To avoid suffering, go straight to the pain.
Shinzen Young, one of the oldest American mindfulness teachers. Awareness makes possible exceptional satisfaction from comparatively small joys, whereas an addicted person must constantly increase the number or intensity of incentives in order to receive the same satisfaction as before.
At some point in your life, something will happen to you that really "hooks" on you: you will get sick, or get injured, or someone will betray you. Sooner or later, but something serious will happen.
If you are prepared, training and developing three basic skills of concentration, clarity and balance, you can use discomfort the same way monks, hermits and shamans have been doing this for thousands of years.
You do not need to run to the monastery to get rid of discomfort, because you learned how to run to discomfort, and thus - the monastery comes to you yourself.
Life itself will provide you with enough intensive practice, on the basis of which you can grow and develop if you are ready to perceive it.
