all there is, is these little creatures, gaining sentience for a little bit, suffering through life, having a few precious moments of peace, and then dying, all that can be done is to accept that this is the way things are.

But that is very disappointing. Depressing.

It leads to despair, if you look at the problem truly.

You will have in your memory, seared into your memory, certain scenes from your life which really give you that deep hard look at this problem. Quite often it's not your own misery or suffering but what you have witnessed.

For me one scene comes to mind.

It was around the age of 10. I was traveling to school in the back of a school van, and I saw this stray puppy. It had three broken legs. It was still hopping around on the one remaining leg.

And it did seem that someone had broken those legs on purpose, because it was healthy otherwise.

And it just broke my heart.

The full weight of the problem of misery came crashing down on my mind in that moment.

No god could fix this.

The gods they only talk about humans. Saving a few of them.

When the scale of the problem is truly seen for what it is, you're left without any answer. Only a burning desire to have one.

And so you will hear these stories of people throughout the ages who have been so obsessed with this question that they have given up everything to get to an answer.

Like the story of the prince, who once he saw what was going on outside his palace, walked away from it all to become an ascetic.

And these stories usually revolve around going through these trials, suffering for oneself; starvation, homelessness, trying to get to the bottom of all this.

And at some point there is an insight. An insight that somehow brings relief.

Despite the crushing and despairing nature of the problem, there is a shift in perspective, and life is seen for what it really is.

And this way of looking at life brings immense relief.

What could that insight possibly be?

What could right the suffering of countless beings?

I will attempt to express this insight now. But it's very radical. It's hard to comprehend initially, And I won't try to prove the insight too much today because that's the subject of other videos on this channel. So for now I'm just gonna describe the insight and how one arrives at it.

In the search for an answer to the problem of misery, you eventually arrive at the question of what is it that suffers?

What are all these creatures really?

And since you are one such creature, in your own opinion, you investigate the nature of what you are.

And you find that you're not really a physical thing. The physical thing is what sustains you. It seems like.

But then you find that what that physical thing sustains is the mind. Experiential phenomena; seeing, hearing, sensing, feeling, thinking. All of that. That is the result of activity in the body.

But you are something else entirely.

You are the sentience in which all these phenomena appear.

So how do you differentiate one sentience from another?

Well you can't unless you make the mistake of identifying with a particular body or mind.

But those are just the things that are appearing. They're not sentient.

And all we care about is the sentience because that is where the suffering appears.

Once you realize this, you see that they're not individual sentient entities.

In the entirety of the universe there's not even a single sentient entity. None at all.

There are no individual selves.

So the entire problem is simply a misunderstanding at the level of the mind. The idea that you are this one little thing that somehow gained sentience and then will lose it. And so you're grasping within this one lifetime to achieve something.

To gain some kind of peace and happiness, and to grant it to others that you love.

But with this insight what you see is that, this is entirely wrong.

All there is, is Sentience.

And all the rest is just phenomena; processes taking place in Reality.

And the expression of those processes is experience.

But all experience, at any point in space and time, in any lifetime, it appears in the very same Sentience.

Reality is like a container. An Emptiness which has infinite potential.

Which can be filled with all manner of phenomena.

And that Emptiness has this quality of being sentient; of being aware.

And so it is not these individual little creatures living on the crust of a planet that have gained sentience, Sentience is what is observing these creatures. Each of them. As these creatures operate in their environment, those interactions are being observed.

Being experienced. That is what experience is.

And so all lives; all experience, all joy and misery, are being experienced by Reality. By Nature Itself.

So that is the insight that provides an answer to the problem of misery.

That the scales are already balanced.

Not just because all the joy and love and happiness of life are canceling out the misery, but because the original and true state of Reality is beyond all experience, and is the Sentience that is so dear and precious to every mind.

And that Sentience continues to exist beyond all minds. Beyond all ideas of space and time.

Because it is simply a Stillness. A silent Awareness.

Once Reality is seen this way, then the problem of suffering and misery are no more.

And even though one did not go on this journey to attain a personal state of bliss, the mind that arrives at this insight, becomes perfectly content.

And so this Insight can be called the 'End of Suffering'.

Both personal and universal.