A sense of something missing

I had a sense over the weekend of there being something missing or incomplete in my life.

I used to have this feeling almost all the time. I don't have it as often anymore –– in part because of my recently-found beliefs, and in part, I think, because I've gotten older and I have more of the perspective that comes with accumulated life experience.

The first of the Buddha's four noble truths is that life is filled with dukha, a word which is often translated as 'suffering' but which can also be translated as 'dissatisfaction.'

Dissatisfaction can nag at you constantly. The natural response is to seek something that will stop the dissatisfaction –– something that will patch over that pothole that seems to exist in the center of your psyche.

In our culture, it's probably worse than elsewhere. We're the most-entertained, most-marketed-to, most propaganda-immersed human beings in history. We not only have the dissatisfactions that are natural to simply being alive, we also have all the dissatisfactions created by advertising, marketing, motivational speakers and the like.

We're dissatisfied, and we're told the way to end dissatisfaction is to own a luxury car, to bungee jump from a bridge, to buy NFL souvenirs, to sleep with someone more attractive, to own a complete collection of Elvis commemorative decanters, to get saved, to dress differently –– you name it.

We're dissatisfied, and we're told it's because life is supposed to be more exciting, more sexy, more luxurious and stylish. We just have to buy stuff and develop the right attitude –– the right attitude being that the most important thing is to get lots of money so we can buy more stuff (or give it away to televangelists and what-not, which is just another way of 'buying' relief from guilt or the fear of punishment from God).

But the 'stuff' never works for any length of time. The dissatisfaction –– the nagging sense of something being missing or incomplete –– always comes back.

The rest of the Buddha's noble truths talk about how to get rid of this persistent dissatisfaction -- getting rid of attachment, following the eightfold path. Maybe I should be working harder at that. Intellectually, I seem to be over the need to be constantly satisfied, but at some deeper level, I'm still struggling with it.

Even getting rid of suffering can become an attachment; the dissatisfaction starts to fold back in on itself and you find you're dissatisfied because you haven't succeeded at getting rid of dissatisfaction.

But the point I wanted to make here is that feeling dissatisfied is as natural as breathing. Even after you've bought all the stuff your house will hold, you'll feel dissatisfied. Even after you've found the love of your life, you'll feel dissatisfied. Even after you've become President of the United States, you'll feel dissatisfied.