What is the harm in seeking happiness from simple pleasures?

If we wish to identify the external factors and mental attitudes that favor genuine happiness and those that are prejudicial to it, we must first learn to distinguish between happiness and certain conditions that may appear similar to it but are actually very different.

The most common error is to confuse pleasure for happiness. Pleasure, is the direct result of pleasurable sensual, esthetic, or intellectual stimuli. The fleeting experience of pleasure is dependent upon circumstance, on a specific location or moment in time. It is unstable by nature, and the sensation it evokes soon becomes neutral or even unpleasant. Likewise, when repeated it may grow insipid or even lead to disgust; savoring a delicious meal is a source of genuine pleasure, but we are indifferent to it once we’ve had our fill and would get sick of it if we continued eating.

Pleasure is exhausted by usage, like a candle consuming itself. It is almost always linked to an activity and naturally leads to boredom by dint of being repeated. Listening rapturously to a Bach prelude requires a focus of attention that, minimal as it is, cannot be maintained indefinitely. After a while fatigue kicks in and the music loses its charm. Were we forced to listen for days on end, it would become unbearable.

Furthermore pleasure is an individual experience, most often centered on the self, which is why it can easily descend into selfishness and sometimes conflict with the well-being of others. In sexual intimacy there can certainly be mutual pleasure through giving and receiving pleasurable sensations, but such pleasure can transcend the self and contribute to genuine happiness only if the very nature of mutuality and generous altruism lies at its core. You can experience pleasure at somebody else’s expense, but you can never derive happiness from it. Pleasure can be joined to cruelty, violence, pride, greed, and other mental conditions that are incompatible with true happiness. “Pleasure is the happiness of madmen, while happiness is the pleasure of sages,” wrote the French novelist and critic Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly.

Some people even enjoy vengeance and torturing other human beings. In the same vein, a businessman may rejoice in the ruin of a competitor, a thief revel in his booty, a spectator at a bullfight exult in the bull’s death. But these are only passing, sometimes morbid states of elation that, like moments of positive euphoria, have nothing to do with happiness.

The fervid and almost mechanical quest for sensual pleasures is another example of gratification’s going hand in hand with obsession and, ultimately, disenchantment. More often than not, pleasure does not keep its promises.

Unlike pleasure, genuine flourishing may be influenced by circumstance, but it isn’t dependent on it. It does not mutate into its opposite but endures and grows with experience. It imparts a sense of fulfillment that in time becomes second nature.

Authentic happiness is not linked to an activity; it is a state of being, a profound emotional balance struck by a subtle understanding of how the mind functions. While ordinary pleasures are produced by contact with pleasant objects and end when that contact is broken, sukha — lasting well-being — is felt so long as we remain in harmony with our inner nature. One intrinsic aspect of it is selflessness, which radiates from within rather than focusing on the self. One who is at peace with herself will contribute spontaneously to establishing peace within her family, her neighborhood, and, circumstances permitting, society at large.

In brief, there is no direct relationship between pleasure and happiness. This distinction does not suggest that we mustn’t seek out pleasurable sensations. There is no reason to deprive ourselves of the enjoyment of a magnificent landscape, of swimming in the sea, or of the scent of a rose. Pleasures become obstacles only when they upset the mind’s equilibrium and lead to an obsession with gratification or an aversion to anything that thwarts them.

Although intrinsically different from happiness, pleasure is not its enemy. It all depends on how it is experienced. If it is tainted with grasping and impedes inner freedom, giving rise to avidity and dependence, it is an obstacle to happiness. On the other hand, if it is experienced in the present moment, in a state of inner peace and freedom, pleasure adorns happiness without overshadowing it.

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