Two Notions of Bliss

Bliss is a potent and idealized state by definition. I am not well versed in western, Judeo-Christian conceptions of bliss, beyond the colloquial understanding any American would have, but I am fairly well steeped in its eastern, especially Buddhist, conceptions. Within that realm, there are essentially two ways to achieve bliss: nothingness, and abundance. The two are literally opposites.

The nothingness is what I would characterize as the more classically Buddhist conception of bliss. I derive this view from the classical, Theravada notion of enlightenment, which is achieved as the highest state of a meditative practice that seeks to disconnect and separate from the physical and human realm. This is the first effective way to achieve a state of bliss.

Practically, this manifests as a practice that emphasizes leaning away from, rather than into our physical and human lives. That existence as a human will lead to instances of pain and suffering seems about as reliable a law in our world as gravity. If we think of enlightenment not as the classical zero or one, but rather as a scale, you get closer to the more you are able to remove from yourself from the causes of suffering. High on this list are attachments to people and belongings. Next we have more abstract attachments like ideas and stories. Going further, one gets to letting go of the needs for physical comfort and eventually the body itself. An implicit assumption is that when you strip all of the thoughts, desires, and experience, the remaining nothingness yields an underlying state of bliss.

I’m not enlightened so I can’t confirm that this is true, but even beginner’s meditation routines will queue the practitioner to observe and feel into a deeply rooted inner calmness. I have experienced this myself, in brief stints. Some describe this state as a pulsation or flow. It is essentially infinite within the thinking mind, so long as one can focus on it or strip their consciousness of literally everything else, since everything else distracts from that. Doing either of those is not easy, and those who are more successful tend to invest a lot into their meditative practices, but I do think that is a viable strategy that works. One can achieve bliss through nothingness. I however tend to be more drawn to the alternative: bliss through abundance.

In achieving bliss through nothingness, one is tapping into the internal fountain of bliss but cutting out the external world. Vajrayana and other alternative strains of Buddhism expand their notions of enlightenment in a way that allows for experiencing bliss through bodily and worldly experiences; dare I say, in some extreme interpretations, even pleasure. I believe these is an external source of bliss as, if not more, potent than the internal. I feel it at this moment, looking at the Ocean.

Our world is demonstrably not all suffering. One can sense in the outer world a radiance or pulsation similar to that found deep within ourselves. Nature provides great examples; time alone with the sun, stars, and ocean can yield a deep and also infinite calm, but one can also channel peacefulness from the frenetic energy of a place like New York City. It is true such a place can have the opposite effect; New York can be the greatest of all stressors.

But to focus on that is the cynical view. What the all of the combined energy of our internal and external worlds amounts to is what I call abundance. One can find bliss in abundance as well. Just as one practices culling the internal noise to find peace, one can also one hone ones sense to find bliss through the external noise. I feel this is more satisfying, though it may be harder.

In quieting the inner self, one is training focus on the nothingness and in some ways dulling or redirecting the senses. It’s some form of retraining our neurons. When dealing with the outer world, one is also retraining neurons, but in this case for a different response.

Rather than trying to dull the senses, one must direct the energy and stimulation of the universe towards the positive and blissful sensations. My friend Lawrence convincingly argues twofold that most people struggle to embrace pleasure, but also that people can train themselves to achieve greater pleasure, to infinity. Most people actually shut down when they experience too much pleasure and it becomes stress or another undesirable feeling or state. But just as one can meditate to retrain for inner calm, one can also meditate to retrain for greater heights of pleasure, to what may feel like some an asymptotic infinity.

These experiences of great pleasure, characterized less by a serotonin and dopamine fueled drug-like experience and more by a sense of divine calm and satisfaction akin the inner bliss, are versions of similar experiences that go by different names in various circles: kundalini awakenings, vajrayana enlightenment, etc. These experiences with a spiritual rather than hedonistic flavor, though the line admittedly feels blurry to me as someone who has never fully experienced it.

It is also worth noting that these experiences always include emotions other than pleasure. In this sense one can think pleasure less an an individual thread of experience, but more as as a compound summary experience of many emotions as one, as white light is the combination of the full range of the visible light spectrum. A potential problem with such experiences is that they may be fleeting. One can experience the height of pleasure for a moment, then its gone. That seems less appealing than the theoretically permanent state of traditional enlightenment.

In real life, few are able to completely dull their senses, either. Neither the inner nothingness or external abundance notions of bliss are permanent short of either enlightenment. I do think one is harder than the other, though.

While some notions of transcendence make claims to the contrary, it does not seem to me that we can fully externalize our beings. To cut out the external world and focus on inner discipline is inherently a simpler task than trying to filter both the external and inner worlds. That alone suggests that bliss through nothingness might be easier to achieve than bliss through the abundance.

Further, the world outside can be less predictable than the world inside. The oceans, in one moment calm, may turn to a roaring tide in the next. The external source, put simply, is a more chaotic energy source. Naturally, there’s more going on out there than in here. Deriving bliss from this energy is more akin to staying balanced while surfing the ocean than sitting in a chair. Surfers eventually fall off, before getting back up, but I suppose you could plausibly sit in a chair forever.

There is simply more in the expansive, abundant, and external notion of bliss. More what? Just, more. Do you want more, or less?

Bliss through nothingness may be more reliable, but it’s rather unappealing. Then again, maybe I’m just a dopamine addict rationalizing my addiction. I almost certainly am, to at least some extent.

Maybe Vajrayana and tantric schools were never really necessary and their forebears had it right; adherents to these alternate schools may be misguided and prolonging their own suffering due to a failure of wisdom and discipline. I will never pretend to the know the answer, but I am skeptical, and in a real lifetime in which enlightenment, or, “Enlightenment,” is likely, I don’t see why I can’t pursue both bliss at both ends.

That may indeed yield the best argument in favor of pursuing the abundant notion of bliss: abundance can including nothingness, but nothingness cannot include abundance. Perhaps we can pursue both through one.