Examine Your Happiness (extract)

"The bliss of concentration is an acquired taste. It’s a specific kind of happiness, which the Thais call santi-sukha, which literally means the happiness of peace. This is a basic level of well-being that we tend to overlook because it carries no excitement, no thrills. It’s just a basic sense of ease that’s steady, like the flame of an oil lamp. For most of us, we notice pleasure and pain because of the back-and-forth, the ups and the downs. When things are steady and on an even keel, we tend to lose interest and not notice them. But that’s precisely the kind of well-being we’re working on here: the kind of happiness that’s steady, that doesn’t go up and down. We have to learn how to appreciate that. As we stick with it more and more, we begin to realize that we wouldn’t want to be without this kind of happiness, without this kind of well-being.

But then the next question is, is it really steady?

As you examine it, you find that it, too, involves a certain level of feeding. You’re feeding off of the breath, the ease you can create with the breath. You’re also feeding off of the steadiness of the intentions that keep you here. But over time, you get more and more sensitive to the fact that even the steadiness of concentration is not totally steady. It involves a very subtle kind of movement, back and forth — sometimes more intense, sometimes less, but there’s always a slight inconstancy to it. You want to get sensitive to that, because that’s what motivates you to look for something better.

But in the beginning of your concentration practice, you want to focus on the steadiness. That’s what motivates you to get into the concentration to begin with and to try to stay there."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Examine Your Happiness" (Meditations8)