Happiness

how

My partner is involved with an on-line writing group where once a week a different member suggests a topic to write about. This weeks topic was happiness and she asked me what I thought that was. Now a smarter man would probably have said "just being with you" but being the relationship challenged meditation obsessive that I am
my answer was "the absence of suffering ".
Now I'm usually cautious about talking much about the subject of happiness in a Buddhist practice because of how often it seems to become another thing for folks to try to attach to, but it did make me wonder what this Sangha's view of it was.

Bunks

Happiness = Contentment in my book.

Fosdick

Tomorrow's gift of joy or pain>
Renews the problem of desire .... (Edmund Cooper)

Absence of desire is not necessarily happiness, but independence from desire may be closer to the mark.

Jeroen

Happiness is a tweeting little fluffy bird singing it’s heart out in the sun in your back yard. It’s when you feel so pleased with the world that you cannot help but sing, or at least hum.

Shoshin1

Happiness= a sense of well-being ...

Vastmind

Happiness is a temporary feeling/emotion…..just like sadness.

Ren_in_black

@Vastmind said:
Happiness is a temporary feeling/emotion…..just like sadness.

Have to say at this point in life I agree. Happiness is happiness. Nothing more or less. We've turned it into some kind of ideal. A concept.

If I didn't know better I'd think How's account had been hacked lol.

federica

Happiness is different to contentment, and what makes one person happy, may grind another person's gears... So it's important that each person define the emotion of happiness, for themselves...

Bunks

Happiness is a warm gun

Jeroen

@federica said:
Happiness is different to contentment, and what makes one person happy, may grind another person's gears... So it's important that each person define the emotion of happiness, for themselves...

There is healthy happiness and unhealthy happiness... what makes a serial killer happy is not likely to make the general public happy.

federica

I question that the killer is ever truly happy, unless he's completely insane.

lobster

Happy not to have a view …

David

Happiness is a smart way to live.

Fosdick

I am inclined to think that happiness is best regarded as a state of mind, something other than the emotion that can arise out of that state of mind. As such, it can be conditional or unconditional - dependent on a particular set of benign circumstances or independent of those circumstances, a particular neurological pathway that can be cultivated or left to take its chances like a flower in a weed patch.

Shoshin1

@how said:
My partner is involved with an on-line writing group where once a week a different member suggests a topic to write about. This weeks topic was happiness and she asked me what I thought that was. Now a smarter man would probably have said "just being with you" but being the relationship challenged meditation obsessive that I am
my answer was "the absence of suffering ".
Now I'm usually cautious about talking much about the subject of happiness in a Buddhist practice because of how often it seems to become another thing for folks to try to attach to, but it did make me wonder what this Sangha's view of it was.

Happiness...Hmm Well according to the happiest man in the world "Matthieu Ricard"

“If your mind is filled with benevolence, you know — the passion and solidarity … this is a very healthy state of mind that is conducive to flourishing,” Ricard says. “So you, yourself, are in a much better mental state. Your body will be healthier, so [it] has been shown. And also, people will perceive it as something nice.”

There is [a] view that benevolence, attention, emotional balance and resilience are skills that can be trained. So if you put them all together, you could say that happiness is a skill that can be trained.”

lobster

@lobster said:
Happy not to have a view …

… wait that is an expression of my view on happiness! Tsk, tsk. Saying nothing would have been right speech and right view but made no one happy.

Happiness then is a given!
Long live the Mahayana!

May all beings benefit, even the small circling and no longer practiced Hinayana …
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinayana

@how said:

My partner is involved with an on-line riting group

right on!

David

@Shoshin1,

Happiness...Hmm Well according to the happiest man in the world "Matthieu Ricard"

“If your mind is filled with benevolence, you know — the passion and solidarity … this is a very healthy state of mind that is conducive to flourishing,” Ricard says. “So you, yourself, are in a much better mental state. Your body will be healthier, so [it] has been shown. And also, people will perceive it as something nice.”

There is [a] view that benevolence, attention, emotional balance and resilience are skills that can be trained. So if you put them all together, you could say that happiness is a skill that can be trained.”

That is a more skillful way of saying what I was trying to say, lol.

Kotishka

Falling asleep without any toxic thoughts,
Rising up early without a clenched jaw,
A comfortable beat of the heart,
And a good group of friends,
Without forgetting solitude's gentle embrace during the rains.

That is happiness.

lobster

A comfortable beat of the heart,

Nice.
4.00am and the beat is quiet.

“Happiness is a vine that takes root and grows within the heart, never outside it.”
― Kahlil Gibran

Relentlessseeker

Maybe going one step down from “the absence of suffering” to the acceptance of it even as we keep our intentions to alleviate it for all beings. Realization that one has not lived in vain in the face of death, may be another personal view of mine. But then again, I don’t know 🙏

Jeroen

@Relentlessseeker said:
Maybe going one step down from “the absence of suffering” to the acceptance of it even as we keep our intentions to alleviate it for all beings. Realization that one has not lived in vain in the face of death, may be another personal view of mine. But then again, I don’t know 🙏

I think the monks look at this a little differently from the lay followers. The lay followers leave behind all the usual things, kids, a family, worldly achievements, maybe a book. The monks on the other hand may leave nothing but a few dharma talks. What one leaves behind in the face of death is bound to differ…

Nice to see you again @Relentlessseeker

Relentlessseeker

@Kerome said:

@Relentlessseeker said:
Maybe going one step down from “the absence of suffering” to the acceptance of it even as we keep our intentions to alleviate it for all beings. Realization that one has not lived in vain in the face of death, may be another personal view of mine. But then again, I don’t know 🙏

I think the monks look at this a little differently from the lay followers. The lay followers leave behind all the usual things, kids, a family, worldly achievements, maybe a book. The monks on the other hand may leave nothing but a few dharma talks. What one leaves behind in the face of death is bound to differ…

Nice to see you again @Relentlessseeker

Nice to see you again as well !

lobster

you could say that happiness is a skill that can be trained

I knew it!

For example. Imagine that we practice metta. To the point were we can connect/generate/visualise this happiness to all beings whenever it is needed.

Would that make us happy little buddha-bunnys? You bet your impediments/unhappiness/samsara being it would …

Iz plan!

lobster

Absence of desire is not necessarily happiness, but independence from desire may be closer to the mark.

Ah ha! I knew it! Independence or non-attachment in Buddha-speak, is the mindfulness and ever present being. Happily we can apply this to:

• mood and emotional swings 🎭
• circumstance, good and bad karma
• writing truth or fiction
• life, the universe and everything

Soon I will be a Buddhist …

As the Israelites/Christians more or less say:
“Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no buddhas: for thou art with me; thy road and thy stuff they comfort me.”

PSALMS 23:4 KJV
King James Version