hilitehead

“So far as the first level of suffering is concerned – physical pain and other obvious sufferings – we consider that even animals have the capacity to recognize these experiences as suffering, and they are also capable of finding relief from some aspect of them, however temporary that may be. As for the suffering of change, which is the second category, this is actually refers to experiences that we conventionally identify as pleasurable or happy. These are subject to the suffering of change, because the more you indulge in them, the more they lead to dissatisfaction. If these experiences were bringing some genuine lasting happiness, then the more you indulged in them the longer the experience of happiness would last, yet that is not the case. All too often what may seem like a pleasurable experience, and what may initially seem like happiness, when pursued, changes at a certain point into suffering and leads to frustration and so on. So even though conventionally it is called happiness, on another sense it has the nature of suffering. In fact, if you examine the nature of pleasurable sensations you will see that there is often an extremely relative dimension to them; we usually define an experience as pleasurable by comparison to a more intense form of suffering that has just come to an end. What we call ‘pleasure’ or ‘happiness’ is more like the temporary absence of intense suffering and pain.”