This is a blameless happiness, learn how to savor the potential for well-being a lot more than sensual pleasures

"We’re not here simply to see things as they are. One — because we’re here to see things as they work. How cause and effect work. And two — we’re seeing these things so that we can be more discerning in knowing which forms of happiness and pleasure really are satisfying.

After all, nibbāna is the ultimate pleasure — the ultimate happiness, the ultimate sukha: bliss, happiness, well-being. You get to appreciate it first by learning how to appreciate what feels good right here, right now, in the body.

So try to develop your sensitivity here. Learn how to savor what’s pleasurable here, because that sensitivity will reorient you, give you new ideas about what happiness is, what well-being is — and what’s needed to find it. It also opens you up to the potentials you have right here.

Think about all the skills the Buddha found in his meditation, leading at last to the ultimate skill, which is the ending of the effluents. How are you going to know what an effluent is unless you get really sensitive to how things flow around in the heart and mind right here?

So try to get sensitive right here in the heart, right here in the body. Explore your sensitivity. Savor what you find is good. That’s how you develop your palate; that’s how your discernment gets strong, strong enough to overcome a lot of the preconceived notions you bring to the breath, bring to the body, bring to your own mind, bring to life.

It’s only when you find something you thoroughly like right here that you can change the way you rank pleasures in your life. Because this is a blameless happiness, it has a lot more potential than sensual pleasures. Learn how to savor the potential of well-being simply here in name and form as you’ve got them right here, right now."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Savor Your Breath" (Meditations11)

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