Today I'd like to talk about something which most of you probably misunderstand. Although you've all come here with an interest in Buddhism, you may have some wrong understanding. For this reason, please gather your mental energies and set your mind to the task of listening. Pay special attention to what will be said today.
         The thing we'll be talking about is happiness (sukha). This is a word that is quite ambiguous both in Thai, kwam sukh, the Pali language, sukha, and even in English, happiness. In all three languages, this word has many varied meanings and applications. It's often difficult to understand exactly what people mean when they say the word "happiness". Because this subject can get very mixed up, it is necessary to reach some understanding of this thing, which is why we'll be speaking about happiness today.
         The happiness felt in the everyday lives of ordinary people is one meaning of happiness. Then, there is the other kind of happiness, the happiness that arises with the realization of the final goal of life. There are these two very different things, but we call both of them "happiness." Generally, we mix up these two meanings, confuse them, and never quite understand what we're talking about.

WHICH HAPPINESS DO YOU WANT?
         Here's one example of how the ambiguity of this word can cause problems. It's likely that you came here to study and practice Dhamma in search of happiness. Your understanding of happiness, the happiness you desire, however, may not be the same happiness that is the genuine goal of Buddhism and the practice of Dhamma. If the sukha (happiness) that you desire is not the sukha that arises from Dhamma practice, then we're afraid that you'll be disappointed, or even heartbroken here. It's necessary to develop some understanding of this matter.
         In order to save time and make it easy for you to understand, let's set down a simple principle for the understanding of happiness. The usual happiness that common people are interested in is when a particular hunger or want is satisfied. This is the typical understanding of happiness. In the Dhamma sense, however, happiness is when there is no hunger or want at all, when we're completely free of all hunger, desire, and want. Help to sort this out right at this point by paying careful attention to the following distinction: happiness because hunger is satisfied and happiness due to no hunger at all. Can you see the difference? Can you feel the distinction between the happiness of hunger and the happiness of no hunger?
         Let's take the opportunity now to understand the words "lokiya" and "lokuttara", as they are relevant to the matter we're investigating today. Lokiya means "proceeding according to worldly matters and concerns". Lokiya is to be in the world, caught within the world, under the power and influence of the world. Common translation are "worldly" and "mundane." Lokuttara means "to be above the world." It is beyond the power and influence of the world. It can be translated "transcendent" or "supramundane." Now we can more easily compare the two kinds of happiness: lokiya-sukha (worldly happiness), which is trapped under the power of, governed by the conditions and limitations of, what we call "the world," and lokuttara-sukha (transcendent happiness), which is beyond all influence of the world. See this distinction and understand the meaning of these two words as clearly as possible.
         We must look at these more closely. Lokiya means "stuck in the world, dragged along by the world," so that worldly power and influence dominate. In this state there is no spiritual freedom; it's the absence of spiritual independence. Lokuttara means "unstuck, released from the world." It is spiritual freedom. Thus, there are two kinds of happiness: happiness that is not free and happiness that is independent, the happiness of slavery and the happiness of freedom.
         This is the point that we're afraid you'll misunderstand. If you've come here looking for lokiya-sukha, but you study Buddhism which offers the opposite kind of happiness, you're going to be disappointed. You won't find what you disire. The practice of Dhamma, including a wise meditation practice, leads to lokuttara-sukha and not to worldly happiness. We must make this point clear from the very beginning. If you understand the difference between these two kinds of sukha, however, you'll understand the purpose of Suan Mokkh and won't be disappointed here.
         By now you ought to understand the difference between the two kinds of happiness: the happiness that comes from getting what we hunger for and the happiness of the total absence of hunger. How different are they? Investigate the matter and you will see these things for yourself. The happiness of "hunger satisfied" and the happiness of "no hunger": we can not define them more succinctly or clearly than this.

ENDLESS HUNGER
         Now we'll observe further that the happiness based in the satisfaction of hunger is hopeless and can never be satisfied. The many things which arouse hunger are always changing. Whatever satisfies hunger changes, making that satisfaction fleeting and illusory, and so hunger returns. Hunger itself changes and, hence, can never be satisfied. This situation is eternal. The world today is stuck in this happiness which comes with fulfilling desires. The modern world is trapped in this endless problem.
         Imagine, if you can, that you are the sole owner of the world, of the universe, of the entire cosmos. Now that you're the owner of everything, does hunger stop? Can it stop? Would you please examine this carefully with and in your own mind. If you were to get everything that you could possibly desire, to the point that you owned the whole world, would your hunger cease? Or would you hunger for a second universe? Would you want a third?
         Consider the fact that hunger never ends by our attempts to satisfy it. In spite of this, the world today continues to develop in education and evolution that seeks merely to produce things which are more lovely and satisfying. Modern technology and science are slaves of hunger. Our world is falling into this deep hole of endlessly producing increasingly seductive things to try to satisfy hunger. But where are you going to find happiness in such a world?
         I'd like to make some comparisons to illustrate how the worldly happiness of common sentient beings advances from phase to successive phase. The new-born infant is happy when it is cuddled in its mother's arms and sucks milk from her breast. This satisfies the infant until it grows a little older, a little bigger. Then the mother's arms and breast aren't enough. It learns about other foods and delights. Now its happiness depends on ice cream, candy, and junk food, on playing little games and running around the house. Then it grows older and those games don't satisfy the child any more. It wants to play football or play with dolls. These two are outgrown eventually and the teenager's interests and happiness revolve around sex. The previous kinds of satisfaction are of no more interest. When they become young men and women, don't expect them to be satisfied with the old types of happiness. Now, all they think about is sex and dates. Finally, the human being marries, becomes a wife or husband, and has hopes and wishes tied up in a house, money, and possessions. There's no way they can be satisfied with childish happiness (unless they haven't really grown up). The human being changes from stage to stage, and happiness also changes from stage to stage. It is continuous and endless. Hunger develops from stage to stage until death. After that, many believe, there is rebirth as a deva (celestial being); and still there's hunger, heavenly hunger for the happiness of devas. It never stops. Even in heaven with the gods or in the kingdom of God, should such things exist, hunger doesn't stop. In Buddhism these all are considered to be examples of worldly happiness that only deceives and confuses.

WHERE DOES HUNGIER STOP?
         I'd like to ask if in the Kingdom of God, or in whatever place God is, whether according to the scriptures of Christianity or any other religion, when we're with God can hunger and desire stop? If the Kingdom of God is the end of hunger and craving, then it's the same thing as Buddhism teaches: nibbana, or the happiness that is beyond the world because hunger has ended. But if we understand the Kingdom of God differently, if it is a place where we still hunger, then Buddhism isn't interested. Endless desire for better and better things to take as one's own is not the goal of Buddhism. Buddhism takes the fork in the road that leads beyond the world.
         As for this thing we call "the world," in the Buddhist description it is divided into many levels, realms, or wanderings. There's the common human world, with which we're most familiar, and its human types of sukha. Above this are the various heavenly realms where the devas supposedly live. First, there are the sensual wanderings. the kamavacara, of those who have sexual desires. These are supposed to be "good," at least better than the human realm. Next, there are the Brahma wanderings, of which these are two categories: those dependent on form (matter) and those independent of form. These are better than the normal realms of existence, but they aren't the end of hunger. There is no more sensual hunger in the rupavacara, the fine-material wanderings, but the "beings" there still hunger after material existence. The "beings" of the arupavacara, the non-material wanderings, are hungry as well. They hunger for non-material things rather than material. On each of these worldly levels hunger persists. The wants of the self don't stop. There are always things which the self wants. These highly refined states of happiness utterly fail to transcend the world. Even the highest Brahma realm is caught within the world, trapped below the power and influence of desire.
         How are we going to finish hunger? We must turn around and destroy it. We don't need hunger. We must take this other path where there is no hunger. The essence of this path is the absence of the feeling of self, of "I" and "mine." This point is very profound. How much knowledge must we have, how much must we see, in order to stop this illusion of self.
         It is necessary to realize this connection between the end of hunger and the cessation of the self illusion. In worldly situations there is always a self or "I" who hungers and strives to satisfy that hunger. Even if this self is on the highest heavenly level where hunger is only for the most refined things, nonetheless, there's a huagry self trying to get. Hunger persists as this self seeks to acquire things for itself without ever truly succeeding. By examining the many levels of getting and of happiness, we see that hunger is hopeless. Why? Because "self" is hopeless.

"THE BEST"
         When you arrive at this stage, you ought to be familiar with what we call "the good" or "the best." You all have ideas about "the best" and think that you deserve to get and have "the best." Your hunger only goes as far as "the best.!" Whatever you identify as "the best" --whether a day on the beach or five niinutes of rest from the turmoil in your head-- is where your hunger grasps. Even while basking in God's radiance, the hunger for the best doesn't stop. We desire one kind of "the best," but as soon as we get it our hunger reaches after a better "the best." This has no end as long as there's a self that wants "the best." "The best" has no end point; we can't take it as our final goal. We continuously talk about "the best" or about the summum bonum, but our meanings are so very different: the best of children, of teenagers, of adults, of old folks; the best of the world and of religion. Yet each of these visions of "the best" makes us "the hungriest" --hungry in refined, profound, subtle ways. We can never stop and rest in any "the best," for they are all lokiya-sukha.
         "The best" cannot stand alone. It doesn't go anywhere without its mate "the worst." Through our grasping at "the best" we're burdened also with "the worst." Thus, our fixation on "the best" is merely self-perpetuating hunger. There's only one way out. If we keep serching for sukha in the world, we'll never find it. We must turn in the other direction, toward lokuttara-sukha. Hunger must end, even hunger for "the best." Evil is one kind of busy trouble. Good is just another kind of trouble. To be free of all dukkha, the mind must be beyond good and evil, above best and worst --that is, it must dwell in voidness. This is the opposite of worldly happiness. It's the lokuttara-sukha of freedom from the self that hungers. There's no other way out of dukkha than from evil to good and then from good to voidness. In voidness hunger stops and there is true happiness.