I boarded the plane and sat in the middle seat, wondering if any of the passengers walking by would occupy the aisle seat directly to my left. With each passenger that walked on past, the anticipation grew into hope that perhaps I would get lucky and have the use of the empty seat. Finally an older man sat down and my hope was completely deflated. But then he called over a flight attendant and asked to be reseated so he, his wife, and child could all sit together. Yes! The seat is mine again!
Then the last passenger gets on the plane with huge bags and is supposed to sit in the window seat in the aisle directly in front of us. Because the chubby woman took so long to board the plane, the flight attendants rushed her into the empty seat next to me so that the middle and aisle seats in her row wouldn’t have to get up and wait for her to shuffle herself into the window seat. Greaaaaaaaaat. Occupied again.
The whole time, I watched as my feelings shifted from + to – to + to – . I felt so silly because here I was sitting quietly and nothing really happened. I had an assigned seat and I continued to sit in it. But I tied an invisible string from my neck to the aisle seat and every time something changed with the seat, I felt the tug on the string….just like a puppet.
I also noticed that once we feel relieved, we interpret that as “sukkha,” happiness. In reality, it’s just a change from the state of “dukkha,” suffering…and that state of suffering was also just a change from either happiness or from a blank slate. Basically, we alternate from happiness to suffering to happiness to suffering to happiness…..Happiness or suffering only exists because of the contrast from the previous state. From “nothing” we accumulate burdens and once we begin to get rid of each burden, we begin to feel better and better.
When we’re hungry the pains can be unbearable. Once we eat, we feel relieved. Then, naturally, we move from relief into hunger again, and then back into relief. Happiness is relief from suffering. Suffering is an undesired change from happiness. However, similar to the case with hunger, the alternating states never end. Happiness is never final and it really does not conquer suffering, and vice versa. So when we strive for happiness, we have to realize that we are also striving for suffering. They come as a pair and are defined by one another.
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