Forget Happiness

“The happiness of the three worlds disappears in an instant,

Like a drop of dew on a blade of grass.

The highest freedom is that which never changes.

To point to this, this is the practice of a bodhisattva.”

The pursuit of happiness for its own sake is a foolish task. As a goal it is frivolous and unrealistic; frivolous because happiness is a transitory state dependent on various conditions, and unrealistic because life is unpredictable and suffering can arise at any moment.

The happiness you feel when you receive something you have always wanted typically lasts no more than three days. States of bliss in meditation are similar, whether they arise as physical or emotional happiness or the happiness of infinite space, infinite consciousness, or infinite nothingness. These states soon dissipate when you return to the disorder of life. A drop of dew on a blade of grass, indeed.

The pursuit of happiness is a continuation of the traditional view of spiritual practice, a way to transcend the vicissitudes of the human condition. Valhalla, paradise, heaven, nirvana, all promise eternity, happiness, purity, or union with a supreme reality. These four spiritual longings are all escapist reactions to the challenges everyone faces in life.

Stop for a moment and think about what you are seeking in your practice. Is it a kind of transcendence, if not in God, then in a substitute for God, like timeless consciousness, pure happiness, or infinite light?

Are you seeking a state of consciousness so deep and powerful that your frustration and difficulties with life disappear in the presence of your understanding and wisdom? Are you not seeking a ticket out of the mess of life?

If you think of freedom as a state, you are really seeking a kind of paradise. Instead, think of freedom as a way of experiencing life itself, a continuous flow in which what you encounter in your experience arises, you remain open to it, do what needs to be done with the best of your ability, and then you receive the result. And you do it again and again. A freedom that never changes becomes the constant exercise of everything you know and understand. It is the way you engage with life. It is not something that sets you apart from life. How else is it possible that people who practice in prison or in other highly restricted environments say they find freedom even within their confinement?

Life is hard, but when you see and accept what is really happening, even if it is very difficult or painful, the mind and body relax. There is a pristine quality that comes only from experiencing what arises, completely, without separation between consciousness and experience.

Some call this joy, but it is not a silly or exciting joy. It is deep and quiet, a joy that in some sense is always there, waiting for you, but usually touched only when some challenge, pain, or tragedy leaves you with no other option but to open up and accept what is happening in your life.

Others call it truth, but that is a loaded and misleading word, carrying with it the notion of something that exists apart from experience itself. Truth as a concept sets up an opposition with what is considered false, and such duality leads to hierarchical authority, institutional thinking, and violence.

In this freedom you are free from the projections of thought and feeling, and you are awake and present in your life. Reactions may still arise, but they come and go on their own, like snowflakes landing on a hot stone, like mist under the morning sun, or like a thief in an empty house.

What is freedom? Nothing more and nothing less than life lived.

“All suffering comes from wanting your own happiness.

Complete awakening arises from the intention to help others.

Therefore, completely exchange your happiness

For the suffering of others, this is the practice of a bodhisattva.”

Forget about being happy. Take it out of your mind.

When you tell yourself, “I want to be happy,” you are telling yourself that you are not happy and you begin to search for something that will make you feel happy. You go to the movies, you shop, you go out with friends, you buy a new jacket, a computer, or jewelry, you read a good book or explore a new hobby, all in the effort to feel happy. The more you try to be happy, the more you reinforce the belief that you are not happy. You can try to ignore it, but the belief is still there.

Even in intimate relationships, spending a lot of time with a friend, even helping others or doing other good works, if your attention is on what you are feeling, on what you are getting from it, then you see these relationships as transactions. Because your focus is on how you are feeling, consciously or unconsciously you are putting yourself first and others second.

This approach disconnects you from life, from the totality of your world. Inevitably, you end up feeling shortchanged in your relationships with your family, with your friends, and in your work. These imbalances spread and affect everyone around you and beyond. The transactional mindset of self-interest is the problem of the modern world.

If you were to let go of the pursuit of happiness, what would you do? To put it a bit more dramatically, suppose you were told that no matter what you did, you would never be happy. Never. What would you do with your life?

You might be able to pay more attention to others. You can accept them the way they are, instead of looking for ways to make them conform to your idea of how they should be. You can begin to relate to life itself, rather than looking at what you get from it. You can be more willing to engage with what life brings you, with all its ups and downs, instead of always wanting it to be different from what it is.

This is where the practice of giving and taking comes in. Accept what you do not want and give what you want. Appreciate what is unpleasant and give what is pleasant. Absorb the pain and give joy.

It sounds a bit emotionally insane, even suicidal, as someone said. But it goes against that deeply ingrained tendency to focus on yourself first and everyone else second. You use the transactional attitude to self-destruct, because you give away everything that makes you feel happy and absorb everything that makes others unhappy.

Do not edit your life experience. Whatever you encounter, a homeless person shivering on frozen concrete, a friend whose partner left them for someone else, a relative who struggles with chronic pain, news of famine, war, or the devastating effects of greed, corruption, or rigid beliefs, whatever the pain, accept it.

Do not be stingy. Give others anything and everything that brings you joy. Are you successful in your work? Give your success. Do you have money in the bank? Send the joy of financial well-being to others. Do you like your intelligence, your ability to think clearly and solve problems? Give them away. Are you talented, musically, physically, or artistically? Donate your talent. Do you like your friends and companions? Give them away.

With each exchange, touch both the pain and the shortcomings of the world and your own joy and abilities. Take the pain and send your joy.

Does this practice lead to happiness? Not at all; but it helps you understand the suffering and struggles of others. Whatever the ups and downs, joys and pains they encounter, you can be present with them, because you know that life is not perfect and you do not expect it to be.

As my teacher once said, “If you could really take away the suffering of everyone in the world, taking all of it into yourself with a single breath, would you hesitate?”

♦

Practice written expressly for Tricycle. Text extracted from “Reflections on Silver River: Tokme Zongpo’s Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva,” translations and commentary by Ken McLeod. © 2013. Reprinted with permission from Unfettered Mind Media.

Practice: Taking and Sending (Tonglen)

Begin your meditation session by resting your attention on the experience of your breath. Let your mind and body settle. Then open your awareness to everything around you, everything you see, hear, touch, smell, or taste. Include everything you feel in your body and all your emotions, thoughts, images. Then say to yourself, “This is like a dream,” and ask, “What experiences this?” Do not try to answer the question. Just ask and rest for a few moments.

Then think about all the struggles you have had in your life, in your family, with illness, at school, at work, with failure and disappointment, pain and loss, and think about how everyone else in the world has the same struggles, easier for some, harder for others, and how everyone wants to be free of them just as you want to be free of yours.

Also think about everything that brings you joy, happiness, meaning, and peace in your life; your health, your talents, competencies and abilities, your successes, your family, friends, colleagues, your home or garden. Think about how everyone, all beings, want the same kind of joy, confidence, peace, and freedom. Rest there for a few minutes.

Now breathe gently and imagine that you are giving to all beings everywhere everything that brings joy, happiness, meaning, peace, or well-being to your life. Imagine that it all takes the form of light, a soft white light, like the silver of moonlight. The light comes from your heart, flows out through your nostrils, and carries all your joy and happiness to all beings everywhere.

As you breathe in, imagine taking in all the pain and suffering of the world, all illness, depression, obsession, aggression, oppression, pain, injury, poverty, hatred, or madness, the pain of being harmed and the pain of causing harm, everything that causes people to struggle in their lives. Imagine that it all coalesces into thick, heavy, black smoke that enters you, through your nostrils and into your heart, where you feel it.

You do this for all beings, without prejudice, discrimination, bias, or preference. This is equanimity.

Once more, as you exhale, send all your joy and happiness again, and as you inhale, absorb all the pain and struggle of others. Do this again and again. It is important to do both, with each breath, to touch your happiness and send it, to touch the struggles of others and take them in.

You may find emotional resistance, whether to giving what you love or to absorbing what you fear and hate. It does not matter. Include your resistance in the practice and do it anyway.

As you become accustomed to this exchange, and it may take a while, you may come to rest in a different way, in a deep acceptance of the pain of the world and the struggles that make up the life of most people. In that acceptance, there is a silent joy, a joy in the wonder of life itself.

Originally published at Tricycle.