What Is Fulfilling

Transcript

Welcome, beautiful thinkers!

I’d like to ask you this question, is curious question.

What is really fulfilling?

I remember in my time in the temple, Tham Krabok, my friend, Brah Jeremy, said to me, “These, these are people who come here, looking for help in the rehabilitation process.”

“Then they have a rehabilitation center.”

“A lot of people go there, because they have problems with alcohol, or with opiates, they go there, to seek assistance, to seek some repose from the world.”

“A different place, different than the surroundings that they normally find in the towns, wherever they might be in the world, in Dublin, or London, or Vancouver, or Bangkok, Saraburi.”

Wherever they come from, they seek this pilgrimage place, has the reputation of being the finest, or perhaps I should say, the most effective drug rehabilitation center in the world.

While people there will tell you, it’s not so easy to track how effective it really is.

But there are certain elements about this, which are very powerful for the people.

The fact that it includes spiritual lessons.

Ask yourself, “What did the Buddha teach?

What does desire mean?

What is attachment?

And how does it affect me?”

When we begin to ask these questions, we can begin to see also how our actions are affecting us and those around us.

“What is Karma? And how can I observe it?”

Brah Jeremy said to me, “People who leave drugs, many times, they know better than anybody.”

“People who have been involved in drugs are prime candidates to receive the lessons completely of the Buddha.”

“Because they know better than the most that getting what you want, isn’t necessarily going to make you happy.”

Here sometimes we labor under delusions.

I’m reading this book, Alan Carr’s “Easy Way to Quit Smoking.”

I haven’t really smoked for a long time.

Maybe the occasional cigarette if I have a drink.

Start to wonder, based on the questions in this book, what delusions do I have that are inhibiting me?

So in the book, it says, “There’s the little monster and the big monster.

And the little monster is quite easy.

The little monster is a physical addiction to nicotine.”

And if you stop smoking, or vaping or juuling, chewing nicotine gum for just 24 hours, is likely that all of the nicotine will have left your body.

And quite certainly after 48 hours, 72 hours, it’s gone.

But that’s not the tricky part.

If you can get past 24 hours, you no longer need to worry about withdrawal symptoms.

It’s something else that is gaining us back.

Something else.

Alan Carr calls it the big monster.

The big monster is the delusion.

The idea that cigarrettes, that smoking, vaping is actually making us happy, providing some relief.

Now, he does think a hard line on this, I think maybe there is something enjoyable about smoking.

But he makes his point quite clearly saying, “We believe these things like a cigarette gives me a relief.

Well, it does, gives you a relief from the withdrawal symptoms.”

Carl compares it to putting on a pair of shoes that are really tight, just so you can experience the relief, have taking them off at the end of the day.

Now, that doesn’t seem like a very efficient way to achieve happiness.

What if we didn’t need those things?

What if the relief that we were sinking was already with us?

It’s already there.

Waiting for us to notice it.

He says, “That is how a nonsmoker feels all the time.”

What is really fulfilling these days unfortunately, find many people addicted to pornography, masturbation?

And maybe there’s again, maybe there’s probably something wholesome or something enjoyable about these things.

Maybe, maybe not the pornography.

Maybe it’s part of a healthy, healthy self love, I guess, I don’t know, that might might be true, you know, people have varied opinions about that.

And that’s fine.

But of course, when it goes into excess, that is a problem.

And we can even feel it.

Years ago, when I watched pornography frequently was like, “If I’m conscious, if I’m present with myself, I can tell, hey, something not right is going on here.”

“Maybe I am actually.. I was gonna say, destroying my soul.

But that’s just not quite right.

Maybe I am sending my soul a wrong message by saying that, this is how I am capable of feeling release, or happiness or satisfaction.”

Maybe we don’t need to look like that.

Look in that way.

Maybe there’s another way to find fulfilment.

And maybe it’s quite simple.

Just like Alan Carr tells us.

“All we need to do is release delusions, and illusions that smoking or pornography makes us happy and that we are really enjoying these things.”

Maybe we’re not, maybe we don’t need anything, any substance or activity to help us feel happy.

Cause certain activities do help us feel happy meditation, and exercise.

And of course, these things are quite pure.

Again, within there are always caveats.

Always limits and there’s always excess.

But these things are quite pure.

And we feel good about doing them.

Alan Carr compares smoking to exercise and he says, you know, “If you mean a person who’s a casual smoker, maybe they only smoke a couple of cigarettes a week or a couple of day.

And they’re quite proud of the fact that they limit themselves so much.

But if you talk to an exercise fanatic, or even some somebody who just enjoys exercise casually, they don’t say yeah, “I’ve got I’ve got it down to two minutes a day. 10 minutes a day.”

No, they don’t say that.

They’re like, you know, I’m doing three days a week and comfortable that.

Maybe I’ll start to do a few extra bicep curls or wrist curls or a little jogging on my off days to even announce this.

They say stuff like this.

Because we know these things are good.”

What is really fulfilling for us?

It’s not those bad habits, shameful habits.

If we believe these things are giving us happiness, we are mistaken.

And we’ll probably continue to make the same mistakes.

But if we start to become aware of our beliefs, start to let go of these ideas that hold us back.

Notice how we feel.

And notice the moments when we feel fulfilled.

Notice, even when we feel unfulfilled we might have those urges.

Once again.

We can simply take a few deep breaths and ask ourselves, “what do we really want?”

Maybe what we really want is just to be with ourselves.

Being our own best friend, our own companion in this life, seeking fulfillment, or being fulfilled.