The vicious spiral increases until a couple hundred ounces are not enough! Only when he understands that what must change is not what is taken in, but his treatment of it, will he improve his digestive system and get full value from what he eats, and his health and satisfaction be restored.

To achieve a state of quite deep and enduring psycho-spiritual satisfaction does not take a great deal of input of external experiences, A mutual love relationship, warm friendships, meaningful work that allows for creativity, service to humanity, a hobby or art form, beauty, and a few comforts - people who have those don't need much more to experience contentment.

Contentment is a state in which we appreciate fully what we have. We take it in slowly with attention, savor it, feel gratitude that we have it. Contentment is to the present moment what gratitude is to the past and hopefulness to the future - pure satisfaction and appreciation. At the moment of contentment, we don't "need" anything more. And the restless search for more will be a barrier. As we eat a delicious meal, to start looking ahead at the next bite will only detract from the full delight of experiencing the one we're eating.

Somehow in this culture, we have gotten seriously lost from contentment. When we feel psycho-spiritually unfulfilled, instead of immediately examining and inceasing our ability to convert events into experience - our "psychic digestion" we start trying to increase the flow of in-coming experiences. We add more and more activities, We acquire more and more "stuff." We spend more times shopping for "stuff" and for experiences. We read and talk at breakfast. We try doing two, then three things at once. Pretty soon two hundred units of stimulation are necessary where thirty were once enough! Our minds become increasingly busy - and we become increasingly less satisfied.

We spend more and more time in restless avoidance of boredom, seeking more intense - and just plain more - experiences to feed the psycho-spiritual emptiness. And none of it works. We simply accelerate our needing more, more, bigger, bigger, better, better. It's like trying to quench your thirst by drinking sea water; your mouth gets wet, while the salt soon deepens the thirst. All that restless seeking is neither just neutral nor just a waste of time. It actively interferes with and inhibits the appreciation of what we do have. Far from leading to contentment, excessive consumption leads away from it.

Our culture increasingly supports this madness. Advertising finds and exploits every little chink in our armor, finds every opportunity to raise our insecurity, keeping us off balance and wanting. You may remember the phrase "always a bridesmaid; never a bride." This was coined in 1926 to sell Listerine by arousing fear of what might happen if you didn't use it. This deliberate arousal of insecurity is now a staple in ads. Are you dissatisfied, insecure, unsure? Try this ...new hair spray, toothpaste, toy, or fast car. Then you'll finally be content - until the novelty wears off and the restlessness sets in again.

We can never get enough of what cannot basically nurture us, and the harder we try the worse we get. Advertising seeks to arouse the two feelings the Buddha most warned us against: desire and anxiety. This is tragic enough just from the standpoint of individuals who miss the full experience of well being. But on top of this is the fact that the Earth can no longer endure the onslaught of consumption and the resulting load of garbage.