Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
What Makes You Happy ?
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
Well the most obvious answer on a Buddhist forum (in the long run that is) would be Dharma practice…
However in the conventional sense people tend to find short term peace of mind/happiness in simple things like a walk in the park, reading/getting lost in a good book, or it might be sharing something special with someone etc …
What do you do that gives you peace of mind ?
4
Comments
Happiness ... I find it 'contagious’
However in the sense you are asking:
Anything that makes my kids smile and giggle warms my heart. They are very cute....
When I looked past the obvious answers, I learned something about myself. So thank you very much for asking the question.
It is not anything that I do. My wife has a special smile, not her everyday one. When it finds its way to her, everything is perfect and it changes the way I see the world.
After nine months in the USA I took a quick trip to London.
I sat in a "greasy spoon" and ordered a pot of tea.
It's one of the greatest things I've ever tasted!
Pizza and meditation not sure what order??
Ice-cream of course.
Making my own chai tea, I love using the mortar and pestle
Picking berries
Hiking
Trail running
Watching the sunrise
Watching big snowflakes float down
Watching the birds outside, and the fish in our fish tank
Cleaning a room and just sitting to enjoy it before the tornadoes (aka children) come home
Sitting with my sangha
Coloring
Hanging out with my kids and watching the chaos unfold
And then retreating to peace and quiet to regain my sanity, lol
A couple people have mentioned tea. I'd agree with that. I also like cooking and baking. Reading. Hiking. A warm fireplace. My wife and my cat.
I remember reading in a book once, about a young girl, undecided about which career options to take. She was in a safe, stable, productive environment, with basic if specific rewards, and an apparently secure future, and had the opportunity land on her desk of expanding her horizons, getting a more lucrative post, but with some gambles and uncertainties thrown in.
She was in the comfortable position of being able to discuss the situation with her Boss, who wisely gave her this response:
"Work out what would make you happy, and what would give you pleasure."
I think sometimes we mistake one or the other.
It pays to ask one's self the question, when faced with several attractive and possibly rewarding options.
"Which option would make me happy, and which option would merely give me pleasure?"
Now that you made me write it down I realized that there are many things that make me happy! Thank you for the enlightening post, good friend
I like when people are happy and they are laughing,it really makes me happy.
It makes me happy when news article writers shut down the comment sections of articles they know will bring out the worst in people!
I've been thinking a lot about happiness or joy and pleasure. I am working through Marie Kondo's book "The Japanese Art of Tidying" and that is part of the process. It has made me see more clearly the sick way Americans (in particular) are attached to their money,even long after it is spent. And even attached to how other people spend their money. We judge a lot of people and situations by whether we think they used their money wisely. It really is just...gross and icky. Most of the stuff we buy does not bring happiness or joy but they do bring fleeting pleasure. That's not necessarily bad of course,but letting go of those items when their pleasure has ceased is where we struggle. We insist on trying to assign a dollar value to items long after our pleasure in them has ceased. Ideally, we buy things that bring us a more long term joy (still understanding that happiness doesn't come from stuff). But learning what that is seems to require going through pleasure first, at least initially.
The funny things, the items that bring more joy are the ones that are easier to let go of it necessary. Kind of like relationships,when it was happy and fulfilling, it is easier to let it go and still be friends with the person and wish them well. Whereas unhealthy relationships,or attachments to items,make it harder to discard them out of guilt and resent. It's an interesting things.
Tidying my house and being sparsely surrounded by joyful items rather than mass produced junk makes me happy
seeing someone understand Buddha's Teaching and acting accordingly
Life.
Lived In Fulfilment Everyday ....Yes "I" like it
My neighbour just knocked on my door, standing with him was a young frightened looking Argentinean boy (in his early twenties) ...My neighbour (who just so happens to be a local police officer) said he had just stop the boy from driving away after he had backed into my car door ( which is parked on the verge just off the road) he had been reversing down a driveway and backed into it..He claimed that he didn't hear or feel anything and this was the reason why he began to drive off, when my neighbour stopped him....
Well I'm happy for a number of reasons
1) My car's old, a 1996 model nothing flash, it's already got a few dings in it....
2) It's not bad, just marks from his bumper nothing serious...ie, I can still open the door and wind the window down
3) My neighbour apprehended, the culprit ( caught in the act)... good police work
4) It could have been a whole lot worse....( a couple of other cars I've had have also had cars back into them, one time the driver's door was quite dented in, but as luck would have it, the door still opened and the window could still wind up and down-Another time there were students renting the house where my neighbour lives now, and students being students liked to have wild parties, well one evening I heard a lot of noise and laughter, so I went to have a look- low and behold there they were rolling down the drive on an old armchair, and using "MY CAR" as a stopper ( I have to laugh when I think about it-the cheek of em
-well as I was politely telling them that this was NOT a good idea, one came whizzing down the drive and WHAM whacked into my car denting the front bumper-he was as drunk as a skunk - so there was no point in trying to talk with him...To cut a long story short, they promised to 'fix' it....Only to move out early the next day 
I could still drive the car, so that was a bonus I guess....)
5) And to put the young frightened guy's mind at rest I gave him a hug and sent him on his way....
And to crown it all off I've got a sore back and just tripped over the cord attached to my laptop which fell to the floor, (I managed to stay upright) nothing broken so yet another bonus
Overall it's been another nice day all round
Tee Hee. Outstanding
To think happiness is a state of processing ... who would have thought? (clue: Buddha)
A good night's sleep makes me happy...
Reading the internet and playing around on the computer makes me happy!
The very tight hug I get from my 3 year when putting him to bed after his story! It's the highlight of my day and I tell him this every time!
He then kicks out of the bed and scolds me saying that I'm not allowed sleep until the hoovering is done and I have showered and had my dinner!!
The Dalai Lama on Happiness