Buddhism & The Hedonic Treadmill

2021.08.10.
Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
Kadampa Life
Buddhist meditation applied to our everyday lives…
Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill
9 mins & 2 videos
First a question: What do you reckon happens when we

try to make ourselves happy all the time through
external means, via the places, enjoyments, or bodies
of samsara?
We’ve been trying it long enough, we should know. Basically, Buddha observed (and we can too)
that there is no permanent gain in happiness. We have spikes of excitement followed by spikes of
despondency, but we don’t get overall happier.
For example, we get a flat white at Starbucks – yum, little spike for however many slurps there are
in a cup of coffee. Then we need a bathroom but there isn’t one to be found – hmm, little jag in the
2021.08.10. Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
opposite direction. Or we get a promotion at work –

exciting! Until it sinks in that we have to work harder –
darn! Or we get a bigger house – cool! But now we have
to clean more shelves – boring.
We can dream about a job or a partner for months,

fantasizing about how happy we’ll be, only to be
disappointed when the happiness boost lasts
approximately five weeks or five minutes (and too
often followed by searing heartache).
Essentially, no amount of money, technology, sex,

romance, friendship, muscle, prestige, music, or travel will ever make us permanently happy. We
will always need more or different. We cannot fulfill all our desires, and a lot of them simply cancel
each other out, as mentioned in this article.
This is a helpful chart, especially if you can visualize that happiness flatline going on long enough
to see how it also goes around in circles, bit like a hamster wheel — not ending up somewhere
different, our life not really having gone anywhere by the end of it all, just turning into death. And
then rebirth — starting up all over, accumulating stuff and losing it all again, ad infinitum.
Plus, as is the nature of treadmills, IMHO, it’s all exhausting and really quite boring.
If our energy and effort have all gone into things outside our mind, we will end up the poorer
because nothing physical lasts — we can’t take a smidgeon of that stuff with us. All that goes with
us past death is our subtle mental continuum, which is like a storehouse for all the karma we have
created in this and previous lives. Some of it good
of course, but much of it stemming from selfish
desires and leading us who knows where, but
probably nowhere we want to be.
Guinea Pig Has Life Crisis

This is Happening · Follow Share
Forever chasing froth?

At my first time at the seaside, I remember being mesmerized by the glistening froth on the ocean
— so much so that I fetched my bucket to take some of it home. I don’t know how old I was, 15?! No,
seriously, I wasn’t that old, but I was idiotic. My parents watched me doing this and, though they
may have gently pointed out that the froth may not look quite so good later, I ignored them as usual
and carried on scooping up the sparkling rainbow bubbles.
Even by the time I got to the car, it was grey, flat, and lifeless. I was disappointed, I think I may even
have cried. But worldly enjoyments are all moreorless like that. The excitement disappears, and
we’re left with the greying aftermath. Plus whatever karma we created. And, like my wiser parents,
the Buddhas have been trying to tell us this but we won’t listen, or only half-heartedly anyway,
because this fleeting insubstantial froth is still so enticing to our childish minds.
In The New Eight Steps to Happiness, Geshe

Kelsang says:
Of all worldly possessions the most

precious is said to be the legendary wish
granting jewel… that has the power to
grant wishes.
Only caveat is that this jewel can fulfill wishes

for superficial, fleeting happiness, aka “contaminated happiness”; not the pure happiness that
comes from a pure mind. But even if we ever come to possess everything we ever wanted externally,
which of course is impossible while we still have the itch of attachment, pure and lasting happiness
still eludes us. We still feel moreorless itchy and dissatisfied. Furthermore this jewel only has “the
power to grant wishes in one life – it cannot protect its owner in his or her future lives.”
So, as it says in The New Eight Steps to Happiness:
The only thing never deceive us is the

attainment of full enlightenment. It is only
by attaining enlightenment that we can
fulfill our deepest wish for pure and lasting
happiness, for nothing in this impure world
has the power to fulfill this wish. Only when
we become a fully enlightened Buddha will
we experience the profound and lasting
peace that comes from a permanent
cessation of all delusions and their imprints.
We will be free from all faults and mental
obscurations, and will possess all the qualities needed to help all living beings directly.
We will then be an object of refuge for all living beings.
Maybe we’re thinking this sounds a bit far-fetched – I don’t even like my neighbor, and here it’s
being suggested that I can become an all-loving Buddha?!
But try closing your eyes and imagining all this for a moment, being profoundly peaceful, an object
of refuge, and so on….
Can you?
Yes?
If so, that is significant. If you really couldn’t become a Buddha, you wouldn’t be able to imagine
becoming one. And vice versa. Everything starts with our thoughts, our correct imagination.
It’s only the hallucinations of our self-grasping ignorance that make us buy into being fixed, small,
and limited. As I started to explain a bit here, we can change our programming fast by dropping
into the clear light mind at our heart, dissolving away the self we ordinarily see, and then
identifying with our boundless potential.
The first step: getting over ourselves
We now have the big picture. And according to the presentation in Eight Steps, once we’ve decided
that enlightenment sounds interesting to us, and is something we might want and are capable of
experiencing, we then go back to the beginning, to the first step, which is cherishing others.
Slowly but surely we overcome our bias and partiality to broaden and deepen our love — and what
happens is that instead of experiencing that same old flatline happiness, with those pointless peaks
and troughs, our happiness increases as the weeks, months, and years go by, and our delusions,
sadness, and depression begin to melt away.
This mind of cherishing others will take us in an ever upward trajectory — the happiness line
ascending up and up infinitely until it disappears into
space. With enlightenment, we have off the charts
happiness and mental freedom.
“Quite remarkable”
I don’t know if this kind of thing impresses you or not, but this video talks about an experiment
showing that the brainwaves of the “highest level meditators” are really different.
Superhumans: The remarkable brain waves of high-level meditat…

meditat…
The main thing apparently is the gamma waves – we have these for a very short period when, for
example, we solve a problem, or bite into an apple, or imagine biting into an apple (or drink a flat
white). But “what was stunning” in people who have meditated a lot is that their “gamma waves
are very strong all the time, a lasting trait, just their everyday state even when they are not
meditating.” And apparently “science has never seen it before.”
Another remarkable discovery is that “when they meditate on compassion, their gamma jumps 700
or 800 percent, and this also never been seen by science.” The psychologist concludes that these
meditators have “a state of being that is not like our ordinary state — sometimes it’s called
liberation or enlightenment or awake or whatever the word may be. They feel spacious wide open.”
And while he says we don’t know what this is exactly, we do know “it is quite remarkable”.
I would just like to add that we start to experience these kinds of joyful effects as soon as we start
meditating regularly, especially if we do so skillfully in the context of identifying with our potential
– these effects don’t just suddenly pop up overnight. Hence the ever-ascending line of the graph.
We have a taste
The deep joy or bliss we already experience inside us from time to time, when the clouds of
delusions clear, gives us a taste of what it is like to be enlightened and experience deep profound
bliss day and night, feeling connected to all living beings, blessing their minds. That seems
compelling to me. No longer to have to be all wrapped up in a small fixed boring me.
As Geshe Kelsang says, it’s up to us:
We are faced with a choice: either we can continue to squander our life in pursuing
worldly enjoyments that give no real satisfaction and disappear when we die, or we
can dedicate our life to realizing our full spiritual potential.
This is our choice: no one else can make this choice for us.
Unplugging the hedonic treadmill in 2019
Just to conclude, I’m going to point out to those of

you who are relatively new to Buddhism that
unplugging the hedonic treadmill and dedicating
our lives to realizing our full spiritual potential
does not mean that we stop drinking flat whites,
enjoying time with family and friends, watching
movies, or getting promotions at work. It means
that we understand where real happiness comes
from and bring that understanding into whatever
we’re doing each day.
We don’t abandon anything outside our mind, only our selfish attachment and other delusions for
therein lie our actual problems. There’s a great saying in the Kadampa tradition:
Remain natural while changing your aspiration.
Using this life, or even just this year, to seek enlightenment doesn’t mean we have to go all strange.
We can carry on doing pretty much the same things on the outside (unless we are a butcher or
something). We transform our daily life into the spiritual path, and in this way experience greater
and greater happiness as time goes on. As Geshe Kelsang puts it:
If we make the effort to practice Buddha’s teachings we will definitely attain

enlightenment.
Definitely.
We don’t need to abandon our family, friends, or enjoyments, and retire to a

mountain cave.
(Tempting as that may be from time to time … )
All we need to do is change the object of cherishing.
We could try this out in 2019 and see what happens. I don’t see what we’ve got to lose? And if it
doesn’t work, we can get back on the treadmill in 2020.
Over to you. Comments are welcome.
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Author: Luna Kadampa

Based on 40 years' experience, I write about applying meditation and modern Buddhism to improve and
transform our everyday lives and societies. I try to make it accessible to everyone anywhere who wants more
inner peace and profound tools to help our world, not just Buddhists.
Do make comments any time and I'll write
you back! View all posts by Luna Kadampa
Luna Kadampa / 12/31/2018 / Enlightenment, Happiness / Buddhism in 2019, cherishing others, Enlightenment,
existential crisis, experiment, happiness, hedonic treadmill, selfish desires, The New Eight Steps to Happiness, worldly
pleasures
7 thoughts on “Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill”

Babs
01/02/2019 at 6:36 am
Thank you so simple and profound and great to share with both experienced and new meditators
alike. These teachings are priceless for those of us can’t attend as many live teachings as we would
like to. A great inspiration to us all following the festive holidays!
Like
Luna Kadampa
01/02/2019 at 10:41 am
Thank you Babs Wishing you a wonderful 2019.
Like
Anonymous
01/01/2019 at 7:39 am
I’m thankful for your insight and clear expression. I’ve benefitted from it for a while now and am
overdue to let you know how grateful I am.
Liked by 1 person
Luna Kadampa
01/01/2019 at 10:43 am
Thank you very much!
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drukku
12/31/2018 at 3:22 pm
You say: “All to often followed by searing heartache.” That didn’t happen to me until 37 years later
when she died from rapid onset lung cancer. We both quit smoking in 1984. I wouldn’t give up any
of this pain in exchange for not ever knowing her. It is only a cloud in the sky by comparison, even
if it doesn’t diminish for another 55 weeks or twice that, she was worth all of it. om ah hung benza
guru péma siddhi hung
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Luna Kadampa
12/31/2018 at 3:27 pm
I am sure she was — love is always worth it. It is the attachment part that sucks. Happy New Year
x
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Anonymous
01/01/2019 at 1:14 pm
True, cu in ny
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2021.08.10.

Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life

9 mins & 2 videos

First a question: What do you reckon happens when we

opposite direction. Or we get a promotion at work –

We can dream about a job or a partner for months,

Essentially, no amount of money, technology, sex,

Guinea Pig Has Life Crisis

Forever chasing froth?

In The New Eight Steps to Happiness, Geshe

Of all worldly possessions the most

Only caveat is that this jewel can fulfill wishes

So, as it says in The New Eight Steps to Happiness:

The only thing never deceive us is the

The first step: getting over ourselves

Superhumans: The remarkable brain waves of high-level meditat…

As Geshe Kelsang says, it’s up to us:

Unplugging the hedonic treadmill in 2019

Just to conclude, I’m going to point out to those of

Remain natural while changing your aspiration.

If we make the effort to practice Buddha’s teachings we will definitely attain

We don’t need to abandon our family, friends, or enjoyments, and retire to a

(Tempting as that may be from time to time … )

All we need to do is change the object of cherishing.

Over to you. Comments are welcome.

Like this? Please share it:

 Facebook  Twitter  Reddit  Print  Email  Pocket  LinkedIn  Tumblr  Pinterest

12 bloggers like this.

Author: Luna Kadampa

7 thoughts on “Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill”

Thank you Babs Wishing you a wonderful 2019.

Thank you very much!

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