Pleasure and Happiness

Attachments

We are attached to all sorts of things… not just things that give pleasure or happiness. We are attached to things that we hate, things that bother us, things that offend us. These attachments drive our sense of identity, motivate us to action, sometimes they even give us purpose.

We get a great deal of pleasure sometimes thinking about how awful situations or people are. This can be easily seen in the news. The news appeals to our sense of injustice, rightness and wrongness. These are some of our attachments. Television dramas do the same.

Attachments also form with sources of pleasure. Simple chemical pleasure like eating, or taking a hot shower. This relates to the concept of emotional attachment, which I discussed in [Breaking Free: How Emotional Attachment Shapes Our Experience of Life](/breaking-free-how-emotional-attachment-shapes-our-experience-of-life). More complex pleasures like music, or art. And very complex pleasures like relationships with other people.

Pleasure Points

Dopamine and pleasure and desire. When pleasure centers in our brain sense the pleasant stimulus, dopamine is released. As I explored in [Breaking Free: Why Your Attachments Are Holding You Back in 2025](/breaking-free-why-your-attachments-are-holding-you-back-in-2025), dopamine's influence can sometimes create stronger desires without necessarily correlating to happiness. In fact, some recent studies have shown that the dopamine influence causes strong desires for some activities, yet the subject does not report a feeling of happiness doing those activities. The pleasure merely creates more desire and stronger motivation to do the activity. It does not always correlate to happiness.

Sweeping Breath

Reduce our attachments. If we can reduce our attachments, then those desires become attenuated. They control us less and less. I personally find the sweeping breath activity has an amazing power to reduce my attachments. The problem is only that it is time consuming and attention consuming. It is not easy and it is not fast. But it is remarkably effective.

Free Out Attention from Pleasure

I want to spend more time focussed on internal things that cause happiness. Things like concentration and focus and purpose. I have been able to reduce some of my attachments over the past few years. As a result, I have more control over where I put my attention, and how I use my attentive energy. I am no focusing it on physically sources of pleasure. Rather I am focusing that energy on doing things with greater concentration, or doing activities that are aligned with my purpose. This is much more rewarding. I call this happiness.

Renewable Happiness

When I focus on building concentration and purpose, as I discussed in Free Out Attention from Pleasure, it becomes easier to tap into renewable happiness. With less distraction by the pleasures of life, it is easier to focus on internal things. With less distraction by the pleasures of life, it is easier to focus on the internal things. I love to sharpen myself, to hone my attention to focus on becoming … well even more focused. This process is closely related to what I discussed in [How Letting Go of Attachments Creates Lasting Inner Peace](/how-letting-go-of-attachments-creates-lasting-inner-peace), where releasing attachments allows for greater inner peace and clarity. What I do is becoming less and less important. How I do it, or what my internal state is like is becoming more and more important. Process is more important than product in my life. That is a source of renewable happiness. It also creates a double happiness in the sense that I feel I have more control over these internal things.

Still Enjoy Pleasurable Things

I can still savour the flavour of chocolate, but if I don’t get any, I don’t feel any loss. All the good points with none of the downsides.