Basically, we’ve got it all incorrect. All this time we’ve been resulted in believed that happiness is accomplished by changing the exterior circumstances of our lives. We are going to not entirely at fault with regard to embracing this belief; we are going to be bombarded, day in and day out, with communications from just about everywhere about the effectiveness of this course. Not happy? Improve your job, your mate, your look, your home, or your medication… and when that doesn’t work, do it again, unless you get it right.
However, in case you look beneath the surface, there are plenty of inconsistencies with this concept. In fact, simply check your personal experience. Have you ever found extensive happiness by making these kinds of alterations? Truth is, seeking to change the outer circumstances of our lives in an attempt to find happiness, sets us all up for failure.
This is because many of us end up incessantly searching the exterior ourselves and miss the fact we’re engaged in the same dimensions struggle, no matter how many alterations we make. In fact, if we use the attributes of bigger, much better, more, and different as requirements for happiness, we arranged ourselves up for an imperishable cycle of suffering, simply because there’s always something else that’s larger, better, more, or various.
Looking deeper into the battle itself, rather than the objects from the struggle, we discover that the actual crux of the matter is really a basic dissatisfaction with points, as they are. In fact, it has frequently been said by sensible sages, ancient mystics, and also the spiritually adept, that disappointment and suffering stem from wanting what we don’t have and never wanting what we have. Altering this, then, is more with regards to an internal shift in perspective, moving us from a location of dissatisfaction and finding it hard to one of finding joy in the here and now. This is a bit harder because we’re asked to head beyond our internalized thinking about happiness. Tricky, sure; but, well worth the effort.
Initially, let’s look a bit more tightly at happiness, itself. Fundamentally we can say there are a pair of kinds of happiness: the temporary feeling of pleasure we get as soon as the external circumstances change to each of our liking AND the deep fixed long-term joy beneath the many surface activity. Short-term delight is the one we’re normally more familiar with; but really transient, fleeting, and absolutely dependent on outer circumstances.
Experience, like praise, fame, the latest mate, more money, new work or home, and the like, mediate short-term pleasure; but, once the novelty fades, so will the feeling. Abiding joy may be the result of a deeper, much more penetrating understanding of the preciousness of life itself, regardless of what’s happening. It has the caliber of being unshakable, pervasive, refreshing, alive, and wholesome. Curiously, it surfaces when we are existing with our experience, without seeking it to be different.
Historic wisdom traditions teach all of us that happiness is our own birthright and, in fact, continues to be with us along, just waiting around to be discovered. Like platinum buried under the floorboards, delight is an uncovering process, not only a seeking process. Simply said subsequently, uncovering what’s already right now there seems to require only one issue: getting out of our own way. Before we can get out of our own technique, we need to find out how we regularly get in our own way in primary.
This means paying very close care about what we’re actually undertaking, thinking, and saying, and also all this feeds into the circuit of dissatisfaction. Catching yourself, in action, as we perpetuate many of our unhappiness gives us a chance to bring unconscious behaviors into awareness. Slowly, we will become familiar with the true nature of our personal wanting, especially the desire with regard to things to be different. We might capture the urge to relieve anxiety by acquiring something new or we may observe ourselves criticizing our own spouse, our job, or even our home as insufficient. As we get better at this, we will begin to see even implied layers of this process, such as how we tend to distract ourselves or move away from our own experience whenever feelings many of us don’t like show up.
As we steadily become aware of how we’ve been growing dissatisfied, we can also commence shining a light on the simple moments of happiness which also exist, but generally go undetected. These events are generally overlooked because we have been practicing… and have become rather good at, distracting ourselves along with moving away from experience. Unfortunately, you can become so good at transferring away, that we can pass up our entire lives. Hooking moments of happiness call for the same commitment to the aforesaid “active noticing” process.
Now, however, we focus on elaborating right with our lives. All of us pay attention to what’s already operating, especially the times when pleasure shows up on its own. We start to locate the goodness within simple moments like short encounters of true link, a ray of sunlight penetrating our bodies, a good mug of coffee, the smiles of our children as well as the sheer pleasure of being in existence. We discover that life is overrun with goodness and instead associated with moving away from our experience, we are able to learn to cultivate it.
Obviously, any good simple breath can advise us of the miracle that they are alive. If we breathe often, with exquisite awareness, organic beef is stunned by the incredible quality of this simple work. It’s just a breath and has now been there all along; today it’s a conscious breath, which often reminds us we are alive, we live here now, and this on your own is wondrous.
All this is simply not to say, we become idiotically optimistic, but rather that we discover how to accept and embrace most of life’s experiences without wisdom, criticism, or comparisons. This is the path that we little by little and steadily cultivate to be able to have an experience and then release, without making a huge package out of anything. As we get good at this, we’ll gradually understand the benefit of all of our experiences and also feelings and we’ll visit the realization that they have anything important to teach us concerning living well, which is just what it’s all about, anyway.
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