With many uncertainties lying in wait this year, let us not forget what makes us happy. Not that happiness serves ultimate purpose for our lives, but that it offers emotional renewal while building psychological resilience. From happiness we often find joy... from joy we frequently discover love. Consider happiness the emotional gateway to high-frequency energy, boosted esteem, and healthier living. Happiness is a choice... an emotional acceptance of circumstance... a deliberate pursuit of joy... a consciously (and eventually cultured), positive response to the realtime events that surround our every day. While happiness (the emotion) challenges happiness (the action) to accept individual responsibility for behavioral choices, the ultimate merriment yields a beautiful sense of being.
Concisely examined and quaintly abridged...
Happiness is doing what you love and loving what you do. Happiness is a continual means to even greater ends and not an end in and of itself. Happiness is a certain self-satisfaction in a job well-done, a conviction adhered to, or a good deed done right. Happiness is listening to your favorite song, while driving fast on the highway, and taking a glimpse at the stars above. Happiness is seeing the smile on your family’s face when you come home from being gone a long time. Happiness is a function of loving others wholeheartedly… it is proportional to the amount you give of yourself—the more you give of yourself, the happier you feel.
Concisely examined and quaintly abridged...
Happiness is doing what you love and loving what you do. Happiness is a continual means to even greater ends and not an end in and of itself. Happiness is a certain self-satisfaction in a job well-done, a conviction adhered to, or a good deed done right. Happiness is listening to your favorite song, while driving fast on the highway, and taking a glimpse at the stars above. Happiness is seeing the smile on your family’s face when you come home from being gone a long time. Happiness is a function of loving others wholeheartedly… it is proportional to the amount you give of yourself—the more you give of yourself, the happier you feel.
The Art of Happiness was written by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, MD a practicing psychiatrist. The book was based upon interviews of His Holiness. The very first sentence stated, “I believe the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness.” He went on to say, “Yes, I believe happiness can be achieved by training of the mind.”
ReplyDeleteTaryn, my friend and energy guru, summarized this nicely by stating, “What we think determines how we feel.” However, the pursuit of happiness is not a hedonistic exercise of self-indulgence.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “It is one of the most beautiful compensation of this life that no man can sincerely help another without helping himself…. Serve and thou shall be served.”
The Dalai Lama pointed out, “I think that ethical behavior is another feature of the kind of inner [self] discipline that leads to happiness…. Traditionally, it has been considered the responsibility of religion to prescribe what behaviors are wholesome and what are not. However, in today’s society, religion has lost its prestige and influence to some degree. At the same time, no alternative, such as secular ethics, has come up to replace it…. The more sophisticated your level of education and knowledge about what leads to happiness and what causes suffering, the more effective you will be in achieving happiness.”
In closing, your post on Happiness actually relates to the previous post on the Fiscal Cliff. People are unhappy because of the unethical behaviors of our politicians, business leaders and the entire financial industry. Your admonition to pursue happiness by strengthening personal relationships, practicing fiscal responsibility and leading an ethical life with the purpose of serving others is truly the correct path. The government should insure the opportunity for every American to pursue happiness; it should not attempt to provide happiness through entitlement programs at the expense of productive citizens.
This entry is being offered on a prompt by George W, to contribute to this blog post. It is not written as a proclamation or belief, but only what has been recognized through my own experience. What you’ve expressed above Kris is beautiful, in particular the portion about selfless giving. What follows simply offers a different understanding for consideration.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is seeking happiness, love and peace. This is the perpetual quest as a human being, taking us on a pursuit that can be a seemingly endless journey, looking to the next experience, the next person, the next possession, the next …the next… the next, more, more, more. When we’ve accumulated all the things or circumstances we thought would make us happy, and still find that sense of void unfulfilled, we may then think, “well, perhaps I’ll simplify my life and have less.” We then swing to the opposite end, giving things away, refraining from this or that, rearranging the furniture of our lives. All to no avail. At some point it may dawn on us, that the “happiness” found through these actions or objects is neither lasting nor complete. It is never ultimately satisfying. That gnawing void or heart’s longing remains unresolved. The grasping, holding onto or scrambling to regain happiness returns. We are back to seeking for happiness once again. And the direction of that seeking is habitually mis-directed. What we have been innocently taught to believe, is that happiness is found in something outside ourselves, in our possessions, achievements, actions or experiences. We have confused pleasure, which is transient and a result of satisfying the multitude of desires that arise in our daily experience, with happiness. Pleasure, as an experience, is a result. Happiness is not. True happiness does not depend on anything.
If we look closely to our experience, even the simplest of experiences, there is something very telling. But to see what is being pointed to, asks that we be open to seeing things in a way that may be different than our usual interpretation. It asks us to question some of our basic assumptions about the way we think things are.
What is really happening when we satisfy a desire for something? Say for example, a craving for rocky road ice cream? After thinking about rocky road ice cream all day, what happens when a bowl of it is in front of me and I finally take that first bite? All goes quiet, for just a moment. And I experience that pleasure, felt as momentary happiness, peace, perhaps even bliss. A moment of being present. But why? What has really happened? Very simply put, the mind is momentarily at rest. It has been momentarily satisfied and rests. The incessant stream of thoughts of, “I long for this, I want to do this, when I am this….when I get this I’ll be…” etc., etc., which comprise the mind, have momentarily ceased, and we experience what we truly are and have always been: happiness, joy, peace.
Because this has not been pointed out to us, we have confused this experience with thinking that it actually is the ice cream (or doing what you love or looking at the stars or seeing a loved one or whatever. You can insert any object or action into this example) that has created happiness or “made me happy.” We then say, “I love rocky road ice cream” purely because it appears that it is the ice cream that made us feel this way when really, the experience of satisfying the mind brought a temporary cessation of thought, and in that temporary cessation of thought, what we truly are and have always been, our true nature, shines forth. You, what you truly are, is like the clear open sky that can be obscured by the cloud of thought. When the clouds clear, what you are as vast, spacious, limitless, eternal happiness, peace and love, has always been present.
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ReplyDeleteIt is important to say, that what is being pointed out here is NOT to attempt to cease thought. You can try but as you will find, it is not possible. Thoughts arise and flow like a stream. Sometimes they flow more quickly and at other times they’re just a trickle. Sometimes skies are cloudy, sometimes skies are clear. You as this clear open sky, are completely undisturbed and untouched by the presence or absence of the clouds of thought. The presence or absence of clouds are of no consequence. You cannot control thought nor do you determine what they are (although you may THINK you do). Have you noticed? What this example is pointing to, is that which is prior to thought. That is, it is beyond or before the mind. Simply have a look at this and get curious about it. What is it that is prior to thought? That is, what is present before the next thought arises? Have a look. Look over and over again. You will find that it is something quite extraordinary and yet also very ordinary. And in it, there is true rest, and ever abiding peace and happiness.
Simply turn your attention around from focusing outside, to focusing inside, to your being, and see for yourself. It is to be found only within. It is to be found only through direct experience; through direct seeing. Don’t take my word for it nor any one else’s. It is here right now. And because what you are is already here and ever present, there is no getting, attaining or achieving it. Happiness is not a result. Nor are love and peace. Happiness, love and peace are what you are. They are what is, and always have been – as our true nature or natural state.
I am not sure that, upon reading the intent for this blog, that this is the appropriate place for what I am writing as I am not seeking to stimulate thought or debate. Nor am I speaking from the platform of a philosophy, doctrine or system of belief. These all lie within the realm of the mind (thought) and, as noted above, what I am pointing to lies beyond or prior to it. I am simply stating my own direct experience. And if none of this makes any sense at this time, that’s okay too. Some day it will.
Oh, and by the way, despite what anyone says, I’m no guru.
Happy New Year!
Taryn