Happiness is
something we learn to hold, rather than something that we must strive for. Spiritual
practice teaches us how to hold happiness for longer and longer times. Without
a spiritual practice, happiness spills through our fingers and is gone forever.
Happiness is in abundance everywhere in our lives, in the beauty of nature, in
the goodness of relationships, in the way the world embraces us with love each
moment. So there is no need to go looking for it, or to try to gain it in some
way. Rather, by living a spiritual path, we develop the capacity to experience happiness.
Most of us
are not being accustomed to the feeling of contentment, because we are taught
from a young age that we must suffer and strive, work hard and constantly try
to be better. We do not recognize that happiness is what we yearn for. Spiritual
practice develops the capacity to hold and experience happiness, like a tea cup
or chalice, the Holy Grail.
Happiness is
that quality which we all wish for in one way or another. We all want to feel
fulfilled, joyful, content. However, recent studies have shown that people who
crave happiness are less likely to achieve it. (The Pursuit of Contentment, Spirituality and Health,
January/February, 2015),Seems ironic that the one thing we all run after is so
illusive.
Perhaps it
would help to really consider what it is that we yearn for so much. Happiness, fulfillment,
joy are the opposite of trying to be
happy, fulfilled or joyful. There’s the paradox, the more that we try to be happy, the less we will actually experience happiness.
Happiness is
a complete state, it is a place where we are not comparing (I’m only a 6/10 on
the happiness scale, not a 10), it is fully 10 out of 10 because to be happy is
to be complete in the moment. There is not striving, trying to fix anything or
anyone (most importantly oneself), it is devoid of ego thinking, it is all-inclusive,
blissful and without criticism or thought. It is a whole (holy) expression of
our god-self, in the moment, recognizing that what arises is enough. The
thoughts about trying, ambition,
criticism, comparing, discernment are all let go in an instant and we are
simply fulfilled-there and then. This is the only way that happiness can arise.
Happiness is
not given to us when we achieve something, some goal, some degree of achievement,
or
recognition or wealth. Of course, as with all the stages of Maslow’s hierarchy
of needs triangle, each level must be fulfilled to a satisfactory level before
we can progress onto the next level. It is difficult to be happy when you are
sleeping on a sidewalk in the winter. We need the basics first-good nutritious
food that feeds our bodies and souls, homes where we can feel safe and
comfortable, expectations that we will work and contribute in meaningful ways
in our families and communities. However too attention at any level will
imbalance your being and block the possibility of happiness in the same way that
too little at any level will block good feelings.
If this one
truth were more widely known our world, the wanton destruction of our
environment would change in an moment. We are literally eating up our world, or
rather our hungry ghosts are eating up the environment. For many are stuck at one
of lower levels. The more they think
they are deserving of happiness the less likely they will be happy. The more
imbalanced they become in their surfeit collection of various feel-goodies ,
the less they are actually able to be content.
Many traditions
have argued about how we can prepare for the experience of happiness. In Zen,
two schools of thought duked it out for centuries, The Soto school one believed
that the individual had to work really hard to achieve enlightenment (another
word for happiness). The other school, Rinzai, believe that happiness came in a flash without
preparation or reason. Of course, both are correct-we have to struggled with
all the work of being on a spiritual path and we also have to let go sometimes
and just be our essential nature, fulfilled in the moment. The Buddhist eight
fold path, is a highly structured practice of preparing the mind to receive
light (enlightenment). But there are many stories about how after exhausting
all the spiritual tasks of becoming a better person, the individual suddenly
experienced great spontaneous joy which seemed to be independent of all their
work This is because happiness is complete and does not compare past and
future. It simply is.
Rick Hanson
is an excellent writer on this subject and I encourage anyone who is interested
in doing/not doing the work that is
needed to develop happiness go to his website or read his book, Hardwiring Happiness(2014).
Try This!
1. Commit some time every day during the
next week to your own happiness, developing the calm abiding mind that nurtures
feelings of contentment and joy.
2. Decide where and when you will do
this. For example, every morning for five
minutes while I’m drinking my first coffee, I will sit for five minutes and
just feel blissful. Then do it, even if it feels weird.
3. If feeling good as a theme less state
is difficult, try feeling grateful. Grateful feelings are identified by brain
research as the most flexible state of mind and new neural pathways are more easily
created and maintained in a state of gratitude.
4. During the day, catch little moments
when you feel happy. They may slip by so quickly, like dreams, and because your
mind state is habitually anxious or negative, you may dismiss these feelings as
soon as you become aware of them. What
was that? Yipes was I happy just then?
5. For the next week, journal three
times every day whenever you catch yourself being happy. Write about the
quality of your mind in this state. I was
walking along the board walk in the sun, and realised that I was perfectly
content, not really thinking about anything. Noticing the warm sunshine was
what really propelled me into that
experience.
6. Don’t be deceived by the busy mind into
thinking that being happy is this simple. It is simple and it is a lifelong
work of noticing, focusing, clearing the mind of obstacles and living with
right intentions and actions-all elements of a
spiritual path.
Joy in the journey!
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