Is the absence of suffering the same as the presence of happiness?
zenguitar
Bad BuddhistNew England Veteran
Greetings, auspicious Sangha. One thing that I think is confusing to beginners in Buddhism is that the philosophy seems so, well, negative at first glance. First, we are told that life is suffering, or at least that it is highly transient and unsatisfactory. And then we learn that the whole thrust of our lives should be to eliminate craving in order to wipe out suffering. We are not told to pursue happiness or increase joy directly (are we?), we are told to work on eliminating attachments to reduce and eventually wipe out suffering altogether. Eliminate, quench, wipe out, rein in, cut off... that all sounds pretty negative and forbidding to a novice.
Plus it should be fairly obvious to any thinking person that an individual who feels no pain or suffering is not necessarily a happy person. Imagine a depressed person under the influence of some kind of drug that anesthetizes him, both physically and emotionally. Is this person happy? I doubt it... but perhaps he is comfortably numb.
So I wonder, are there any positive practices within Buddhism designed to generate happiness directly, and if so, can you describe them?
Comments
Kia Ora @zenguitar,
The Dalai Lama once said "The purpose of life (after all the basic needs are met) is the pursuit of happiness!"
It could be said that "Happiness" is one of the many byproducts that comes from practicing the Dharma...
BTW what does happiness mean for/to you ?
Metta Shoshin .
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Ah, these are the conundrums the mind creates while trying to answer questions it wasn't meant to. If you go down that 'logical' road, Buddhism will just appear really, really negative and pointless, maybe because that's all the sense the human mind, all on it's own, can make of it?
From personal experience, 'happiness' is something that occurs, comes and goes like weather. But The Dalai Lama uses the word 'happiness' to perhaps include MORE meaning than I am.
The cessation of suffering is Nirvana. Whether or not this means you'll be happy, peaceful or leaping with joy . . . I gave up a while ago.
Words are fickle and change meaning and nuance even within the same person's head. They masquerade easily as the things the words are meant to describe. I think this may be part of the problem, right off the bat.
Clear the table and let the practice reduce your suffering, it will. One of the first things that will happen is these kinds of questions won't clog your brain anymore, which is good news, and hopefully doesn't strike you as insulting
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Is the absence of suffering the same as the presence of happiness?
@zenguitar
I seldom bother with the word happiness in a conversation about a Buddhist practice because of the amount of distracting baggage that always seems to accompany our differing definitions of it.
Contentment or equanimity works better.
@zenguitar The absence of suffering (also craving) is Nirvana. It's not happiness as we usually take it, which has the opposite of unhappiness. Happiness and unhappiness are the two extremes of suffering, because one always becomes the next and there's no stability (so yes, even in the midst of being happy you have not in fact escaped suffering... you've only masked it).
I'd prefer to use words like @how's "contentment", or "peace" and "joy". Words fall short.
That is the most devious post I have read in a while. I like it.
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The more I offload the shit, the happier my rose garden is.
Problem is, newcomers to Buddhism always get stuck in the "Life is suffering" bit, but they tend to forget that the Buddha taught about "Suffering and the Cessation of Suffering."
Life is what it is, it's not what you want it to be.
The affair of living includes, among other things, getting sick (sometimes), being separated from things/people you want/love (not always), having enough things/people you don't want/like (often) and dying (invariably).
That's the con part. The pro part I won't mention because you know it. More often than not, it's the con part that you'll be more aware of, since happiness simply happens when you are busy looking elsewhere, and sadly realize how happy you were back then in hindsight, when the con part takes over, oh yes, once again.
Life is suffering when you have a wrong vision of reality and expect life to be other than what it really is.
Life is impermanence and everything changes. You suffer when you get attached to a certain view of reality and can't accept the fact that the situation could one day change.
If you think that your beloved ones will live forever, if you think that you'll retire in the same job, if you think your wife will love you forever, if you think the economy in the world will forever flourish, if you think that you'll be forever fit, and can't internalize the blow when things don't go your way, that is suffering.
If you can deeply root yourself in the ever-elusive present moment with total mindfulness and awareness (also a Buddhist notion), be realistic with your expectations and needs (another Buddhist notion), and be at peace whatever way the wind blows (once more, Buddha points the way), then that is cessation of suffering.
That is what Dharma is all about. The only "positive practice within Buddhism designed to generate happiness directly," as you ask, is to delve deep into the Dharma, study the Dharma thoroughly, above all put Dharma into practice, and happiness will be staring at you in the face.
I think we are! Just not the kind that people are normally used to, (AKA worldly happiness)
Of course that is what most everyone thinks when they think of happiness. But Buddhist happiness is something else.
This is the kind of happiness that Buddhists cultivate. The happiness of enlightenment.
For Joy, "Mudita" comes to mind. Not really the kind of thing that most people refer to as "Joy". But, that's the Buddhist definition of Joy. Joy's "near enemy," the quality which superficially resembles joy but is in fact more subtly in opposition to it, is exhilaration, described as a grasping at pleasant experience out of a sense of insufficiency or lack.
Buddhist Joy is selfless, whereas ordinary joy is not. Although, mudita joy is said to be more difficult to cultivate, it's still cultivated and increased.
The happiness that is directly generated by Samadhi or Dhyana. (AKA Zazen) or whatever meditation method you do. Chan Master Hsuan Hua outlines four preliminary stages of dhyana:
"In the First Dhyana, there is the arising of bliss. In the Second Dhyana, there is pure bliss born from samādhi. In this stage, there is said to be happiness without compare. In the Third Dhyana, the joy of the previous stages is left, leaving only a subtle and blissful peace. In the Fourth Dhyana, the only manifestation is that of complete purity and perfection"
Chan Master Huai-Chin has this to say "Intellectual reasoning is just another spinning of the sixth consciousness, whereas the practice of meditation is the true entry into the Dharma."
I think it depends on how you define "suffering" to begin with. An individual who feels no suffering, according to the Buddhist definition of suffering, is a happy person by default. But to understand that, you must first understand "Well, what exactly is meant by suffering?" According to the Buddhist view of suffering, the person you described is not a person who has no suffering. According to Buddhism, that person still has a lot of suffering, even though they are currently comfortably numb.
So according to the "right view" of suffering. The absence of suffering is the same as the presence of happiness.
But it all hinges on the proper definitions. The proper Buddhist definition of suffering, of happiness and Joy. If you still use the ordinary definitions of those words, then it's not going to match up.
I am really having to focus hard on being the lighthouse at the moment....
All of them.
Buddhist practice leads to happiness, more so than other stuff.
Did you want a long answer? Specific practices?
As stated Buddhist Happy Time (aka Nirvana) does not have a position or polarity. The removal of the veils and degrees of ignorance allows the natural happy state (Buddha Nature) to realise its independence and ever present impartiality/equanimity/lack of suffering/purity/perfection/truth etc.
In other words all Buddhist practice in particular meditation, makes one transcend happiness dependent on conditions. That is why equanimity or settling is a better description. Better than the helter skelter, back and forth of monkey minded existence . . .
Hope you are happy with that possibility . . .
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Thanks everyone, and thank you @seeker242 for your detailed response. I wonder, where can I get a list of Buddhist positive qualities along with their devious "near enemies"?
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Here you go: The 4 Brahma-Viharas and their near enemies.
Thanks @federica. It appears I am more well acquainted with the enemies than the friends!
Here's the table, in summary.
For me, happiness would be the complete absence of fear and anxiety.
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You're not alone.... But now you know what they are, they'll be easier to recognise when they arise, and deal with accordingly. The thing will be to implement the discipline.
Kia Ora,
"Peace of Mind" => "Contentment"
Metta Shoshin .
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When you let go of grasping all of the limitless Buddha qualities manifest. If they are not manifesting then that means that you are incorrect that you stopped grasping. One of the bodies of the Buddha (which can be us) is the samboghakaya. This is the bliss body and our ordinary joy is an albeit distorted version of the Buddha body samboghakaya.
@seeker242. One of the better posts I've read in a long time. In one of his talks at CTTB the Ven Hsuan Hua said he was not a scholar. You could have fooled me. When we make up meanings for terms we don't understand the only product is confusion.
Would that be the face before I was born? Sure it must be.
All practice, in particular walking meditation, prostrations, mindfulness, sitting meditation, visualization, mantra, dharma study, puja etc will bring us into the field of dharma.
We like to pretend we don't know that. :buck: .
We plant. We reap. Karma. :wave: .