It's looking to me that you have a love affair with dukkha. It's Love for dukkha as the underlining motivating factor. dukkha is the goal. At least that's what's appearing to me. With out that love for dukkha, there would be no dukkha in ones life.
Not so. What I'm actually claiming (and I've stated
before in this thread), is that dukkha motivates all action. This is
the First Noble Truth. I do not love the idea that dukkha motivates all action ... I simply perceive it as a fact of existence:
We sleep because we experience dukkha if we stay awake too long. We wake up & get out of bed, because staying in bed too long is also dukkha. We eat, because hunger is dukkha. We stop eating, because overeating is dukkha. We breathe in air, because not having oxygen is dukkha. We breathe out, because having too much carbon dioxide in the lungs is dukkha. We seek entertainment, because boredom is dukkha. We seek other entertainment, because too much of one kind is dukkha. We seek solitude, because too much entertainment becomes dukkha. Many seek saviors or gods, because the prospects regarding death and the cessation of physical life is dukkha. Some seek suicide because the thought of painful, ongoing existence is dukkha. And so on, and so forth, with everything else in our lives.
We also love because the feelings and emotions of love are pleasurable, and dispels some measure of dukkha. We fall out of love when our loving attachment to our object of love produces more dukkha than sukkha.
I cannot see how "love" can be substituted for "dukkha" - e.g. "we sleep because we love", "we seek entertainment because we love"? Does not make sense to me.
What higher states have you experienced? Which higher states are you desiring?
I have directly experienced the first jhana. In the first jhana, there is a great cessation of dukkha, and a wonderful experience of sukkha surpassing any normal human pleasure. In that state - with a great mass of dukkha stilled - my consciousness can perceive reality with much greater focus and power than in an ordinary, everyday state of mind. Observation of reality through the clarity of jhana enables us to gain the panna (wisdom) to achieve higher states of being.
Entering jhana is like dispelling many clouds from the sky, revealing the light of the moon or the sun that was previously hidden to a greater extent. Or, it is like quieting down the surface of a turbulent pool of water, in order to see my reflection more clearly.
I am currently seeking to establish the second, third, and fourth jhanas, all which promise even greater amounts of stillness and bliss.
There is nothing mysterious about the jhanas. It is no different than the progress of training and growth from childhood to adulthood - the adult (should) have greater control over his mind, compared to the child. With that control and focus, the adult can see more clearly, and do much more with greater wisdom, than the child. We early Buddhists do not see personal growth and training ending at the stage of the ordinary adult, but we continue this process onwards.
infant > baby > child > teen > adulthood > sotapanna > sakadagami > anagami > arahant
Each subsequent stage is more self-controlled, and (if wisely utilized) more peaceful than the last.