The word satisfaction, it’s strange for us, I think. When we say, “I’m satisfied,” we think of it as complacent. Completely wrong! Complacent’s just lazy, can’t be bothered, you know? Satisfaction is completely different.
Let’s say you’re growing a garden – I find this such a helpful, simple example. You know botany, you know the garden, you’ve got an exact vision of your garden, you know what you want it to look like in a year. So you work the plan out: you know what seeds you want where, and you pick the seeds. You pick the things you’re going to do now on the basis of what you want in a year, and you put the seeds in the ground.
Now, I’ll come and visit you and I’ll go, “What a boring old garden! There’s nothing here!” But you know it’s full of seeds. You can’t see the fruits yet, but you are so happy. You are satisfied, you are content. You know it’s a process – you know the flowers won’t come tomorrow.
But with ourselves, the development of our mind, we expect the results tomorrow! So of course we’re dissatisfied!
Dissatisfaction, the main energy of attachment, is so so very hard to get rid of. But if every day you practice, every day you sow seeds and nourish them, every day you make the effort, those seeds will ripen eventually, of course they will.
But the key to success, like with the garden, is not to wait for the result to come in order to be satisfied. No. Be satisfied each step of the way. That’s what we need to learn.
We know this when it comes to being a musician or being a cook or anything else, but not when it comes to being a more happy person. We want happiness now – greedily now. We have to be patient and humble and sow the seeds and do the work every day – and then be satisfied, be happy with our progress.
But it’s the thing nobody ever does. We forget to be happy with our progress, because the default energy of attachment is such that even though we’re working hard, we’re dissatisfied with the result. We’ll never get happy that way – we’ll just torture ourselves.
That’s why we need to understand that contentment – and that’s a polite word for happiness – is a mental state and we have to cultivate it.
The sensory level is our first level: it’s entry level into the world, isn’t it, through food and sights and sounds and smells and tastes. It’s the most immediate level of our mind.
Food, let’s say – okay, maybe it’s sex for you, maybe it’s video games, but let’s just say food. I know when I was a little girl I didn’t know what it meant to be satisfied: I’d only stop eating when my stomach was stuffed, and so I thought that meant satisfied. Do you understand? I thought that.
That’s the same with us when it comes to sex or anything: we have it and have it until we’re exhausted, you know? That’s not satisfaction. Satisfaction’s mental – you have to practice it.
Disciplining your body and speech is the first level of practice. You discipline your body. You can enjoy the cake, you can taste it, you offer it – make it useful, you know, virtuous – and then, after one or two pieces, you decide that’s it. And then you practice feeling satisfied.
You won’t actually feel satisfied at first because attachment’s still running the show, but you decide to think, “That was good, it’s enough.” And you have that thought every day of being content – not suffering because you can’t eat more cake, but being content. You think, “I am content.”
As Lama Yeshe says, “You’ve got to learn to be content now.” It’s not a sensory experience – that’s not possible. Contentment, fulfillment is mental, not sensory. But because we believe attachment’s story, which is so frantic, we can’t hear it, you know?
So you have to change your thoughts: you practice being content, you say the words. That’s how you practice. It’s not even esoteric, it’s nothing mystical – you simply have to practice.
We know everything becomes a habit: if you do it often enough, it’ll be a habit. These are habits – okay, they take time, but we’ve got to say those words so they become a habit.
Then at the end of the day, you know, if you do the purification practice, then you finish with rejoicing, with delighting, with praising your efforts: “I’m doing fine, I’m doing well, I’m satisfied.” And that’s how you become satisfied, that’s how you become content.
It’s up to us. We want other people to tell us we’re doing a good job, but we need to tell ourselves.
Tibetans have such a nice equivalent of our “practice makes perfect.” They say, “Nothing gets more difficult with practice.”