Craving the Prize or the Chase?

We rarely desire things for what they truly are; we desire them for how easily they can slip away. Human psychology is hardwired to equate scarcity with value. When an object or person is securely ours, the mind settles into comfortable indifference. But introduce a threat of loss, or the void of absence, and suddenly urgency ignites. It is a trick of perspective.  

The intrinsic worth of the object hasn't changed at all , only the circumstances have. We are perpetually caught in a phantom chase, falling in love with the fleeting shadow of uncertainty. However, is the chase worth it? Will it make us truly happy? Stay tuned to discover the truth!  

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to The Art of Being Happy, Buddha's Guide to Modern Living from Jetavanarama Buddhist Monastery, Sri Lanka. This intriguing talk series brings timeless Buddhist wisdom to help you navigate life's challenges through simple practical insights. Each episode offers gentle guidance for finding peace and joy in everyday moments. Join us on this journey toward lasting happiness and inner peace. Brought to you by Sanatani, the voice eternal.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Think of the last time you lost something. Think of the last time you lost something. Maybe a bunch of keys, maybe your spectacles, right? Maybe your wife, whatever. You lost something. Right? No, not lost in that way. Like, you know, actually temporarily. Okay? You lost something. Right? And now you wanna you want it back. I remember when I lost my keys. That memory really stuck with me because I wanted my keys to go to a dharmatog, and without my keys, I couldn't get into my car. And that that is why that that memory stuck with me. But I've lost plenty of things, but that memory has really stuck with me. Think of a time where you really lost something, something that was dear to you, something that was precious to you. Okay? Now, whatever you're thinking of, I'll give you one example, and you can apply that into your own examples. When I lost my case that day, I walked around the house looking for it. So, you know, you look in the obvious places first, you look in the cupboards, you look in the drawers, you look on the on the desk, you look uh under the desk, and then after the after a while you start looking in the you know in between the sofa, under the sofa, in the fridge, just in case. You never know when or where it might end up. Then you look in the stove, you look on in the oven, you like you look everywhere, right? So I was desperate. I was desperately looking for my keys. And then eventually my wife brings the keys and says, Here they are. So she'd found them under the car. How did they get under the car? Because I'd left the keys under the car to pick up the shopping. I mean, we'd just come back from shopping, and then that's where I had left the keys. So, anyhow, she brings the keys after several hours of me looking for them. Now, in the first few moments, I was not so stressed. But what happens as time progresses and you really need it, if you can't give up looking for it, what happens to your mind? You get more and more vexatious, right? You get really stressed out. Just imagine if you lost your child for a second. I actually, you know, I don't mean dead, I mean like actually lost. Right? So maybe you're out doing some shopping and the child runs away in the supermarket. He just lets go of your hand and he runs away. Now, as a mother, how would you feel about that situation? I mean, you'd be walking around like a headless chicken, wouldn't you? Where's my child? Where's my child? You know, knocking from door to door, screaming out loud if you must. Uh and you'd be really desperate looking for your child. And the longer that passes, remember when uh was it Madeline McCann? The girl that was lost? Yeah. Yeah, it became a thing all over the world. And everyone was looking for Madeline. But of course, most of all, her parents were. Because when something's dear to you, when something is so precious to you and you lose it, you you almost feel like you know your life is lost and you need it back. Now, here's what happened when I found my keys. So my wife brought them back to me, and then she showed them to me and go, here you go. I'd never been so happy to see my keys. Never in my life, not even the day I bought my car and held my keys in my hand for the first time, not even on that day was I so happy to see my keys. But on that day, when she showed me those keys, I was so happy. I was over the moon. But here's the deal. Those same keys, you know, that bunch of keys, had I not seen them before? Had I not seen them on the table? Had I not seen them on the key hangar plenty of times? Why did it not make me so happy when I saw them all those times? But it sent me into a state of euphoria when I saw it after I had lost it. Why so? It's vexation. Now my wife was asking me the other day, by other day I don't mean yesterday. Back then, right? So a few weeks after my birthday came up, and then she was saying, honey, I've never seen you happier than when I saw you. This the look on your face when you saw those keys. So for your next birthday, I was thinking of maybe giving you a bunch of keys as a birthday gift. Would she be right to do so? You know, she's she makes a point, doesn't she? But you know that it's not a valid point. Because you know that it was not the keys that made me happy, it was me longing for it. It was me vexing for it. So this is why the the saying goes, absence makes the heart grow fonder. So if absence makes the heart grow fonder, then what must you do with all the things you like and you love? Yes. Come on, Pingatuni. Because if absent makes the heart grow fonder, then of course. Come and live with me for a few weeks. You'll be absent from all the things that makes your heart grow fonder, and then after you return home for in about a year or two, right? You'll be delighted. Now you gotta think, why does absent make the heart grow fonder? It's because when the mind is vexed, the mind looks for release from vex. It looks for relief. So when you are relieved from that, would it not be flawed thinking if one were to think that the object of pleasure or the source of pleasure was the object? Don't you think it would be flawed thinking? Take the example of the keys again. If the keys were the source of my pleasure, would I not have had the same pleasure as I did on the day where my wife brought those keys back and said, honey, here you go. Would I not have had the same pleasure every time I saw those keys? I should have, shouldn't I? But did I? Certainly not. That being the case, don't you think we have to come to a conclusion that pleasure was not in the keys, just as much as it is not in this flower? But you think this flower is beautiful. You think beauty is in the flower. I tell you, beauty is not in the flower. But how then does beauty happen? How then do you see beauty? Here's how the same phenomenon. It's the same principle. That very principle of how I was able to relieve myself from vexation when I saw those keys that were returned to me. You look at this flower and you see beauty. This is why, folks, keep staring at this all day long, and what's gonna happen? Yes, the flower is gonna wither away, but not just that. Let's say we made it out of plastic, and I asked you to look at it all day long. After a while, you're gonna say, haven't you got anything else? It's not so pretty now. It's not so beautiful now. Because you get accustomed to it. You familiarize yourself with it. Right? Contemptment, right? This is what begins to happen. As you associate with something more and more and more, it breeds contempt. Familiarity, that's the saying. Familiarity breeds contempt. So as you become familiar with something, you no longer have those positive feelings about it. You don't know, you no longer experience pleasure with from it. What you begin to experience is contempt for it. It becomes tasteless. Have you never wondered why the same thing you can when you keep eating, you lose the deliciousness of it? See, here's the science behind it. Here's the mental science behind it. The first bite you take is what? Ambrosia. Second bite, less so. Third bite, less so. I remember when I was a young lad, you know, going to university, right? We used to save up and go to a buffet, the Chinese buffets, you know, Indian buffets, you know, when we were there, you know, that's what we used to do. Eat. But I remember we were we what we used to do was friends and I, you know, we we would uh if we knew that we had a buffet, we we were planning for to to go out and eat the maybe uh the for this evening, we would skip lunch all together, cup of tea and a sandwich for breakfast. That would do. Skip lunch, skip evening meals, whatever. And because we would, you know, when you go to a buffet, you have to eat, right? You have to eat as much as you can. And one, you know, you know, to get your money's worth. Because, you know, I used to do, I used to do my job, you know, odd jobs, you know, saving up, right? You do all sorts. You know, my parents wanted me to do that because they wanted me to have that experience of of earning for myself from a young age. They wanted me to understand where money comes from. So although they could afford everything I wanted, they wanted me to experience that. So, yeah, and in those countries, people get that experience, and I was fortunate to have that. So, whatever money I had to go out and eat was money that I had earned for myself. And so, when you spend that money, you want your money's worth. So, we used to save up for that, and we used to skip those meals because once you go into the buffet, you can eat as much as you can. Now, once you walk into the restaurant and you see all these lovely dishes laid out, right? It's just like it's it's a cuisine galore, isn't it? Like you walk into a buffet, there's Chinese and Mongolian and Japanese and duck, right? And all sorts, right? Ten different types of rice, uh 600 different types of noodles, right? And all sorts of different foods. So ice cream and the the uh what do we call it, the the chocolate fountain, everything, everything you could hope for, and everything you could imagine. So we sat there, right, with a plate in hand, now expecting to eat to our heart's content. But unfortunately, only the first few mouthfuls were so delicious. I remember when I was when I started stuffing myself, the first few mouths they went in at the speed of light. One, I was hungry, and two, it tasted so delicious. But the third, fourth, fifth mouthful, by the time I was going for my second servings, not so. You you've experienced this when you eat something, although it's so delicious. That's why your home cooking is not so good. But you know, you have a visitor, a mother makes a cake, she feeds it to her child, and my and the child says, Thank you, Amma. But you know, you have a visitor, the child from next door, he comes around and you give her the same cake, and you know, he loves you for it. And then you say, See, what's the point of cooking for you people? The child next door, they enjoy my they appreciate my cooking. No, the only thing is, you know, familiarity breeds contempt. That's what's happening. Because the more you have something, the less the mind vexes for it. What I need you to understand, folks, is you're not experiencing pleasure in the object. You're experiencing a pleasure that comes through the relief from vexation. This is both physically and mentally true. We did this experiment when we first started doing these talks a few weeks ago, maybe a couple of months ago, even, right? I asked you to bend your finger backwards, remember? Right? And the more you bend, the more it hurts. But the more you bend it and let go, the better you feel. Because if you only just tug it just a little bit and let go, you don't feel there's no there's no pain to relieve from. But if you pull it all the way back and hold it there until you can hold it no longer, and it becomes excruciatingly painful. Now you let go and you you experience such relief. It's like when you go do your shopping and you bring your shopping bags and you let it, you know, let go of it, let it put it down or put in the boot, right? After you've done all the shopping round and you go, it's a sigh of relief. On a hot day and you take a cool glass of water, it's very relieving. But on a cool day and you take a hot mug of tea, it's relieving. So don't you think that it is meaningless to attribute pleasure to the physical object? It's not the object that gives you pleasure then, it is your longing for it. So, how again do you see beauty then? Your longing for this is what makes this beautiful in your mind. That is why, you know, in a in relationships, right? You know, when we speak to when when when people come up to us and ask for relationship advice, they do that as well. And out of compassion, we we we we teach them the dhamma. That's what we do actually. We teach them the dhamma. We explain this concept to them. We explain to them, Mahatya, after a while, your wife is not going to look so beautiful to you. You know, we give them the the, you know, this is a prophecy. We tell them what's coming. It's better to be better to be prepared for it, right? And we tell the lady as well, Nona, after a while, Mahatya is not going to look so handsome. Prepare yourself for it. How do you prepare for it? We then advise them, don't fall in love for their for their appearance. Because appearance will you will not find it pleasurable for very long. Get to know them. Understand them. Get to know them as a human being. Get to know them what they're like, you know, what their temperament is like, what they are like as a as a human being. Get to familiarize yourself with their genera with their with their kindness, their gentleness, generosity, and things like that. Don't fall for the appearance, because the appearance, the luster of the appearance, will only last for a very short period of time. Why again? Familiarity breeds content. This is why, although in some relationships, folks, you know, when you know, sometimes you might see this, you know, a lady in a relationship and you think, oh, she's so pretty. Why does a man you know not look after her? Why the why the why is she neglected? How come, you know, they can she neglect someone so so good looking? She's like a goddess. To you, yes. Because you've only just seen her. But us, the guy who lives with her every day, I'm not saying because of her weaknesses, not because of her flaws. You know, she might actually be a goddess in her in her behaviors, in her characteristics, she might actually be. But I'm talking about the looks. These looks are purely, you know, the the the way a facial a face is constructed is the way the face is constructed. God never put beauty into anything. There's no beauty in any of this. The skin is taut, yes. The nose is in the right position, yes. The eyes are perfectly symmetrical, yes. The lips are symmetrical, they're plump, yes. All of these things are physical attributes. But beauty? No. Is she fair? Yes. But not because she's a fair color, but there are fewer pigments. There's less melanin on the skin. Therefore, yes. It's characteristic, it's objective. But beauty, not objective. That's subjective. You know, that's why I see this a lot of the time. When you try and explain this to people, and if they only uh took on this advice, you know, people will be able to live a happier life together. Because what we see a lot these days, folks, is people fall for appearances first, and then they get to know the person. Sometimes they've already tied the non-started living together, and it was all, you know, on the face of appearance. But later on they begin to learn and realize that, you know, I can't live with this person, and then they split up. Because the appearance, this good-looking appearance, you know, it only lasts for a very short period of time. I've seen people who would not let go of their partner's hand. They'll walk up and down the streets, you know, walk along the beaches, right, go places and all the while holding hands, but after a while, they start living together and the sunglasses come on. And it's sunset. Why do you need sunglasses at that time? Because when you put the sunglasses on, you can't see where else he's looking. That's why. I'm not saying always. I'm not saying, you know, that is why they always put the sunglasses on. What I'm saying is sunglasses do come on. So that you can hold the hand, but look at what other options might be available. That's why we say don't fall for appearance. You know, I think this is what young people should be taught before they're allowed to get married. Don't fall for the looks. It's not the looks that you should be going for. Understand who they are as a person. Do they have the characteristics? Do they have the qualities that you can live with? Are they virtuous? Do they conduct themselves in a good manner? Like whatever it is you need to be able to live comfortably, can she cook? Can she can he do a job? Right? These are the things you need to look for. Looks very superficial. They'll only last for a very short time. But you know, in the world that we live in today, you know, there is more value given to how a person looks than who they are, deep down. Don't you agree? Everything is glamour. Just the glamour on the outside. As long as the shell looks fine, even if it's empty on the inside, I'll take it home. It's a pitiful state, but that's what people have fallen into. Here's the explanation behind all this. When the mind goes into a state of vexation, the mind is just about arising right now. Okay? So we've shown the flower, and the mind is is just about to be is just about to arise in this point. Okay? But the chitta, though the mind holds this opinion, this belief that that beauty is in the flower. Okay? So it believes that the beauty is in the flower, and then it's longing for that beauty, it's longing for pleasure. Whilst it's longing for pleasure, the chitta arises. This is just like a you know, it's it's a spurge of energy, or sorry, a surge of energy. This is what it is, a surge of energy. So the the object is presented, optical nerve, brain, drops the rupa rupa on the mind base or the mind faculty. Yeah, but it is written with ignorance. And what is ignorance again? That beauty is present in the object. With that expectation, the mind now begins to receive, register, recognize, respond, and perceive. With that expectation. Expectation of what? That beauty is in the object. So then here's what happens. With that expectation, the receiving process starts. So this is uh this is where the process is kicked off. Receiving happens. So the rupa rupa is received at the mind, with the expectation that beauty is in the flower. It has been longing for this rupa, and the rupa has just arrived. It's like when you wait for your delivery. The longer you wait, the pleasure, the more pleasurable it is. So as the mind has now been waiting for this rupa rupa, as it has just arrived, the mind goes from a state of vexation to a state of relief. It is that relief you now begin to experience as beauty. You call it beauty because it is an object that has come through the eye. If it is an object that came through the tongue, you would not call it beauty, you just call it tasty. Let's just say instead of plugging this wire, this nerve that goes from the eye to the brain, instead of plugging it to the optic center, let's imagine you plugged it to the uh taste center, which is apparently somewhere around here in the brain. Then when a flower is put forward or put presented to your eye, you'll probably go, oh, that tastes nice. Because it is neither deliciousness nor beauty that you're experiencing. These are all creations of the mind. Why creations of the mind? The mind goes into vexation and it is relieved from vexation. Does this concept of vexation, is it beginning to make sense to you? I need you to understand this before we progress any further. That's why the best way to explain this to you and to get you to understand this is through these examples. That's why I'm I am you know throwing you an innumerable example so you can you can grasp this concept. That's why I say on a hot day, a cool glass of water. But on a cold day, a hot mug of tea. If it is a cool glass of water that gives you happiness, why don't we drink it all the time? If it's a hot mug of tea that makes you happy, why don't we drink it, drink it all the time? Now you see, it's it's a bit cold in here, right? It's a bit cold in here. Maybe a bit you perhaps some of you are feeling a bit chilly. If I if we brought in some uh, say soft drinks, chill soft drinks, how many of you would be happy to indulge in one of those? Probably none of you. But if you brought in uh maybe a warm glass of water or maybe a hot cup of tea, now you'll be happy. But if it's a hot day, so then I have to ask the question which one makes you happy? Is it the cool glass of water or the hot mug of tea? Which one makes you happy? Now you have to say, Swamin, neither of them makes me happy. It depends on the circumstance in which I am in. Do you agree with that? It depends on the circumstance in which you are in. If you are feeling hot, then the cool glass of water is your remedy. If you are feeling cold, then the hot mug of tea is your remedy. Neither of them inherently have happiness or pleasure in them. But they are both capable of giving you what you lack. So when this void that you have is filled, now you feel a sense of relief. And that is the sense of relief that you experience as pleasure. That is why we say pleasure is so overrated. But people fall for it, this stuff. You know, if you if I said like this flower, if I could really convince you that this flower was so beautiful, and I can. You know, all I have to do is indoctrinate you. I mean, just think about why some people pay lots of money, like for art. I mean, what is art after all? Just think about it. I've got nothing against artists or people who are collectors of art, right? You you carry on doing what you have to do. That's fine. I just want you to think intelligently. Because you all deserve to think intelligently. That is why I make this invitation. Think about art per second. A few lines, straight lines, curved lines, shapes, right? Colors, a mix of colours, a blend of colors. If you just think about the colors themselves, you know what you really have? The colors of the rainbow and some lines drawn in pencil. What makes that piece of art so expensive? What makes it so expensive? What is expensive about the art? Is it the paint? Is it the canvas? Is it the frame? What is it? It's just paint. You know, the same paint you can go and buy at a shop. You could buy the whole shop for the price you might pay for one piece of art. You could buy the whole shop. So why is art precious? And if there are any artists in the room, then please forgive me. But I I need you I need you to open your eyes and wake up from your dreams. Because you fall for it otherwise. This is the truth about the world. This is the truth about existence. Because if you fall, if you fall into this trap, then people get to call the shots. So then people get to demand. I don't like it when people demand in front of you. Because that is an insult to the Buddha. If the Buddha, you know, if I'm a disciple of the Buddha, right? Let's just think about this for a second, folks. If I claim to be a disciple of the Buddha, and a woman could come up to me and then dare me and say, Sramilansa, are you a disciple of the Buddha? I say, Yes, madam, I'm a disciple of the Buddha. And she says, Oh, really? Would you like to come over for lunch? If I'm so weak to fall for that, don't you think that is the biggest insult to the Buddha? And to his teaching? You know, when the Buddha attained Buddhahood, Mara, having been defeated, sent his three daughters, Tanha, Rati, and Raga. It is said that they are the epitome of beauty. There is nothing more beautiful than that. They came and they did their dances, they came and they did all sorts of things to indulge him, to try and to try and lure him into a state of intoxication, sensual intoxication, but none of that worked. He was not because he patient, he was patiently trying to fight it all, not so. Desire did not ignite within him. He had completely extinguished that. The Buddha does not see beauty.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Thank you for joining us on the Art of Being Happy from Chaitavanarama Buddhist Monastery. May today's wisdom bring you peace and joy in your daily life. We'd love to hear how these talks have touched your life. Share your experiences with us on Plus91-6361 803371. Until next time, may you find happiness in each present moment. Brought to you by Sanatanawani, the Voice Eternal.