Feeling of underlying dissatisfaction or restlessness
Vanilli
Veteran
Hi Everyone,
As a Buddhist in training I often feel quite chilled out and happy to a certain extent 
and bad feelings come and go and I watch them and try to reflect on them with wisdom. Sometimes I am struck by this feeling of restless, dissatisfaction, aching even - a feeling of craving and that nothing currently is enough. Is this my attachment coming up? I don't even know what I am attached to or what I am craving or why this restless feeling is here. Can anyone direct me on the best way to deal with it? Should I just observe it? Why do I feel like that?
I was thinking maybe I feel like my world is too small and I am getting too bound up and caught in my 'world' and material concerns and cravings and that maybe if I were directing myself more towards helping others then I wouldn't feel it as much? Like in a putting myself and energy to 'good' uses rather than being concerned with how to get more for myself (like recently I've been thinking about making more friends to go out with and dating...so it could be springing from that).
Thanks everyone ^_^
Comments
I think it is already a good sign that you notice this feeling. I do think it is restlessness and probably it is a type of craving. I like your second paragraph. My teacher Shenpen Hookham teaches that we are currently living claustrophobic whereas we could be open and vast and experiencing more peace. But even that we can 'sense' the claustrophobia indicates that there is another possibility. I guess. I am not sure of all the logic but you can 'notice space'. Or if cravings are there then that's all there is and just welcome the cravings.
Should I just observe it?
Yes.
Why do I feel like that?
-It's dukkha...
Don't laugh but I get this kind of feeling relatively frequently. In fact, I would say on a monthly basis....
Don't discount the fact that it may be of hormonal origin.
If upon analysis, you find it could well be, then just go with it and float with it.
Sometimes my disjointedness lasts for a few days, sometimes, one of two..
Sometimes a week or so before my period (sorry gentlemen, pray "hurrumph" in a reddened and embarrassed manner and huddle-talk among yourselves...!), sometimes less. Occasionally, even, more.
I even get this "ugh, what on earth is the matter with me?!" feeling at no particular time at all, and during those rare occasions, if I just sit quietly, eyes closed, and let myself connect with it, the source or origin becomes clear...
But in any and every case, don't beat yourself up about it. It happens, I promise you, to a lot more people/Buddhists than you might think...
Unsatisfactoriness -- sometimes called "suffering" because it is so much easier to say -- is the name of the Buddhist game. Don't rule anything out by way of cause: Perhaps it's hormonal as @federica suggested; maybe it's a long-term psychological thorn of some sort; maybe it's a load of unwarranted expectation; maybe it's a lack of sex or ice cream. Whatever it is, it deserves your attentiveness and care.
Be gentle but firm and, when it comes to Buddhist approaches, just practice your practice with patience and courage. Try not to be distracted by the plaster-saint version of a perfected "Buddhism."
If necessary scream into a pillow. Buddhism, like the pillow, won't mind.
Hi everyone - thanks so much for your insights! I have been just sitting with the feeling and not getting too worried about it -- I was just more curious about what you all might think to it
.
@federica haha funny you should mention that
as I didn't even chalk it up to that and it is around that time!!
I went for a walk, it was a beaut evening, a full moon, gorgeous trees and the sky had a mysterious glow, I also signed up for the soup run at a homeless shelter near by and didn't add any kind of story to my feelings - and now I'm feeling more chilled out and happy again (not that there was anything 'wrong' with the restlessness).
I think probably most people experience it. Just blah about life. It happens to me often. Sometimes it is hormonal, sometimes it is something going on in life, sometimes it is even the weather. It could even be the moon! But what I do know after seeing it pop up over and over and over again is...it doesn't last. Just like the happiness it replaced, it disappears. Just like everything. Just simply reminding myself of that, I find quite helpful. Whether I am ill, or just blah/dissatisfied, or whatever, I know it won't last. For me, it was quite a gift to truly understand that
It was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.
@Vanilli
If you ever need to describe the first noble truth to anyone...just recall that the first paragraph of your threads opening post.
If there is unsatisfactoriness, there is a source which is attachment or clinging as Ajahn Chah pointed out in his teaching The Living Dhamma.
You feel like that? Tsk, tsk, bad Buddhist . . . oh wait, as pointed out by @federica, @how and the Buddha, that is how things are - changeable and impermenant.
You knew that all along . . .
The best way to deal with it? mmm ... my little pony magic wand? mmm ... no ... sex and drugs and rock and roll ... mmm ... no ... Chocolate ... mmm ... temporary but no ... it will come to me ...
PRACTICE
damn that was a hard won realisation ...
I put in a vote for chocolate.
I think everyone feels this -- but not everyone articulates it and realizes what it is at its 'essence' -- as a global, unspecific dissatisfaction.
Suffering. This is the 'well of suffering'. The nuclear core of suffering.
Chocolate is a health food, agreed. Bad example.
Yeah OP, I often troll to let go of my vexation and evil thoughts.
hold me brah...
Hold your what...?!
Troll has luvvly jim jams and hot choccy drink and cyber connection.
I luvs our new troll. Inspiring. Every forum should have one . . .
And a packet of fags! Cool!
Menthol? Look like Gaulois to me - those are rough. Cool cigs are sold by the enlightened cig company - Death
and now back to where we never left . . . restlessness ...
What a wonderful paradigm for understanding. Thank you for this.
When trying to come to terms with dukkha, I find Lamrim analytical meditation ("The Gradual Path to Enlightenment") very enlightening.
Dukkha happens as consequence of having skandhas that bind us to a human experience.
We have a body, we have a mind, we have the scripts our mind tells us, therefore dukkha happens.
In certain specific circumstances, @Vanilli, you could try to dig deeper and explore which feelings might be at the root of your uneasiness.
Lack of acceptance of reality as it is, is my usual suspect, and guilty of charge.
We usually suffer because we can't accept reality as it is, specially if the situation thwarts our expectations, our wishes, our desires.
Your solution above: signing up for the soup run, strikes me as the perfect solution to avoid unnecessary navel-gazing.
Not that there is anything wrong with some soul-searching that might throw light on an actual problem, especially if by indulging in some pondering we could actually come to an effective solution to our restlessness.
But my little contact with people who are bipolar, or suffer from psychic or eating disorders, to name extreme cases, has taught me that they tend to engage in endless and fruitless self-centered monologues which don't actually help them in the least with their musings.
I usually wonder if reaching out to other people beyond the boundaries of their self, could not do much to improve their own situation.
It does help me, for one, and I'm glad to hear it did a difference to you