It’s the kind of happiness brought by the senses. Fragrances, tasty foods, comfort, music, sights, and mind-blogging creations. They vanish like a snow flake. Whoosh.
Pleasure is an interval between two pains; thus, we arrange our lives to get sensual pleasure and avoid suffering at any cost. What we say, think, and do revolve around that.
We have been living like that for decades, all around the clock. Yet, it has left us deeply unsatisfied.
When we can’t get what we want, we blame others, complain, and draw daggers out.
Hate is born.
When we finally get what we want, we want more of it; we want to make it grow, make it last, and control it so that it belongs to us and doesn’t go anywhere else.
Greed is born.
This is the way of the world. We believe this is the normal way to live. We believe this is the only way.
Delusion is born.
The exhaustion might be deeply felt. Hatred, greed, and delusion leave you anxious, ill at ease, depressed, and depleted. Whatever you do, you can’t truly rest. Even the wealthiest, most powerful man who we may envy may be the subject of public criticisms and blame, murder attempts, thus having to be followed everywhere by bodyguards.
At times, you might feel an ineffable longing: a longing for peace, for the quenching of that thirst, for the end of the mental load, for a deeper, lasting fulfillment. When you make love, you think you have found it. When you hold your firstborn, you think you have found it. When you watch the starry sky, you think you have found it.
At least for a moment. You want to recreate that feeling, a feeling of completeness, a feeling of selflessness. But it doesn’t depend on the presence of someone else, on more consumption, more domination, or numbing the mind with meaningless activities.
It doesn’t come from the quenching of the thirst. It comes from desirelessness.
A heart freed from greed, hatred, and delusion can rest. It doesn’t seek anything nor reject. It doesn’t need to be right, to claim, to keep for itself, to defend, to lie, or to convince. It doesn’t hate, push away, or enjoy defeating others. It is not burdened with negativity, overthinking, and restlessness.
It feels the pain. It feels what’s agreeable. Sure.
But there is no longer a need for completion, not because there is actual completion but because there is just no need for it.
How to live without fear, anxiety, or torment and be fearless and at ease?
Well, there is this Ancient path still open to all free men. It is a practical path that leads the follower to enlightenment (a synonym for a mind freed from greed, hatred, and delusion) and to ultimate freedom.
It’s based on moral discipline and a doctrine that includes practices to calm the mind so that wisdom can be developed. This path might be ancient, but it is still very open, contemporary, and duty-free. It leads to peace and unshakeable deliverance of the mind. The end of suffering.
It’s a comprehensible system, very well expounded and easy to apply. Believe it or not, it works for you, for me, for your neighbor, and for John Doe living in the other hemisphere if the right amount of energy, effort, and commitment is poured into it. It just needs you to understand the instructions and have a taste for investigation and self-inquiry. You do the work for yourself. You don’t need to blindly believe the doctrine, just apply the practice and discover for yourself.
Clean up your ethical conduct. Mind your mind. Investigate.
With direct knowledge, you’ll see clearly the ephemeral nature of all things and get disenchanted. What was attractive will no longer hook you as before. The mind stays calm. The nervous system relaxes. With diligence and the development of vigilance in every act as a support, the mind gets concentrated and peacefully absorbed. When absorbed, it gets soothed and rested. When made thus malleable, the mind is prepared to see clearly that all phenomena are impermanent and thus inherently unsatisfactory. Being utterly detached from sensuous cravings, from the desire to become or to disappear, one gets free for good.
Once the arduous work has been done, there is nothing more to do. Just relax in that ease of mind. If you have crossed the river, you no longer need to carry the raft with you. It’s done for good. Whereas you had to be watchful of your mind all the time while training, when fully enlightened, all the defilements of the mind are uprooted, and there is no more seed for further becoming, no more cause for further suffering.
I have total trust in the method because, simply put, it works. Just like an equation is made of a sum of terms that are equal to a result, the path, called the Noble Eightfold Path, is a sum of eight domains to be developed and perfected, which gives a result called “enlightenment.”
Why this path and not another contemporary, science-based, atheist method?
If you have found one that leads to the same result and which has your preference, well, go for it. I’ve only tried, tested, and brought to their full extent the Buddha’s teachings, not by mere intellectual understanding but by practicing meditation and by contemplating and inquiring. It’s experiential knowledge.
One needs to honestly look at our own life. If it’s pleasant, peaceful, and joyful, one might not consider changing our habits and intentions unless this ineffable longing is inexplicably calling. If our life is more often painful than peaceful, we most probably won’t think twice and give it a try.
To start walking the path, you don’t need to tell anybody. You don’t need a guru, special clothes, or to move abroad. It’s personal, and no one has to know about it. It’s a private matter.
Your mood might betray you, though. Lightness. This slight smile on your face and that new composure. People will start saying that you’ve changed
Nibbana Unplugged 
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