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Dealing with Discontenment

Pollyanna83Pollyanna83 Explorer
in Buddhism Basics
How does one deal with a general feeling of discontentment that cannot be identified?

Comments

  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    Is the discontentment discontent?
  • ToshTosh Veteran
    Sounds like dukkha to me. Have you read about the 1st Noble Truth; the truth of suffering? It's not just about obvious and gross forms of suffering like cancer, but a more subtle and pervasive kind of suffering; such as the discontentment you're feeling.

    I've heard it described as 'low level background anxiety' which is how it feels to me.

    I'm afraid it's the human condition, and the Buddhist way of dealing with it is the eight-fold path.

    I think you've asked a great question, but you'll find the answer to it won't be simple.
    riverflow
  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    By accepting the discontent for the feeling that it is.
    In trying to avoid or escape discontentment, suffering is created.
    riverflowKundo
  • ToshTosh Veteran
    @how; maybe this is a subject for a different post, but can you offer any advice on the METHOD we use for practising acceptance?

    Meditation springs to mind; to just sit and practise accepting negative mental afflictions; to just watch them could be a method.

    What's your take on it? Or anyone else's.
  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    @tosh
    Meditation and our response to any phenomena is the practice of acceptance.

    When discontent arises, allow it to simply exist, unmolested by our habituated responses to it. Face it with a relaxed attention that allows it to freely be what it is.
    If you neither push it away or attempt to distant yourself from it in anyway, it will firmly place your next footstep on the path towards sufferings end.

    Meditation happens to be my method for doing this but others claim that service to others or scriptural study can accomplish the same.
    .
    ToshKundo
  • lobsterlobster Crusty Veteran
    Pollyanna83 said:

    How does one deal with a general feeling of discontentment that cannot be identified?

    Tell me about it! :buck:

    Identify it. What does it feel like in the body. What is it about? Life? Come on.

    In other words, find it. Examine, search. Identify. Then ask 'what is this?'

    Other solutions? Masking not working?

    :wave:
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