The Pursuit of Happiness

To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

-          Hsing Hsing Ming

We all want to be happy but many of us don’t know what happiness is.  We think that it depends upon the people, the objects or the circumstances of our lives.  We are always striving to makes things work so that we can be happy.  The right job or relationship, wealth, free time, social status, etc. are all essential ingredients for happiness, right?  But most of the time we find that something is amiss in this recipe and our beautiful soufflé fails.  Sometimes everything we desire falls into place either through hard work or luck and we still feel some brooding sense of discontent.  We end up wondering what it takes to make us happy. 

I remember once when my mother bought a new bicycle for me.  I had begged for it for months.  My old bike was worn out, the paint was chipped and scratched.  The frame was dented and I was just tired of it.  The new bike was so cool.  It had small wheels, big handle bars and a banana seat perfect for doing “wheelies.”  When I rode it to school the first day everyone commented on what a cool bike I had.  I pretended to be modest but I was proud and happy.  After a couple of weeks the charm started to wear off.  No one paid attention anymore and it was just another bike.  It started to show some wear and tear and I forgot about how wonderful it had originally seemed.  In fact I stopped taking good care of it.  One day I rode it to the store where we used to buy our candy and sodas, left it unsecured while I went to get my goodies and came back out to find that it had been stolen.  Even though I had grown used to it, I was now devastated.  My cool bike was gone and I knew that we couldn’t afford to replace it. 

Some important lessons were imbedded in this experience.  First of all, appreciate what you have and take care of it.  Second, things are temporary in our lives and can be lost at any time.  Third, as Mom explained, “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”  On a deeper level there were lessons that would take time to reveal themselves after more similar incidents.  Perhaps I shouldn’t be too concerned with whether people are impressed by my possessions.  Most deeply: happiness, pride, joy even love which is based upon some temporary condition in life is as unstable as the circumstances which support it.  All of these are aspects of what the Buddha referred to as “impermanence.” 

When we depend on some condition for happiness we set ourselves up for misery.  After a few weeks or days even, that perfect job begins to show its flaws.  There’s a coworker I can’t stand, a particular task that becomes onerous, a new supervisor takes over and changes everything.  Pretty soon I’m hanging out with friends complaining about our jobs.  Fortunately misery loves company.  The same happens with romance.  We meet someone and they make us ecstatic for awhile.  Pretty soon we begin to see their faults and their less attractive qualities.  After awhile we start to annoy each other, quarrel and make each other and ourselves unhappy.  Then we hang out with our friends and complain about our “other.”  We can’t find happiness but we can find solace for our misery pretty easily. 

There is another kind of happiness that we can discover within ourselves.  It is the happiness inherent within our essential nature as bliss-consciousness.  We don’t have to pursue this happiness.  We just have to let it arise as we let go of grasping after this or that condition.  Whether it is wealth and possessions, romantic relationships, career success, social status, family unity, even being of service to others; these are all very nice but unnecessary adjuncts to true happiness.  True happiness is unconditional, happiness for no reason.  We can discover this happiness through the practice of meditation.