What Is True Happiness?

[camerata]

What Is True Happiness?

If one approaches the path of Buddhist practice with a strong emphasis on the via negativa and the idea that nirvana is just being free of stuff, then at first glance, nirvana can look pretty boring. But nirvana is not just getting up to neutral, or Freud’s “ordinary level of unhappiness.” It’s a lot more than that. An...d this is where we tap into this issue that our habitual state is dukkha, being dissatisfied, anxious. But the Buddhist premise, which is enormously inspiring, is that what’s truly “habitual” is your natural state of awareness, the ground state of awareness. This is a source of bliss and can be uncovered, beginning with the meditative practices like shamatha, the refinement of attention, and becoming aware of how things really are. The whole point of Buddha-dharma is that liberation comes not by believing in the right set of tenets or of dogmatic assertions, or even necessarily by behaving in the right way. It’s insight, it’s wisdom, it’s knowing the nature of reality. It is only truth that will make us free.

Full article.

[fabianfred]

The Buddha said that the only true happiness is peace...... a taste of which we can get when in our meditation all the distractions cease.

We enjoy going into the countryside....to spend time beside a river perhaps....amongst nature....away from the hustle and bustle of traffic and city noise.

We are neither happy nor sad...avoiding both extremes we are just comfortable....at peace.

Like a pendulum...with pleasure and suffering on different ends of the swing...as long as we are still stuck in samsara it will continue to swing.....but as our uderstanding of the dhamma becomes deeper....we suffer less and take less delight in the pleasures...so the swing slows down and gets less and less until it stops in the middle...nirvana....avoiding the extremes of pleasure and suffering.

Edited June 26, 2010 by fabianfred

[eggomaniac]

I really enjoyed the Article, the perspectives, the concepts, the insights. Is it Wallacism or Buddhism or just a way better interpreation of Buddhism?

In another Post I had brought up the point that if real Buddhism was like most people say, why would Buddha have felt the need to teach it?

I had even done a cursory search for where it is written that one should 'bother' to enlighten others. While I could not find references, I thought I might have to check into the 200 + directives monks follow.

Then Mr. Wallace comes up with 'example' instead of a 'commandment'. If Buddha spent 45 years teaching his philosophy then that, in itself, is all the instructions required, writing it down would be superfulous, eh?

At first I was thinking, 'Who is this Wallace who can say [bringing something good to the World] was a cardinal aspect of Buddhism; but it was Buddha who said it [by his actions.]

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So, are the four aspects of a meaningful life, virtue, happiness, truth and bringing something good to the world, Buddhism or Wallacism?

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It's the first time I've heard of the Buddhist 8 mundane concerns. "We mistake what Buddhists call the Eight Mundane Concerns for the true pursuit of happiness: acquisition of wealth and not losing it; acquisition of stimulus-driven pleasures and avoiding pain; praise and avoiding abuse or ridicule; and desire for a good reputation and fearing contempt or rejection."

My theory is that being better than the next person is the most Engrossing Concern of lowly humans and it threads through those 8, being richer, having the most beautiful mate, winning awards/medals, and being high class/elite. [dog screw dog]

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A cartoon today showed a novice asking a master, "Now that I have nearly put an end to desiring, what do I do about my desire to end desiring?"

My 10 yr old GD asked me, "we think before we talk, but do we think before we think, an before that?"

help on that one anyone?

[christiaan]

We think before we think.

But to be precise, we start with an intuitive thinking.

There are several ways of thinking.

One part of our thinking is spiritual at all, it is like a spiritual eye that sees the living idea's of material world and its dynamics, their law-like qualities.

By this we get 'experiences ' by wich we built up concepts with our mind, our brainthinking.

It is in meeting with the material phenomenons and their consequences that we awake in our awareness.

It is a kind of conversation between the human intuitive comprehension and the living spiritual ideas behind the material reality we deal with in life.

Intuitive thinking recognises the spiritual origin of material manifestation and we as humans speak this out in language, in words.

We do not create matter with awareness, we become aware of it by spiritual activity.

It is especially with children we can see how strong this intuitive thinking can be, this recognition of the spiritual law-like qualities.

There is no time in life in wich we learn in such a fast qualitive and quantitive way as in our childhood by inner spiritual activity.

But that is also the time in wich we are the least distracted by a lower self.