Constant sadness and dissatisfaction

[Belincia]

Hello,

I have practised buddhism for few years. It sometimes makes me really happy etc. But those are always just short phases, and most of all time there is...
This feeling of sadness, yearning, dissatisfaction on my heart. Also loneliness. Very much loneliness. Even if I'm not alone. Also I haven't found compassion that difficult to practise, I can feel deep compassion towards others and still feel lonely. And sad for them too.

I can't identify why I have these feelings, they just are always there and mind automatically struggles to find wordly happiness (especially love from other people). I think those feelings rules my behaviour most of the time...

What are those feelings, are they just the basic suffering of samsara that we all have? Does some people feel more often happy than not ?

[5heaps]

the antidote is making great effort in trying to understand its nature and the nature of yourself. buddhadharma asserts that any painful feeling and emotion is due to misunderstanding the nature of yourself. isnt that great? that means that if we really understood ourselves, we couldnt have negative feelings and emotions even if wanted to. any painful feeling or emotion is due to innate misapprehension -- an active misunderstanding which accompanies every object we look at, every thought that appears, etc.

Incorrect Consideration and Voidness: Part Three: Incorrect Consideration of Suffering as Happiness and Unclean as Clean

The Endpoint of Samsara Is Suffering, the Endpoint of Dharma Is Happiness

The Four Indian Buddhist Tenet Systems Regarding Illusion: A Practical Approach

there are many excellent articles on berzinarchives. try using the search function and searching for something like compassion, renunciation, voidness, illusion, or happiness.

[Sonrisa]

Do you think you will be sad forever? The emotion you are feeling is impermanent, so thankfully, you wont be sad forever.

It's okay, let yourself feel it. When it is time to let it go, you will do it naturally. That happens to me too so you are not alone. You will feel worse if you deny it (trust me on this).

[catmoon]

Hello,

This feeling of sadness, yearning, dissatisfaction on my heart. Also loneliness. Very much loneliness. Even if I'm not alone. Also I haven't found compassion that difficult to practise, I can feel deep compassion towards others and still feel lonely. And sad for them too.

I can't identify why I have these feelings, they just are always there and mind automatically struggles to find wordly happiness (especially love from other people). I think those feelings rules my behaviour most of the time...

What are those feelings, are they just the basic suffering of samsara that we all have? Does some people feel more often happy than not ?

Last question first: I personally know some people who are happy very nearly all the time, so yes this is possible.

The difficulties you describe are partially due to habits of mind. The can be gradually taken apart by applying mindfulness. Mindfulness allows you to catch the sadness-inducing thoughts as they fly by, and then examine and challenge them. Mindfulness is developed in meditation. Once developed it can be carried into daily life.

[Hanzze]

Dear Belincia,

I guess it is a step your inside likes to make and you are just scare of it. Do it, there is nothing to lose! Waiting is for nothing. Trust you, and walk on!

Step out of the shadow even it seems to be a protection. Sun, it maybe hurts after a long time dark. But it is still available and there. You only leave dust, walk on!

[Belincia]

Hey,

Thanks for all answers...

If I indentify this more, I think I yearn for romantic love and closeness.
Then the question is, is it recommended to try and find this outside... Or should I just try to be happy with what I have ?
I'm in a relationship but it's kind of not "feeding" this side of me (and this seems to be big part on me)...

Of course ultimately I shouldn't look for it from outside.
If I would find a romantic boyfriend, I would only get more attached to him because of these qualities... And it would make things worse in the long run. Would it ?
Also my current relationship has very many good things I don't want to give up. But I don't think romantic side will come, tried. But my current relationship has "sense" in all the ways. Giving it up wouldn't have sense. It would just come from the heart.

[Tilopa]

If I indentify this more, I think I yearn for romantic love and closeness.
Then the question is, is it recommended to try and find this outside... Or should I just try to be happy with what I have ?
I'm in a relationship but it's kind of not "feeding" this side of me (and this seems to be big part on me)...

Open your heart to the world and you will never be lonely.

Of course ultimately I shouldn't look for it from outside.
If I would find a romantic boyfriend, I would only get more attached to him because of these qualities... And it would make things worse in the long run. Would it ?

Unfortunately yes but you might learn something as well.

Also my current relationship has very many good things I don't want to give up. But I don't think romantic side will come, tried. But my current relationship has "sense" in all the ways. Giving it up wouldn't have sense. It would just come from the heart.

Cherish what you have - imho the best part of human relationship is friendship and respect while romantic love is all about emotional confusion. Real love is more pure than that. Also ask yourself what can I give my boyfriend not what can he give me. But if it's really not working then no reason to be miserable...change is good too.

[Belincia]

Tilopa,

Maybe you said the thing. He doesn't seem to need anything of me. Still he wants to be with me but I don't know why. He also says it wouldn't matter anything for him if I left him. Would really be great to feel that I was of some help for him, but I don't think I am...

[Ogyen]

Hello,

I have practised buddhism for few years. It sometimes makes me really happy etc. But those are always just short phases, and most of all time there is...
This feeling of sadness, yearning, dissatisfaction on my heart. Also loneliness. Very much loneliness. Even if I'm not alone. Also I haven't found compassion that difficult to practise, I can feel deep compassion towards others and still feel lonely. And sad for them too.

I can't identify why I have these feelings, they just are always there and mind automatically struggles to find wordly happiness (especially love from other people). I think those feelings rules my behaviour most of the time...

What are those feelings, are they just the basic suffering of samsara that we all have? Does some people feel more often happy than not ?

Dearest Belincia,

happiness is a choice. I guarantee. I suffered all my life from very serious complex Post Traumatic Stress, and loneliness was a paramount feature in the experience of daily life, regardless of who I was "around"...

Loneliness is a symptom of being unable to connect to yourself in a way that fills you with relaxed acceptance.

Until I recently overcame some large hurdles, I felt not only alone, but a kind of continual despair around life's impermanence, loss, being always unable to hold onto anything. What shifted? Well, a lot, but lets start with the basics.

What do you associate happiness with? What do you expect in your interactions with other people? These are good places to start. Start spending time with yourself doing something productive, either helping someone else, or even just helping yourself, learn the anatomy of your feelings by spending 10 minutes with yourself every day and just use that time to look. Don't judge what you see (I know it's easier said than done), don't beat yourself up for what you see, we're all flawed with our own blindspots on our lens of awareness. Just breathe. Take that time to JUST breathe. And if you start to notice the chatter, the self-talk, shhhhhhhh it by just smiling and labeling it "thinking".

I used to feel anguish 24/7, have horrible flashbacks, it was very hard to stay in the present moment. And when I was present, I just wanted to get away from so much hurt, so even in staying present, I avoided the present... does that makes sense?

Here's what I did, I have no idea if it works for you, but it worked for me to the point I have re-integrated almost my whole mind into a sane, healthy ground for realization. It took not a little work, but years of patience. I made myself a promise to always notice what I think. So when I wake up in the morning, I say to myself, "Ogyen, may you notice what you do, and when you notice, may you change it."

We tend to not think much of what feelings arise, and thinking per se isn't much of a cure for sad feelings. But here's the thing, you cannot change a pattern that took years to establish itself overnight, so how do you change such a big pattern of suffering?

You must observe. Always observe, like if you were watching a match between two teams. You don't judge so much as you just take it in and let it become part of your knowledge of yourself, you are often sad. Yes, you are. Ok, so what am I doing when I am sad? Just give yourself the homework to notice, nothing more. Changes will occur naturally for your own well-being when you stop judging what's happening and stop putting a narrative to those feelings. So just observe. What I did, is I observed as much as I could, when my husband would irritate me, when things came up that were unpleasant, I just noticed my reactions. After a year of doing this (nothing really happened for a long time) I started to notice that I didn't WANT to react like I always did, so next time when something came up that would make me sad, I thought, let's think of this differently.

Ok, how? I didn't know that part either, so I just watched. The hardest thing in this is to let yourself just be without filling in the blanks of what you don't know, LIKE how else you could react. Your reactions will start to paint the picture of your own cure for you. You stay with them, and keep not judging, and when you notice you can change some way of acting, start reinforcing what you think you can do, and do your best.

That is the secret to curing any ill of self/mind. Do what YOU can to relax into your own being. Notice what you do, change when you can the negative habitual energy by noticing it first, and then notice where it rises, where it dies, and then feed it kindness.

So for me, I had a big big big hurdle on the dog pee in the house. I know it sounds really stupid, but it would literally make me feel like I was living in a sewer. Which played on my feelings of inadequacy of survival I experienced so often when i was a child. I would get angry just smelling dog pee near me, but it seemed kind of silly to say, "Dog pee angers me." Even I could see it was silly, but it was a real anger nonetheless.

So instead of trying to just put it away, I did something different every time I smelled dog pee and got angry. One time, I volunteered to do what I DIDN'T want to do, which was clean it myself. Another time, I changed the feeling mid-point by thinking, if I was a dog, it would be my job to mark my territory for my pack. So I started just noticing where my ache points were with this dog pee. Instead of driving me into a frenzied inner rage which always happened initially, where I would start this internal hate talk about how it wasn't my responsibility blah blah blah, I just made a promise to cut down the negative self-talk and just notice what was there.

Oh boy was it hard to get over the dog pee thing. But now when there's dog pee in the house, I still feel a twinge in my gut, but nothing like it was. It's been 2 years I have been making myself stay with it. I've gradually shifted the habitual negative energy into something useful.

Believe it or not, everytime I noticed a reaction, some were very very extreme and completely out of proportion to the dog pee itself, I just chose a different energy to indulge, like, "let's get it fixed" instead "let's bitch"... small tiny tiny changes transformed that rage into an annoyance at best. I have someone who loves dogs in the house and it helps to get the natural what-is perspective on why the dog pees, it helps dispel the ignorance childish and clinging that the dog is trying to piss me off. LOL. Even though I rationally know the dog is just a dog, the emotional betrayed habitual energy in me of wounds of many years. I remembered my father screaming at my baby brother when he was just 19 months old, and he'd had a pee accident, and my father flew into his rage of the day and grabbed my baby brother roughly and rubbed his face in his own pee. The words rang out clear... "He's a dog, he should be punished as such" and then I knew why rage emerged in response to the dog pee....

So see, nearly 3 years to get to the bottom of something so simple like hatred of urine in the house experienced only as a deep rage over the smell of my things being peed on... now I also realize my dad was just a young man, ignorant, in pain, frustrated, he didn't really know what he was doing either, and I doubt he even remembers it now. But my family does. And this kind of "hanging on" to the negative meanings life has given us tends to reinforce the negative tendencies our mind keeps perpetuating.

Your feelings of sadness and dissatisfaction didn't build over night, you won't fix them overnight. But start at least just noticing without putting a narrative to what's happening. It may not be as serious as the dog pee lesson, and I'm glad I've healed that part almost completely, the twinge is still there sometimes, but I know now to practice patience and mindfulness with it, and to use the momentum of negative energy to fuel change, and shift my attitude intentionally from less to more compassion for the dog who had an accident instead of feeling like I'm being attacked by my conditions of my piece-of-crap-life (which is what it feels like when this rage surfaces).

Does that make sense? Don't take lightly the negative habitual energy of sadness, it feeds itself. To stop feeding the darkness of negative emotions, you must shine a little light of noticing what composes the face of your own ignorance. It's not easy, though very simple. And it takes determination and dedication, it is something you must commit to in yourself, like if you were committing to college and completing a degree. Your degree is your realization.

I hope my dog pee story wasn't too gross.... Another thing that helps me at least, is knowing that everything else that lives and breathes feels the same pains I do, whether in words or just twinges, every living being suffers from lots and lots of karmic setups by our own ignorance...


Now I can honestly say, I am happy 85% of the time from, where I was in despair 99% of the time all before this gradual path... I'd say that's pretty successful, more than I'd ever dared hope for... where the only bits of joy I experienced were accidental, I was so scared of experiencing joy just to have it ripped away from me... that was the fear that made itself seem like the truth of life - loss. But loss is gain gain is loss, there is a circularity to non-duality which is just relieving. You don't have to have an opinion, because life is a flow, and that in itself gives you a lot less stress, because you know what you can effect and what is (for the moment) out of your control...

...top to bottom, even with life's crap thrown my way, I know now all my reactions are just clouds, the truth of the sky is a stable tranquil non-dual wisdom of life. And that is contained within the essence of being itself, you don't have to do anything for it to be, it's there, it's your lens of being you put all this other stuff over. You just have to slow down the child-mind and let yourself be more adult, take control of what you CAN notice. Noticing is half the battle, because once you start noticing, you start learning what you CAN change in your attitudes. And this process gives you the confidence you need to see that YOU can DO it. You can dispel your own ignorance, you are the artificer of your "fate"...

Sorry once again for the length... just a few thoughts in response to your problem. My brother always did say, I'm a terrible motivational speaker... I have to agree, I've never been good at convincing anyone but myself. This post is my attempt to share what little successes I've experienced with anyone who is seeking for answers where there seem to be none. The thing is the answers are already there inside you, you just need to clear off the debris of your own life's natural disasters. And that part takes love, kindness, patience, and the clear desire to not suffer anymore.


Ogyen.

[Belincia]

Hey Ogyen!

Thanks for such an thorough answer. Well, I think I have some traumatic past on my feelings also. Many feelings have just arisen after beginning the buddhist practise though, I didn't notice them before.

Anyway, last night before falling asleep I thought thoroughly how I was before beginning the buddhist practise. Good sides of myself that I lost after seeing all crap of my mind and also experiencing some things that has further upset my mind. Somehow through buddhist practise I have lost my self-confidence, began thinkin I'm full crap and blablabla.
Years back I thought I was strong. I was lively, shining, positive. Not all the time but let's just ignore bad parts shall we
And after contemplating some really good qualities I used to have but lost during some years... I felt I can have them back. I felt I must. I will. I got them.
I think all will turn good. I am good person, I can be happy, I must just choose so.

And I'm not saying buddhist practise makes people unhappier, just that there was so much buried crap on my mind and after having to face it my mind kind of turned to negative. But of course that's not how it should go.

I'll begin again to practise simple positive thinking.

Thanks!

[Ogyen]

It is normal for the festering wound to release puss and horrible stenches before it is in its healing stage. We don't blame the wound for being infected. That would be silly. We just go, oh, look, crap, ow. And do our best to either clean it or avoid it.

You have many wounds, this is the nature of being human, and having karma. Many were festering without your attention in the form of what your ignorance has generated over so much time on your mind. Now this practice you have exposes these bits, which while at first might be painful, I assure, the wound must get scrubbed clean. Also the part you are healing is not visible with the eye, touched with hands, or any of your other senses. The part you are healing is the part of you that is the deepest truest kindest giving clarity that exists in every human being. This we have forgotten in our childish ignorance. \

The bad feelings you get are the stench of a rotting wound. Just realize the feelings are like smells, and not you an object-self, and you might find it easier to be kind to yourself. When you think badly of yourself, think of a dirty diaper. Your nose is right in that dirty diaper. Remove the dirty diaper, clean up, and your nose will realize the smell is conditional to the dirty diaper, not you being stinky.

The only way out is through - Robert Frost

[Hanzze]

Amazing that compassion _/\_

[Belincia]

Hey!

Yes, wound-thing sounds very familiar.... First it was like really really really painful, but it's constantly changing...

Still just one thing comes to my mind. If I have a deep sadness and anxiety and dissatisfaction... How do I prevent myself from tearing up all that I have in life?
I mean, when I feel like that, my mind all the time ponders what is to blame... Mainly it is because my job has no meaning or my partner doesn't understand me or everything is just completely because of my partner... Of course it's not, but this kind of state of my deludes my mind, so I can't distinguish what is good and what is not, because the dirt on my own eyes makes all things look dirty! I think there's a real risk I'll screw up my life, I have been on the edge of doing it (like ending my relationship and lots of other things at the same time)... How do I really know what I want/should want/what's good when this mind state deludes me...
Should I just contemplate what are the objective benefits of one thing over another ?

[Ogyen]

There are two parts to this, in my experience. One is that part that knows you wear goggles with your moods, so you tend to see things as skewed through your lens. The other part, though it's really all one process, is that you have these feelings to contend with. This is your mud.

I had a moment where I once was freaking out and someone I know only online who is like a mentor suggested the following:

Don't try to make it BE for you anything other than what it is, and just observe it. It sounds stupid easy. I assure, it is not.

For example, notice what sadness *is* when you feel it. Where does it pinch, sting, what sensations happen in your body, what happens when certain thoughts cross your mind, what gets sensitive, what do you want to turn away from that you can't bear to stay with...

Doing this you will start to notice (not judge) what you get out of it, what hurts you in it, the answers are all in your own observance of these things, no one else can reveal them to you. They are yours to discover.

When you observe like that, you develop a real honest kind of relationship with yourself, and it will start coloring your relationships outside because while your conditions don't change yet, your mind will transform the mud of your confusion into clarity, but the effort starts with observation.

Be an explorer, I know it's hard, it is DAMN hard to build up the courage to look at that thing of discomfort we're always avoiding, whatever shape that takes for you, I don't need to know the specifics to know the shape of avoidance... Instead of avoiding, instead of turning away when you want to, hang on two seconds longer, push yourself just a little be, just observe, hang on longer, don't turn off the TV before the credits roll, so to speak. Keep watching, the answer is in the quiet center of your innermost tenderness.

I'm not saying observing will change all the bad habits, but observing will point out the bad habits in intimate detail to you giving you the confidence and tools to change those habits and therefore conditions in how you perceive them. This is the power of dharma, the thing no one group or person can control, and if they claim to, run the other way. The power of truth needs no defense, the power of truth is divine. Nothing like the ring of something true to strip away hundreds of layers of false in an instant. No matter what you've been taught, you're smart, you can recognize your own truth, why? Because it's inside you.

I think perhaps you need to build that confidence, and start it by the at times painful process of hanging on to the edge of your seat and staying with yourself without feeding your attention with yet another distraction... from food, media, whatever it is in your life you lean on to escape what you're avoiding.

If sitting with these things in yourself means being on the cushion more, great. If it means when you get in your next quarrel you simply stay with it a bit longer, with your feelings, with watching what is happening inside you without the "usual narrative" of you building up the story of this or that reason, when you just watch, the nature of what most causes you discomfort will reveal itself.

It could be the next time you encounter a situation you encounter all the time, change your habitual something, if it's letting it be, don't let it be, if it's pursuing, let it be, that is, try to find those things in your daily life that bring the dharma to you in a real way. For me contemplation happens a lot between pen and paper, and the space in between is the ocean, and the ink is a river. And with the river I connect to my ocean.

For my partner, it's surfing. Trust me, there are a million and one ways to always be living with dharma even if it's just mindfulness in how you treat your dog. Contemplation on the cushion, while a powerful tool, cannot be the whole of dharma. Contemplation alone, however you best connect to that divine simple being within you, that is what you must develop. I think that is why there are so many traditions in buddhism, because there are so many needs, and they're all different, and there are ways to address any set of afflictions in your view by just starting on focusing the here and now. Your love, your hate, what gets you going, what touches on your ego, what can you experience and let go of, not hold onto, what you still really hold onto. It's different in its form for every person I think, but like the law of physics, it remains true no matter what the form takes. Truth is strong like this. And that truth is you, not just within you, but to recognize it, I would say, just start observing, and see where that takes you!


xoxo
Ogyen.

[Ogyen]

PS - you will always risk "screwing up" this is the nature of being human and ignorant. The name of the game is not to "not screw up" but to know yourself. If you screw up, you will do much better picking up the parts if you have the proper education and tools to know how not to run from what scares you. The fact that you can screw up is a natural fear, but only relevant to a point. Most people don't even know what it is they're avoiding, it's important to find out to go any further.

You will screw up. I guarantee. I do all the time. But, now I have more confidence than I used to in knowing that if I'm not capable of figuring out, hey, I'm not capable of figuring out, I'm going on Ogyen-time, and you're going on Belincia-time.

This may seem obvious, but important to note, everyone is going at their own pace, you are doing your best, and keep doing that. Don't stress about not being "there" yet, wherever "there" feels like inside yourself.

Love,
D. Ogyen

[Ngawang Drolma]

Hi Belincia,

To break this down to its lowest form, this sorrow can feel so bad, and it will pass. It will return, too. But if we can feel the light of the in-between times, when we gift ourselves with joy and goodness, then we can work towards a healthy balance in out hearts. If you take Buddhism out of the picture here, it may take away some expectations you have of your chosen path and your own mind's perceived or desired control.

Like clouds in the sky, these emotions and thoughts can float. If you watch them, label them, acknowledge them, and give them permission to squat very temporarily in your mind for a little while, they may reoccur less. The more you fight and toil with them the more they might persist. These ickies like to take up space in your heart if they can.

Dissatisfaction with samsara leads to a lot of sorrow or even depression in the beginning, when we truly see the nature of samsara. But if you feel you're beyond that stage, maybe the rest of what I wrote will apply to you.

Kind wishes
Laura