Buddhism & The Hedonic Treadmill - Kadampa Life
Buddhism & The Hedonic Treadmill - Kadampa Life
Kadampa Life
Buddhist meditation applied to our everyday lives…
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
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.
2021.08.10. Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
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.
2021.08.10. Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
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.
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.”
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.
2021.08.10. Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
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.
2021.08.10. Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
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.
2021.08.10. Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
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
2021.08.10. Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
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.
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.
2021.08.10. Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
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:
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:
2021.08.10. Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
Definitely.
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.
Like this:
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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
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
Like
Anonymous
01/01/2019 at 7:39 am
2021.08.10. Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
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
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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
2021.08.10. Buddhism & the hedonic treadmill – Kadampa Life
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
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