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Sukha as the Way to the End of Dukkha - Bhikkhu Sanathavihari

The following talk was given by Bhikkhu Sanathavihari at The Sati Center in Redwood City, CA on November 12, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Sukha as the Way to the End of Dukkha

Introduction

Okay, everyone, so I'm just going to share a little PowerPoint here. It's a little heavy on sutta¹ citations, please forgive me.

So yeah, sukha² as the way to the end of dukkha³. This is something that my teacher, Bhante Punnaji, focused on a lot. He said that in his experience, he came across this false dichotomy that the lay Buddhist life is about enjoying sensual pleasures, and that the monastic life is one of asceticism and self-mortification. He was like, "No, no, that's not what it's about."

We can't be caught in this "all or nothing" thinking—this idea that as we get deeper into the Dhamma and let go of things, somehow our world becomes less rich, less vivid, less happy, or less full. I think we have a bias toward renunciation and letting go, accompanied by a sense of coldness or a lack of vividness in the practice. In my travels, many people have accused Buddhism of being kind of stoic. They think Buddhism is like stoicism, but with a loving-kindness practice. But that's not what we're doing actually.

I don't blame people who make these accusations of Buddhists being cold, wanting to be robots or vegetables, or being so focused on suffering (dukkha) that it seems like we're not focused on happiness or positive, pleasant qualities. Maybe we don't do a good job of promoting it. When you look at pictures of some meditating monks, their faces are just completely cold. They don't look very happy. I mean, I wouldn't want to meditate if I was going to end up looking like that person! [Laughter]

I want to tip the scales and give a more harmonious, balanced, and wholesome view (sammā-diṭṭhi⁴) of the practice and the things that fuel and nourish us to keep going. It's important to know what is sustainable. What do we encounter on the path that lets us know we're practicing the right way? On many occasions, the Buddha said that if your practice is not leading to your own benefit, the benefit of others, and ultimately toward Nibbāna⁵, then you should abandon it. Basically, if you are not getting better, if your life is not getting better, if you're not removing suffering and experiencing more happiness (sukha), then it's time to reconsider your practice.

I want to share what the Buddha himself had to say about happiness. In the Dhammapada, verse 204, he says, "Nibbāna is the highest happiness." We have to remember that. The goal of practicing the Dhamma is to be happy. Happiness is the goal. Think about it: the problem is dukkha—suffering, pain, lamentation, sorrow, affliction. What is the opposite? It is joy and delight. It's obvious that if we are trying to get away from dukkha, we are heading towards sukha, and Nibbāna is the highest sukha.

The Buddha's Discovery of Sukha

Let's go straight into what the Bodhisatta⁶ (Prince Siddhartha) discovered for himself under the Bodhi tree. First, he lived a life of luxury. Then he left the palace and practiced with two teachers, Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, where he learned the meditative states called jhānas⁷, and formless states called āyatanas⁸. But he felt, "I lived a life of sensual pleasures, and that didn't bring me escape from dukkha. I went into these meditative states, and they didn't bring me true happiness either."

So he thought, "Let me try extreme asceticism, the practice of tapas (self-mortification). Maybe I can find freedom from suffering by burning off all my bad karma." This idea was very similar to what Mahāvīra and the Jains were proposing at the time. He almost starved himself to death and found out, "I'm not getting better; I'm actually getting worse by practicing this extreme asceticism."

Then a memory came to him: "I recall when my father, the Sakyan, was occupied, while I was sitting in the cool shade of the rose-apple tree, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, I entered upon and abided in the first jhāna." Following that memory came the realization: this is indeed the path to awakening.

Here is the key. He thought, "Why am I afraid of that pleasure (sukha)?" This is a happiness that has nothing to do with kāma⁹ (sensuality) and unwholesome states. "I am not afraid of that pleasure, since it has nothing to do with sensual pleasures and unwholesome states."

There are two different types of happiness. There is a happiness that arises due to contact with sensual pleasures—having a nice latte, eating cake, feeling the sun on your skin, going on vacation, or sexual climax. For the Bodhisatta, there was an entanglement between pleasantness and sensuality; he thought they went hand-in-hand. But then he remembered: happiness is not always tied to sensuality. There is a happiness separate from sensuality, and we shouldn't be scared of happiness or pleasant feeling (vedanā¹⁰) itself, as long as it's a higher, non-sensual pleasure.

In our own meditation, it's sometimes unclear whether the happiness we feel is a sensual pleasure from having good posture, or if it's a mental feeling, or something more. Don't be too overcritical. Look at the results of that feeling. Is it keeping you on the cushion? Is it promoting more practice and investigation? Is it leading you to study the Dhamma more? Is it leading you to a better way of living, being kinder and gentler to others? That will let you know whether this pleasure is noble or ignoble, wholesome or unwholesome.

Happiness in the Suttas

Through the various jhānas, up to liberation, pleasant feelings were the catalyst for awakening. The entire awakening experience, from the first jhāna up to complete awakening (sammā-sambodhi), was a path of happiness.

In one sutta, the Buddha tells Ānanda about the five cords of sensual pleasure (sights, sounds, odors, tastes, tactile objects) and explains that the pleasure arising from them is called sensual pleasure. Some might say this is the supreme joy, but the Buddha says, "I would not concede this to them. Why? Because there is another kind of happiness, more excellent and sublime." He then describes the first jhāna.

He goes through the second, third, and fourth jhānas, into the formless states, all the way to the cessation of perception and feeling. The Buddha says, "This is the other kind of happiness, more excellent and sublime." If wanderers of other sects ask how the cessation of feeling can be called happiness, the Buddha responds that the Tathāgata¹¹ does not describe happiness only with reference to pleasant feelings, but rather wherever true happiness is found. The happiness of the deathless, Nibbāna, is unconditioned; it's the complete escape from dukkha, from taṇhā¹² (craving), and from upādāna¹³ (clinging).

The Buddha also says the teachings are good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end. When you begin the path with dāna¹⁴ (giving) and sīla¹⁵ (morality), that is good, and it makes you feel happy. Not hurting others makes you happy because you are free from fear, and others don't fear you. The middle is good—learning suttas and practicing meditation feels good. And the end is good—Nibbāna is the highest happiness. The entire path is good, and we should experience sukha throughout.

In another sutta, the Buddha asks some reverends if King Bimbisara of Magadha could experience perfect happiness for seven days, or even just one day, without moving his body or speaking. They say no. The Buddha says, "But I am capable of experiencing perfect happiness for a day and night, for two days, up to seven days, without moving my body or speaking." The Buddha was always happy, dwelling in perfect pleasure because Nibbāna is the highest sukha.

In the Dhammapada, it says the well-doer rejoices now, and rejoices hereafter. Perceiving the purity of his own deeds, he is happy. "Good have I done," he thinks, and he is happy. Having drunk the nectar of seclusion and peace, one drinks the joyous nectar of the Dhamma.

The Buddha also describes four kinds of overflowing merit that nurture happiness:

1. Experiential confidence in the Buddha. (Faith brings happiness.)
2. Experiential confidence in the Dhamma.
3. Experiential confidence in the Sangha.
4. Ethical conduct (sīla) that is loved by the noble ones, flawless and unmarred.

In another variation, the fourth is living at home rid of the stain of stinginess, being freely generous (dāna). And in yet another, the fourth is possessing the wisdom of arising and passing away, which leads to the complete ending of suffering. Every stage of the path—taking refuge, practicing dāna, practicing sīla, and the final goal of liberation—has happiness as a result.

Dependent Origination and Happiness

In the Nidāna Vagga of the Saṃyutta Nikāya, which focuses on Paṭicca Samuppāda¹⁶ (Dependent Origination), there is a beautiful correlation detailing the escape from suffering.

The chain of suffering begins: with ignorance (avijjā¹⁷) as proximate cause, volitional formations come to be; then consciousness, name and form, the six sense bases, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, existence, birth, and finally suffering.

How do we break this chain? The sutta continues: with suffering as proximate cause, faith comes to be. With faith comes gladness. With gladness comes rapture. With rapture comes tranquility. With tranquility comes happiness. With happiness comes concentration (samādhi¹⁸). With concentration comes the knowledge and vision of things as they really are. From that comes revulsion, then dispassion, then liberation, and finally the knowledge of destruction.

These are not stoic or ascetic practices. Faith, gladness, joy, tranquility, happiness, and stillness—these are empowering, wholesome states. When the five hindrances are not present, that state of unification and completion is happiness. It leads to seeing things as they are, becoming dispassionate towards attachments, and achieving freedom through the destruction of the āsavas¹⁹ (mental effluents).

The Trainings for a Happy Mind

If this is the case, how do we practice this? My teacher, Bhante Punnaji, talked about these trainings. First, there is a cognitive shift: we must change our worldview from one that leads to dukkha to one that leads to sukha. We need to focus on our perspective, which is sammā-diṭṭhi (Right View, or harmonious view). Stagnant views that do not reflect reality lead to suffering. Seeing the permanent in the impermanent, or seeing a self (attā²⁰) where there is no self, leads to suffering. The way to happiness is to see the impermanent as impermanent, the conditioned as conditioned, and to make the shift from a "me, myself, and mine" worldview to a selfless worldview.

This right view reorients our life, moving us to the next step: sammā-saṅkappa²¹ (Right Intention or harmonious thinking). Sensual thinking, anger, and cruelty lead to suffering. We must change our intentions to align with renunciation, abyāpāda²² (non-ill will, cultivated as mettā or loving-kindness), and ahiṃsā²³ (non-violence, cultivated as karuṇā or compassion). This is an active process of reprogramming ourselves. When a greedy, angry, or cruel thought arises, we recognize that it doesn't lead to happiness and actively cultivate wholesome states instead.

From there, we have the behavioral parts: Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood. We cannot be happy if we live unharmoniously. Compassion and loving-kindness promote good behavior. It's actually happiness that promotes good behavior—our desire to be happy and for other beings to be happy.

Then we have the mental training: sammā-vāyāma (Right Effort), sammā-sati (Right Mindfulness), and sammā-samādhi (Right Concentration). Right Effort is the constant meditation we need to do every day. It's how we engage with every single experience, thought, emotion, and interaction.

Right Effort involves four trainings:

1. Saṃvara (Protecting/Guarding): Protecting the mind and senses from unskillful states. If a situation triggers anger or greed, try to remove yourself from it to the degree that you can.
2. Pahāna (Eliminating): When an unskillful state arises, one removes it and throws it away.
3. Bhāvanā (Cultivating): Replacing the unwholesome state by cultivating a wholesome state. In the Vitakkasaṇṭhāna Sutta²⁴ (Discourse on the Removal of Distracting Thoughts), the Buddha advises that when anger appears, we practice loving-kindness. When cruelty appears, we practice compassion. When fear appears, we also practice loving-kindness.
4. Anurakkhaṇā (Maintaining): Continuing to maintain this practice continuously.

Meditation is ongoing all the time. The Buddha says that a monk is ever-mindful, whether walking, eating, or even urinating or defecating. We use mindfulness (sati²⁵) to recognize unwholesome states, the hindrances, the underlying tendencies (anusayas²⁶), and the effluents. We don't just passively watch them; we make an active effort to change our underlying tendencies by generating a wholesome state where there is none.

Your everyday life is the meditation. It is a prolonged, strenuous training to change the way we see the world and the way we think. But the fruit of this practice is a deep, abiding happiness. The solution to our problem is sukha, and it is available to you here and now through the practice of the Dhamma.

Q&A

Questioner: I try to practice the Eightfold Path, but it feels like a duty. It feels hard and heavy, and it doesn't feel happy. It just feels like a big job I have on top of my real job. Do you have any advice? Bhikkhu Sanathavihari: What is your favorite part of the Dhamma? What do you love to practice?

Questioner: The loving-kindness practice. Lately, I've started thinking of people I know and wishing for them unconditional happiness, and that made me feel happy too. Bhikkhu Sanathavihari: Just do that! Okay? [Laughter]

Questioner: My question is about replacing the unwholesome with the wholesome. Throughout the day, when we are distressed about something, isn't it ignoring the emotion to try and practice a wholesome state instead? Some teachings suggest just being with the emotion and letting it be. How do we balance these approaches? Bhikkhu Sanathavihari: We find a middle way. In the beginning, we use our mindfulness and clear comprehension to see the anger. We look at it for a little bit, not too long, to investigate it. We ask, "Is holding this anger serving me? Is it beneficial? Does it lead to happiness?" No, it's destructive. So we must cultivate something constructive, like loving-kindness.

There is a place for holding the unwholesome state, but just for the necessary amount of time to see it clearly. But it shouldn't be our "be-all and end-all" practice to just let it sit there, because no one benefits from sitting in anger. There is a danger of aversion, where as soon as anger pops up, you try to suppress it. We are trying to develop an adequate, skillful response by actively cultivating the opposite wholesome state.

Questioner: Sometimes really hard things come up in the world and in my private life. I know I need to shift into goodness, but it's not automatic. I used to spend a lot of time trying to figure things out, but I realized that's not helpful and I'm not powerful enough to fix everything. I'm grateful for meditation and taking refuge in the Dhamma and Sangha. Hearing about shifting gears into the practices that lead to goodness felt as if I had never heard it before. Thank you. Bhikkhu Sanathavihari: Thank you for sharing.

Questioner: I have a tendency sometimes to just hang out in the pleasantness of the breath as an escape from what's hard about the world. How do we practice with happiness as the goal without veering into a spiritual bypass where we ignore the suffering around us? Bhikkhu Sanathavihari: No matter how hard we try, there's enough suffering to go around, and you can't run away from it. But how difficult it is to find real happiness! My perspective is: whenever you can find real happiness (not sensuality or indulgence), take it, because it's rare. We wake up to pain, and as we get older, there's so much suffering. We need more happiness. There's nothing wrong with taking those moments of happiness, because as soon as you come out of it, you're going to go back into suffering anyway. Let's not go looking for more trouble when there's already enough suffering.

Questioner: I'm finding a lot of happiness is generated from muditā²⁷ (sympathetic joy). It's an active cultivation, but it leads on with its own momentum—it's a joy machine. Even in a hard moment, just appreciating the person in front of you seems very powerful to me right now in the practice. Bhikkhu Sanathavihari: It really is. In many suttas, the Buddha describes the gradual training starting with dāna (giving). When people give, others respond with anumodana²⁸, which means to rejoice in the goodness of others. Their happiness is your happiness. Muditā is the perfection of that. It's like joyful mining—it just keeps going. You can start by rejoicing in people's simple good actions. Make an effort to see the value in someone holding a door open, and cultivate that value like a meditation.

Questioner: How do you personally mix up vipassanā (insight meditation) and the brahma-vihāras (sublime attitudes like loving-kindness and compassion) in your practice? Bhikkhu Sanathavihari: The brahma-vihāras are just the way I live my life. I always try not to act out of hatred, animosity, or jealousy. When a thought of anger comes up, I get the "jeebies," like something dirty touched me. I don't want that! Once a day, I'll do formal mettā (loving-kindness) meditation for 30 minutes, but the real practice is in everyday life: opening doors, speaking to people, or sending emails (which can be a very dangerous place!). In formal practice, I'll warm up with 30 minutes of mettā, and then I'll go into vipassanā. I feel so light, my mind is clear, joyful, and energetic. It's great soil for working with vipassanā.

Questioner: How do you deal with aversion to yourself? When I do these practices, I often feel like I'm not good enough, and there's a lot of self-criticism. Getting to a place where I can enjoy mettā is difficult. Bhikkhu Sanathavihari: We have to stop seeing ourselves as uniquely better or uniquely worse than others. We are all human beings. We share the same faults and the same positive qualities. We are all in this together, overcome by greed, hatred, and delusion. Try flipping your meditation: focus on how others are sending mettā to you, how they see you as worthy, and how they care about your well-being. See how others think you are valuable and important.

Questioner: When we are trying to get something done in the world, and other people get in the way or don't play fair, it can generate anger. We can replace that with goodwill, but sometimes we might have to give up on getting the thing done. How do we balance that? Bhikkhu Sanathavihari: A lot of activists came to our temple during the Black Lives Matter movement. They were always angry and upset, thinking anger was the solution to overcoming suffering, but they burned out. None of them are doing activism anymore. I asked them, "Can we help others from love and compassion instead of hatred and suffering?" We can be amazing activists coming from peace and kindness. We don't need anger or suffering to be our fuel. Things may not happen the way or at the speed we want, but that is true whether we act out of happiness or anger. When we approach problems out of love and compassion, it has a profoundly beneficial impact on our own lives.

Questioner: I have struggled with very low self-esteem. I used to counteract it with capabilities and intolerance of others. For years, I studied the Abhidhamma²⁹ and understood my deep defilements intellectually, but practicing the brahma-vihāras was the hardest thing I ever did. Once I started, the appreciation and love for myself and consideration for others caused a real paradigm shift. It was overwhelmingly beneficial. I still suffer from low self-esteem, but the path is opening up more every day. Thank you. Bhikkhu Sanathavihari: Thank you for being brave and compassionate. I think many of us struggle with self-esteem or loving-kindness practices because we think we aren't worthy, or we mistakenly think it's "not the real practice" and just want the high, deep meditative absorptions (jhānas). But loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity make the mind incredibly calm and still. They provide inner security and safety. That tranquility of mind (samādhi) leads directly into jhāna. The beautiful thing about the brahma-vihāras is that they are a way of life, and the fruits are clearly visible here and now in all your interactions.