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How To Be Happy
Given a choice between being sad and being happy, you would rather be happy wouldn't you? So why are so many people NOT happy? Any analysis of how to be happy must look at the philosophical assumptions implicit in that question. First of all there is the idea of freedom of choice. If there were real freedom of choice everyone would be happy, right? Also in that first question we're considering a pair of opposites, happiness and sadness, a duality. These ideas of freedom of choice and duality are at the heart of the human condition and can bring us to an understanding of what real happiness is. If you really know how to be happy then you are indeed happy inside all the time, whatever happens. But hold on, you're not exactly going to be happy if, for example, a loved one dies are you? This is where we need to distinguish between true happiness and what we commonly regard as happiness.
What we commonly know as happiness only exists in relation to its opposite, sadness, so we can only feel happiness by knowing sadness as a reference. That is, happiness exists only by contrast. Happiness and sadness are an interdependent duality. Real happiness comes from the realisation that we in fact don't have the absolute freedom of choice that we think we do. A tremendous source of misery is the conviction that things should be a particular way. Human life is based upon a framework of power and control whereby we are constantly grasping for things. Enlightenment, and therefore true happiness comes from the realisation that this framework has no absolute reality. This zen-like idea of freedom from grasping is the essence of how to be happy.
There is an old yogic saying "Hope is the greatest torture, despair is the greatest happiness" The idea here is that in a state of despair there can be an immense relief because the situation is completely out of your hands, you have no responsibility for it whatsoever whereas in a state of pure hope there is a desperate need for a power and control that is never actually realised. The gambling industry runs on hope. When considering how to be happy, consider the extent to which you are driven by hope. If your life is based on hope you need to substitute a more practical and liberating perspective.
Consider the way a newborn baby sees the world. It sees lots of objects but it doesn't see a distinction between them because it has not imposed a language map upon the world to differentiate it into its separate parts. A newborn baby sees the world as one big interdependent whole but later it will use language to impose an abstract framework that labels and fractionates it. We label in order to control and although labels are essential for living in the world they are also at the root of our misery. Consider the biblical story of how Adam and Eve fell from grace. They ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Once we become trapped in this duality and identify ourselves as the good guys we end up using that to justify actions that are manifestly not good. This accounts for a lot of human behaviour and puts things into perspective when thinking about how to be happy.
What can we make of the label 'I'? What exactly do you refer to when you say 'I think...' There is this sense that 'I' is an awareness that is in the driving seat. If there is something in the driving seat it must be separate from the whole just as a driver is separate from a car but this makes no sense. You can't have a separate part that is identified as you because any distinction of a part is not the whole and its the WHOLE thing together which is the real you. Our ego and our inner voice are a abstract language based phenomena that we identify as 'I'. This is illusory. A lot of misery can be generated by conflict between this perceived 'I' and the real you which is the whole.
So, how to be happy? Stop thinking that this 'I' is the real you, there is no one in the driving seat, indeed there is no driving seat! You are a complex, interdependent whole. All you can do is spontaneously go with that instead of having a tyrannising ego as a reference. Zen tells us that all of us already have this enlightenment, we just don't know it!
By John Kirkham
What we commonly know as happiness only exists in relation to its opposite, sadness, so we can only feel happiness by knowing sadness as a reference. That is, happiness exists only by contrast. Happiness and sadness are an interdependent duality. Real happiness comes from the realisation that we in fact don't have the absolute freedom of choice that we think we do. A tremendous source of misery is the conviction that things should be a particular way. Human life is based upon a framework of power and control whereby we are constantly grasping for things. Enlightenment, and therefore true happiness comes from the realisation that this framework has no absolute reality. This zen-like idea of freedom from grasping is the essence of how to be happy.
There is an old yogic saying "Hope is the greatest torture, despair is the greatest happiness" The idea here is that in a state of despair there can be an immense relief because the situation is completely out of your hands, you have no responsibility for it whatsoever whereas in a state of pure hope there is a desperate need for a power and control that is never actually realised. The gambling industry runs on hope. When considering how to be happy, consider the extent to which you are driven by hope. If your life is based on hope you need to substitute a more practical and liberating perspective.
Consider the way a newborn baby sees the world. It sees lots of objects but it doesn't see a distinction between them because it has not imposed a language map upon the world to differentiate it into its separate parts. A newborn baby sees the world as one big interdependent whole but later it will use language to impose an abstract framework that labels and fractionates it. We label in order to control and although labels are essential for living in the world they are also at the root of our misery. Consider the biblical story of how Adam and Eve fell from grace. They ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Once we become trapped in this duality and identify ourselves as the good guys we end up using that to justify actions that are manifestly not good. This accounts for a lot of human behaviour and puts things into perspective when thinking about how to be happy.
What can we make of the label 'I'? What exactly do you refer to when you say 'I think...' There is this sense that 'I' is an awareness that is in the driving seat. If there is something in the driving seat it must be separate from the whole just as a driver is separate from a car but this makes no sense. You can't have a separate part that is identified as you because any distinction of a part is not the whole and its the WHOLE thing together which is the real you. Our ego and our inner voice are a abstract language based phenomena that we identify as 'I'. This is illusory. A lot of misery can be generated by conflict between this perceived 'I' and the real you which is the whole.
So, how to be happy? Stop thinking that this 'I' is the real you, there is no one in the driving seat, indeed there is no driving seat! You are a complex, interdependent whole. All you can do is spontaneously go with that instead of having a tyrannising ego as a reference. Zen tells us that all of us already have this enlightenment, we just don't know it!
By John Kirkham
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