Is dopamine and craving bad if it doesn't lead to suffering?

[u/redpandamaster17]

Reposting from r/streamentry, I would appreciate a variety of answers / perspectives.

Something I've been thinking about recently is the role of dopamine / craving in my daily life. In TMI, there's a footnote where Culadasa talks about the "links of depending arising", where craving is the weak link in the chain that leads to suffering.

Using mindfulness, I've been able to eliminate a large amount of the craving in my life that leads to suffering. For example, I would often use social media such as youtube or discord to procrastinate when I had some aversion to getting work done, and I was able to get rid of that aversion.

I'm mostly wondering about the role of craving in situations that are not so clearly detrimental. Let me give two examples.

Let's say I'm chatting with a friend on a discord text channel. I see discord as this gamified, extra dopaminergic version of in person conversation. On discord, you can see if someone is typing, and this builds some anticipation of what they might say. Scientifically, this randomness and anticipation produces more dopamine than if we were talking on voice chat, or IRL. Is this craving / anticipation bad, if I don't see how it leads to suffering?

Here's another example - let's say I don't have that much work to get done today, so I wake up, and decide to spend 3 hours watching youtube videos, which is highly dopaminergic. I am confident that I will get the work that I want to get done later, and do not detect any aversion or escapism while watching youtube, or later when I do the work efficiently. Is the craving / dopamine from watching youtube bad, if it doesn't lead to suffering?

I also experience dopamine after a good work out. When I meditate and experience meditative joy, I suspect there is also dopamine then. Are these experiences different than the aforementioned examples?

[u/bodilysubliminals]

Think: why do you want to watch those Youtube videos? It's craving. Why do you crave? Because you suffer. Craving and suffering are different only subtly; craving is the suffering felt in the absence of pleasure.

Now, why do we want his to end? Well, it's going to be a little bit controversial and long here. As I've seen, being around the TMI community for this long, the community is filled with Westerns (I could be wrong). So, a considerable amount of the community have this idea that they can just ditch rebirth and still call themselves Buddhists. I'd argue against it.

The main reason the Buddha discovered the Dhamma was his search for the end of suffering, and that includes the end of rebirth. Suppose there were no rebirth, what would be the point of all these meditations, merits, insights? You could just take the nihilistic part, and maybe end your suffering through scide; now there's no one to suffer. It's the fact that there's rebirth that makes scide not an option to escape suffering, because you'll be met with more suffering in the hell realms.

Now, back to the question. Why do we need to eliminate all craving even if it doesn't cause apparent suffering? Because it tethers you to this realm of suffering. All forms of pleasure, no matter how long, will end, leaving you dissatisfied, wanting more, craving and suffering. What if you always had the capacity to just be immersed in the pleasure? The thing is: everything is impermanent. Even the Brahma realms, where you can experience pleasure till the many lifetimes of a universe, eventually end.

So, again, why do we need to eliminate even this seemingly harmless craving? Because it's "seemingly" harmless only.

Also, meditative pleasures are still temporary (hence, the Brahma realms). My memory's a bit foggy but the Buddha described these meditative pleasures as leading to the end of suffering; they arise not from the fulfillment of craving but from the absence of it. Thus, you can see that you don't have to yield to your cravings to be satisfied; you just have to let them go. Please, take the last paragraph with a grain of salt.

[u/SpectrumDT → u/bodilysubliminals]

a considerable amount of the community have this idea that they can just ditch rebirth and still call themselves Buddhists. I'd argue against it.

What if we don't call ourselves Buddhists?

[u/bodilysubliminals → u/SpectrumDT]

Great, then! Let me add by saying that it's a considerable amount of the Western "Buddhists" that I've had conversations with. I'd agree with you if you don't claim to be Buddhists and don't believe in rebirth.

[u/SpectrumDT → u/bodilysubliminals]

I could call myself a "Buddhist-inspired rationalist". Buddhist-inspired in the sense that I think Buddhist-style practice is extremely valuable, and that many Buddhist writings and traditions are valuable guidelines. :)

I do not call myself a Buddhist, partially because I am skeptical of some of the claims I have seen attributed to Buddhism, and partially because I simply do not know enough about the variants of Buddhism to have a clear idea of what exactly it would entail to "be a Buddhist". :)

[u/redpandamaster17 → u/bodilysubliminals]

I think I would also like to distinguish between the perception of craving and the physiology of craving. From what I understand, dopamine physiologically conditions a person to perform an action. In my experience, I will not always feel or be aware of the craving to perform an action, even though I understand that my physiology might encourage me to perform that action.

I imagine (correct me if I'm wrong) that even the Buddha would might have physiological responses to dopamine, which includes craving, even though mentally they might not perceive this craving. Is physiological craving that is not perceived still suffering?

[u/bodilysubliminals → u/redpandamaster17]

Personally, I'd say "no". Craving requires you to have the desire to change the present (i.e., acquire pleasure or remove pain).

[u/redpandamaster17 → u/bodilysubliminals]

Let's say I have no desire to change the present - what would motivate me to act if I'm doing nothing?

For example, earlier this week, I woke up with joy in my heart, and I was pretty content. I lie in bed for a while thinking about nothing, and then decide to plan my day. I work from home and don't have much to do, so it's a pretty relaxed day. I choose between getting my work done for the day, or watching youtube, and then doing work. I choose the 2nd option, because it's been historically more enjoyable. Meditation has made the difference in craving between these two options smaller, but one is still noticeably more attractive. If I had no craving at all, would I just choose at random? Or I could just continue doing nothing, or choose a different action altogether? Because the difference in projected reward between two options is what motivates me, it's hard to imagine what life without craving would even be like.

[u/bodilysubliminals → u/redpandamaster17]

That's interesting. I'm sorry but I don't know the answer. I think you should do a bit of research on Canda Vs Tanha.

[u/redpandamaster17 → u/bodilysubliminals]

Thanks for your response.

In your framework, what do you think about the dopamine that comes with meditative joy? A large motivator for why I meditate, is because it makes my mind sharp, but also because it comes with joy and tranquility. Is my pursuit of joy and tranquility also suffering?

[u/bodilysubliminals → u/redpandamaster17]

Here's my two cents:

You're still suffering while your pursuit continues.

But, what does that desire/pursuit lead to? Well, if it's the wholesome kind of tranquility and pleasure, it can lead to the end of suffering — the end of all pursuits.

I'm writing this assuming you're pursuing the end of suffering. If you were rowing a boat to cross a river, you'd need a paddle. After crossing the river, you can throw the paddle away. In a similar manner, the pursuit of joy and tranquility itself is suffering, but after having acquired them, you can let go of the pursuit (hence, let go for the desire; hence, let go of the suffering).

[u/boboverlord → u/bodilysubliminals]

I'd argue that we don't need to ditch the concept of rebirth, just the supernatural aspect of it. In fact, when combined with the concept of not-self, rebirth without souls makes more sense. 

Language we speak, food we eat, genetics we are born from, and believes and ideals we hold, always come from somewhere and someone else, often transmitted through human intentional actions (kamma/karma). And they (together called 5 aggregates) will continue to be transmitted (albeit in changed forms) after we die. That is rebirth that westerners should easily understand since it's everywhere and obvious.

[u/Ralph_hh]

I believe neither Youtube nor Discord are bad. What makes is bad is daily consumption that trains your brain to high dopamine levels. Your brain needs Dopamin highs to motivate you and it needs dopamine lows to keep a balance, to let highs have an effect. Constantly being high due to gaming, social media binge watching etc. will bring you to a state where you do not want to do anything at all beside e.g. gaming. The problem is that you cannot really measure your dopamine levels and determine what level of media consumption is still acceptable or not.

I'd say if you often sit on your bed with the feeling that you are not motivated to do anything, that is a bad sign. If you stil feel like doing stuff, sports, work, whatever, you are probably ok.

[u/SpectrumDT]

What are your medium- and long-term goals with your meditation practice?

What are your other goals and interests in life?

How far along are you in the TMI stages?

[u/redpandamaster17 → u/SpectrumDT]

I'm currently working on the jhanas - I bought Brasington's book and Pa Auk's book and I'm going through those.

TMI I'm somewhere between stages 7-10 - I've gone through the pacification / 5 stages of piti and feel joy and tranquility throughout the day, which would put me at stage 10, but sometimes I still experience subtle distractions, so I feel like I haven't mastered stage 7 at the same time? I've read through the whole book though and am reading those other books on jhana and hoping to improve my concentration.

For goals it's hard for me to say, I feel like I've let go of my attachment a lot of my previous goals, but there are small goals I aim for, like trying to achieve flow in my current activity (I've been reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi), working out regularly, meditating regularly.

[u/SpectrumDT → u/redpandamaster17]

Is this craving / anticipation bad, if I don't see how it leads to suffering?

For goals it's hard for me to say

You are more advanced in the TMI stages than I am, but your question here seems to me somewhat naive. Things are not inherently "bad" or "good". Things are only "bad" or "good" in the context of some values or goals.

If you have no goals, then nothing is "bad". (Except, of course, that you have moral obligations to be kind and help others. But that does not seem very relevant to this.)

What do you have in mind when you ask whether this craving is "bad"? "Bad" in what sense?

[u/redpandamaster17 → u/SpectrumDT]

For sure, I don't feel particularly attached to the concepts of good or bad.

I guess I'm using "bad" in a very open-ended way - maybe the responder can choose their own definition, maybe based on their own values, or based off of Buddhist wisdom (I feel like in the context of Buddhism, suffering would be considered "bad"?)

Without using the term good or bad, my summary is that I feel like I've gotten rid of a lot of the suffering that was associated with some common activities I engage in, such as using social media. After getting rid of these more obvious forms of suffering, I've noticed that I still default to participating in high dopamine activities such as social media, and there is still craving to various degrees. I'm trying to decide going forwards if this is something I'm ok with, and how I want to structure my life.

[u/RationalDharma]

Feeling good in those ways isn’t bad

But making your wellbeing dependent on feeling those ways backfires

If you can enjoy without getting hooked; while staying grounded in a larger and more inclusive awareness than the push and pull of what feels good or bad, that’s great - that’s what mindfulness is for :)

[u/sharp11flat13 → u/RationalDharma]

I’m no teacher, but this has always been my understanding: that craving, just like random thoughts or any emotional reaction to experience, just happens as a part of being human. Eliminating it is not the goal. Rather the idea is to learn not to act on craving unskilfully and not to be attached to any outcome. Developing these skills will certainly reduce craving, but that’s a (very positive) side effect, not the main reason for doing so.

Isn’t this why Right View, putting all experience into a perspective that allows for productive activity, is the first step on the Eightfold Path?

Please feel free to set me straight if I’m misunderstanding.

[u/InternationalEnd6818]

It seems to me you are equating watching youtube or talking in discord to craving, whereas in my understanding you can watch youtube with no craving. Craving in that situation would be not wanting your time on youtube to end, or a situation where you are working but "crave" watching videos on youtube instead.

Craving to me is wanting something to be different than it is (or different than you think things are). If you are present, watching youtube or chatting in discord, fully accepting whatever arises, that would be perfectly fine in my experience. Obs: I'm no teacher and I'm earlier in TMI stages than you are, so take what I say as no more than an opinion.