- Nature of being human: inherent unsatisfactions in life simply will not go away
- Distractions only work temporarily
- Keeping a good front doesn’t fix inner mess
- Happiness from successes also fades
- Nature of universe: change is incessant
- Problem: we categorize each perception into 3 mental pigeon holes: good, bad, neutral
- If good, we try to freeze time there, and if that doesn’t work we try to repeat
- If bad, we try to push away, deny, reject, remove, fight
- If neutral, we ignore
dukkha(Pali word) → suffering. Buddhism: the essence of life is suffering- bleak but only from ordinary mental perspective
- Alternative perspective: mind does not try to freeze time, block things out, or ignore them
- happiness in normal perspective: have everything we want and be in control
- another option: control your mind to step outside the endless cycle of desire and aversion
- learn to not be controlled by desire
- normal-looking life but from a new viewpoint
- It’s difficult, but preferable to the impossible (trying to control everything is impossible)
- Meditation: intended to clean up psychic irritants like greed, hatred, jealousy
- civilization changes person from outside
- meditation softens a person from within, sharpens concentration and thinking power
- faith: confidence that something is true because you observed the thing within yourself
- morality: a healthy habit you consciously and voluntarily chose
next: Goals of meditations
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