by Luciphers Handler

Created on: March 22, 2007

The Pleasures of Kings and Beggars

In Tibet, they have a saying that starts out, "The pleasures of kings and beggars."

I started thinking about this. The answer (according to Tibetan lore) is contentment. What is contentment?

Webster defines "contentment" as the quality or state of being contented. Ok, that helps; NOT. So then I had to look up contented. Webster defines "contented" as feeling or manifesting satisfaction with one's possessions, status or situation. So according to Webster; contentment is the state of feeling satisfied with one's possessions, status or situation.

I started thinking about this. Why is this so difficult? It sounds like a pretty basic concept; to be satisfied with what you have. What prevents us from becoming contented? Desire.

In Buddhism, desire causes suffering; because we either don't accomplish or acquire what we desire, we accomplish or acquire what we desire but are afraid of losing it, or we accomplish or acquire what we desire but we end up wanting more.

A beggar desires enough food to not be hungry, a dry place to sleep and not much else. Anything after that is icing on the cake. If they have a full stomach and a place to sleep, they are basically content and they can find pleasure in this. .

A king desires are more numerous, but if they are met; the king is also content (unless they desire more, which most do) which means the king can also find pleasure in this.

Now all the kings and beggars of the world are not happy. This is because they desire more, instead of being happy (or finding pleasure) with what they have. Is this the world's problem or is it theirs?

Are you happy with YOUR life? If not, why? Is it because you don't have what you need, or is it because you don't have what you desire?

People rarely desire what they need to live, because if you don't have it; you die. So if you are reading this, you are alive and you probably have what you need.

Desire is another problem though. We ALL desire something and as long as we desire what we don't have, we will never be content; which means we will never be truly happy.

So do you take the time to find pleasure in that which you already have, or do you spend more time desiring that which you don't have?

Happiness will never be found some place else; it will only be found within yourself.

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