Happiness

What better thing to write about on a dull damp February day than happiness?

Happiness is an interesting word, it is a concept, a construct. Ask anyone to define happiness and they may have a partial answer in the form of what makes them feel good, but ask them if they can be happy without the things that make them feel good and their reply would probably be a firm ‘No’.

What did the Buddha say about happiness? Well perhaps the word doesn’t translate well for he didn’t actually talk about happiness as such, instead he talked about what makes us dissatisfied. If you are dissatisfied you are less likely to be happy.

For a long time, the word ‘dhukka’ to which the Buddha is said to have referred was translated as suffering, but a more modern and generally accepted interpretation is dissatisfaction. In other words, we are suffering because we are dissatisfied, and because we are dissatisfied, we can’t be happy. Why are we dissatisfied? Because said the Buddha we either want things that we can’t have, or we don’t want the things in life that cause us distress. This is a very simple but accurate description of life as a whole with it’s ups and downs and explains why few people are happy all of the time.

But is there a way out of this? The Buddha said there was, and he offered eight ways in which you could live your life to help you achieve a balance where you can rid yourself of dissatisfaction and as a result be happy, and mindfulness is one of those ways.

As humans we have a predisposition to be negative, in modern psychological parlance we have a negativity bias. Instead of thinking positively all of the time and looking on the bright side we are inclined to do the opposite and to worry about things happening. So, we already start off at a disadvantage as far as finding happiness is concerned.

What if we start looking at the positives in our lives as a default? Wouldn’t that help us to feel happy?

The way to do this is to begin to appreciate what we have rather than what we do not. We can bring to mind times when we were unwell, perhaps a toothache, backache, broken bones etc., and then say to ourselves I am really lucky I don’t feel like that anymore. How often do we do that? Not often I would wager. Not only do we have a natural negativity bias, but we also live an unexamined life where we seldom stop to consider such things.

We are for the most part on automatic pilot only stopping to consider things when they go drastically wrong or in the case of happy moments, often in retrospect. The Buddha taught how we should spend time in the moment, experiencing the joy of being alive and appreciating the simple but incredible functioning of our bodies. If we can learn to do this then even chores that we have to do can become times of appreciation. I need to dust the apartment, well at least I have eyes that see the dust and hands and arms with which to use a duster and reach up. Many people are not lucky enough to have either.

You may read this and think well that’s very obvious and simplistic but try living your life appreciating what you have even if it is for a day and see how you feel about it.

One of the problems some experience with happiness is that it can be fleeting. The holiday abroad, the visit of a grandchild, the blooming of a beautiful garden in the spring, even one’s youth. But in fact, the fleeting nature of happiness is what makes it special.

How often have you heard people who live in hot climates say they long to see some rain because when you have too much of anything it becomes tedious. The Buddha spoke about impermanence, and he said think about it in terms of your own life. Don’t waste it worrying about this or that thing, don’t let it pass by unnoticed because you haven’t bothered to stop and appreciate it.

If you live in the moment, you won’t look back on your life and have regret that it has disappeared whilst you were thinking about other things. Some reading this might say ‘well it’s alright you saying don’t worry about things, but that’s easier said than done’, and they would be right. However, we can learn to do this through the practice of acceptance.

Acceptance is so important when trying to achieve a happy life. What if you could accept everything for what it is without making any judgements?

Wouldn’t that help you to be happy?

Let me explain this further. We are naturally judgemental. I like this, I don’t like that, I want this, I don’t want that. There are historic reasons for this, basically survival in a dangerous world but to a large extent we don’t live in a dangerous world, at least not the tooth and nail world of the jungle or savanna where critical assessment was essential to stay alive.

For most of us, modern ‘civilised’ life is fairly tame, and so we have converted our judgement of whether things are safe into one of ‘do I like this or don’t I?’ ‘Do I approve of this, or do I not?’

We carve the world into pieces of good and bad and often without even thinking about it. It’s raining today so that’s not a good day to go out, or I’ve got to go to work today that’s a bad day. Already you have set the tone for the day so there’s a hill to climb if you want to be happy.

Acceptance allows us to look at everything and say, this is how it is, how can I make this as positive an experience as possible? If we step back slightly and remember what I was saying about seeing what you have, rather than don’t have, then you might easily imagine that without enough rain rivers would dry up, crops would fail, drought will inevitably come. We need the rain. Ask anyone who has been out of work for any length of time how they would give anything for a job and then imagine that was your predicament. Sometimes going to work doesn’t seem so bad if you consider the alternative.

In response to what I have just said you might be thinking well that’s ok, but I had planned a garden party and it’s pouring down, or you don’t work for my boss he/she is a bully.

I accept there are hundreds or even thousands of scenarios where arguments can be made for feeling unhappy about difficult circumstances, but to what end? To prove to yourself you are unhappy? Take what comes your way and allow yourself to make the best you possibly can of any circumstance. Never forget that it is not external circumstance that is causing you to feel the way you do, it is your own mind and its reaction to those external events that is the culprit. Rain is rain, work is work, it is how you allow yourself to perceive them that leads you to feel the way you do. Retrain your mind, rethink those automatic prejudices and you will find you are already on the way to happiness in your daily life.

In the end it is impossible to define happiness for everyone because we are all different. Some people watch soccer and it makes them happy, others will play music. The closest we can get is a feeling of equanimity, of being positive of accepting whatever comes our way and then, when the time comes, letting it go as everything inevitably passes. From this point of view happiness becomes a choice.

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