The Suffering that 'Happiness' Brings — and How to End it.
‘Happiness’ Does Not Exist, But There Is A Way Out Of Suffering That The Buddha Once Taught And Everyone Seems To Have Forgotten.
👈 || UNSAYING | TRADITION | MEDITATION | DISCUSSIONS | BACK MATTER || 👉
Searching for Happiness? Then You're Doing It Wrong.
Searching for happiness always ends in suffering — but ending our suffering is the primary condition for being happy. Why search then, when we all know how it will end? Why not just end our suffering to allow that which we seek to arise naturally?
Ok, but how to end suffering? There is a simple prescription that works every time, but it takes practice and much reflection on how it actually works to get the effect we seek:
To suffer is to continue desiring something that you can never have.
No living being wants to suffer, yet we humans are always searching for happiness, an effort that brings us nothing but suffering because we never find “true happiness,” which is lasting happiness. How does searching for happiness bring us suffering? Because our lack of success in finding it frustrates our desire to be happy, and that frustration is suffering.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t desire anything at all because even wanting to end suffering is a desire, and desires are what provide motivation in our lives. Without desires we would all quickly die naked and emaciated in a pool of our own excrement — if we existed at all.
At a more profound level, there is a similarity between the motivation that desire brings to our lives — which focuses our attention on the accomplishment of certain things — and happiness. It has to do with what exactly ‘happiness’ is, rather than ‘its’ being about a cause or condition for happiness to arise.
There is a fellow named Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk, former secretary to, and oftentimes French translator for, the Dalai Lama, who is famously called the "happiest person on Earth" by some scientists, as well as many bloggers and advocates for the wellness benefits of meditation, because of the findings of some neurological studies of his brain after his decades of meditation. Those scientists found that Monsieur Ricard shows evidence of having outsize areas of his brain that they associated with happy and compassionate feelings. While the connection between brain structures and happiness is tenuous at present, since the label of “happiest person on Earth” has been applied to Mr. Ricard, it is useful to use him as an illustration to bring out an important point about happiness — having happiness does not mean you are necessarily happy.
Matthieu has written books whose titles start with the French word “Plaidoyer,” which can be translated into English as “plea,” in the sense of a strong and well-argued defense of something, or “advocacy” for something. So, for example, he has written “Plea for Happiness,” “Plea for Altruism,” and also: “Plea For The Animals”. He advocates for these things because they concern him. He’s not happy about the treatment of animals by humans, nor the widespread unhappiness and suffering in the world, and the lack of more extensive altruism which we need as a means to end suffering generally.
I mention these concerns of his in order to point out the obvious discontent he feels over many aspects of human life today, that drive him to write these books advocating certain changes in human behavior. And if we did make these changes — even a single one of us — that would make him happy because it would help to bring about the changes he seeks.
So, apparently the “happiest person on earth” can still be unhappy about the state of the world — because he still desires that people change so that they lessen their suffering and that of other sentient beings in the world.
My point here is that being happy is based upon the enjoyment of the satisfaction of a desire, or the enjoyment of some event in our lives, while ‘happiness’ is something other than being happy. ‘Happiness’ is a conceptual abstraction that suggests that ‘it’ can endure over the course of your life, but being happy is always an evanescent occurrence that we can only hope to retain a memory of because the experience is soon over. Thus, ‘happiness’ is something completely different than being happy, as Matthieu Ricard himself tries to explain:
Authentic happiness is not linked to an activity; it is a state of being, a profound emotional balance struck by a subtle understanding of how the mind functions. While ordinary pleasures are produced by contact with pleasant objects and end when that contact is broken, sukha — lasting well-being — is felt so long as we remain in harmony with our inner nature. One intrinsic aspect of it is selflessness, which radiates from within rather than focusing on the self.
Thus, we are never in a state of “happiness” — that word is merely a short-hand for certain qualities of our understanding, and a certain way of being in the world that, combined together, lead us to not suffer.
Given the presence of these qualities of understanding and way of being in the world, we can be in a state of comfort at all times — a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint in which we feel unconcerned, light as a feather, floating on air, bubbling over with joy, or perhaps even ecstatic:
The goal to be sought is not momentary elation, but an enduring, universal omnipresent enjoyment: “… Unshakable freedom of mind, this is the goal…” when achieved, then “to whatever place you go, you shall go in comfort; wherever you stand, you shall stand in comfort; wherever you sit, you shall sit in comfort; and wherever you make your bed, you shall lie down in comfort.
The Buddha felt the goal was tranquillity — not happiness, and “unshakable freedom of mind,” i.e., tranquillity, is the necessary condition for comfort. ‘Comfort’ means freedom from worries, torment, frustration — i.e., not suffering. So the absence of suffering is not happiness, nor even happy feelings directly. Those are, as the ancient Greeks pointed out, conditions that lead to suffering because you fear the loss of your ‘happiness’ because you know happy feelings always end.
‘Happiness,’ as a state of being, like "I'm a male human being,” is a state of being, continuously eludes us because, like the arrival of midnight, feeling happy is over as soon as it occurs. ‘Happiness’ is not a state we are ever in — it is something else.
That's why we confuse ourselves when we conflate ‘happiness’ with happy feelings. After all, we all want to be happy, so when it happens, it makes us happy to feel that way. But the happy feelings don't last simply because they are already over as soon as they happen, and only for as long as they happened — and like a junkie, we need a new fix to replace it almost immediately. We're addicted to the satisfaction of our desires — because we want to be happy.
Thus, “happiness” is just the name we give to a particular way of being in the world. It is an enthusiasm for life and what we do in life — even the parts that others would find to be drudgery. It is only possible when we have an open acceptance of the way things are, brought about by a deep understanding of how things are the way they are. And this state of being is called tranquillity.
Along with that tranquillity, we gain the ability to stop desiring what we cannot have — even accepting that we will not be able to always stop desiring such things! This is accepting the present moment as it is. Which says nothing whatsoever about how we might feel about how things will or could be in the future, so that, although we accept the present moment, we can, like Matthieu Ricard, be discontent and motivated to help bring change in our life, and to the world.
We often confuse this state of being tranquil for ‘happiness,’ because tranquillity is, among other important qualities, a mental state that is free-floating and spontaneous. And it is this which is the source of our capacity to stop suffering; as one is, at all times, able to accept things as they are, so that one does not desire that which one can never have.
This led me to an insight that: “What every living being is seeking is comfort — not happiness.”
Every living being seeks comfort, and this is the absence of suffering — not the presence of ‘happiness,’ which is normally, and incorrectly, considered to be a sort of glow that lays over a continuing string of happy moments. ‘Happiness’ is not what you get out of life — it's what you put into it.
And that is tranquillity’s secret! It allows us to remove the suffering from our lives, and if we are compassionate and generous towards others, we can also help to remove suffering from the lives of all other living beings. That is, tranquillity is not the effect of not suffering — it is the necessary condition for not suffering.
Comfort, on the other hand, is immediately known when experienced because comfort is the essential character of certain visceral experiences — those that viscerally, not mentally, make us comfortable. A comfortable chair is not that intrinsically. It is only in the sitting that a chair is experienced as comfortable — by that particular sitter. Someone else might find the chair horribly uncomfortable!
Our normal idea of ‘happiness,’ on the other hand, is a vague conceptual abstraction which attempts to extract the essence of the emotion we call “being happy,” perhaps so that we can distill it and sell the bottled essence, or to help us find a magical fountain that continuously showers whoever bathes in, or drinks from it. But the conventional meaning of this word, like all conceptual abstractions, fails to grasp the lived reality of happy moments at all.
So how does one seek happiness if it means “being happy?” Our cluelessness in this regard is every marketeer’s wet-dream, and the great time-suck of our lives.
“Being happy” is an ephemeral emotional state, as all emotional states are. So, while we might be able to experience being happy, it won't last. And what made us happy yesterday might not make us happy today. It depends on how our day is going, meaning how we otherwise feel, and what is happening in our life at that moment.
Comfort, in contrast, is a visceral experience that lasts as long as our physical and mental situation is stable.
But what is comfort? Comfort is the absence of unfulfilled desires — the absence of suffering. We are only comfortable when we aren't lacking something we feel we need or want, or want to change.
Notice that I don't quibble about whether desires are good or bad. It doesn't matter. If we desire something and we are not getting it, then we are frustrated and that makes us suffer. Comfort is not the opposite of suffering, it is the absence of suffering — and it is definitely not happiness. The opposite of suffering is enjoying. When our present moment is void of any suffering at all, we feel comfortable. Our enjoyment of that present moment, void of suffering, naturally arises once it is no longer obstructed by frustration caused by unfulfilled desires.
Instead, ‘happiness’, is that which we are able to bring to our lives when we have accomplished tranquillity — which is not the ending of desire, but rather the acceptance, and possibility of enjoyment, of things as they are, including, specifically, that some desires will not be fulfilled and should be let go.
Thus, happiness is our stance towards our life and everything in it. It is our enthusiasm and bliss to be living in this very moment, even moments that others would categorize as drudgery. The “glow of happiness” is nothing more than this light that we ourselves bring to our lives once we have learned how to achieve tranquillity and thus how to avoid suffering, the effect of which is comfort in every moment of our life.
Pulling water from the well,
A liminal vision always comes:
Life, hot and hard,
Fought counter to the ground.
Is this samsara,
Like the Orientals like to say?
Or is it the Word,
God's Logos on display?
Occidentals beseech God:
"Send a postcard our way!"
"Answer our cries for deliverance!"
"Ease the burdens of our days!"
But why would God answer
The secret yearnings in our heart?
God gave us life!
What more should we want?
Samsara is suffering,
Wrought by ignorance—
So the Buddhists say.
All of This is as it is, yet
We can break free of its sway.
And I in my acceptance,
Find a dance within the sway,
Dancing a dance of fullness,
Each and every day!
Pulling water from the well,
A welcome vision now always comes,
Life, hot and hard—
A blessing in every way!
God speaks to us in Lives,
Buddha-nature manifests us all,
And I in my happy acceptance,
Pull water from the well.
So how do we bring happiness into our lives? We can begin by practicing enthusiasm, goodwill, and compassion, leading up to the attainment — through particular techniques of meditation — of great responsiveness. This is a permanent absence of self-centered concern in our responses to events, and our judgments leading to action. The absence of being ‘self-centered’ does not mean ‘selfless.’ It means that your concern is for all beings, including yourself.
Because this essay has been presented in a general way, I have glossed over certain issues. For example, kinds of suffering, as not all desires are equal, and not all desiring is originated by us individually. I will now quickly touch on one major issue: that of power, which I will discuss in more detail in two related essays: one explaining the technique of avoiding suffering in more detail, and another touching specifically upon the issue of power — not the wielding of power, or the having of power, but rather, our habitual granting of power to others — which is the genesis of much suffering in the world today.
Many kinds of suffering — those that appear to be out of our control — are often, and perhaps mainly, the result of a previous transfer of power by ourselves or by others, that gave agency to another being, or body, over us, with the expressed purpose of accomplishing something, such as “democratic government.” All such power transfers are inherently corrupting and lead always to suffering, because of the same processes I have just described in this essay, though on a grander scale.
Implicit in any such transfer of power is a need that was felt to be outside the capabilities of those who, singly or collectively, created the power by transferring the agency to effect or control them to the power holders.
And as we see today, democratic government is a prime example of the problems that result when power over others is concentrated, and becomes corrupted to the point of standing in flagrant disregard of its original mandate. Entrenched political parties — with their gerrymandering, restrictions on voting, and contesting elections — represent only their own need for hegemonic control, which they maintain by presenting inauthentic candidates to voters, who then, once elected, are either incompetent, insincere, or criminal. The exceptions being the few individuals who are honest, dedicated, and beholden to no organization. But these tend to find themselves marginalized and robbed of any possibility of effectiveness by the party apparatchiks. What was democracy becomes a casualty of the internecine struggle for power that is the sole goal of all established political parties. So it’s not democracy that is at fault here. It is those who seek out the power of democracy for their own ends, that corrupt democracy, causing suffering that often reaches the level of crimes against humanity.
Unfortunately, today, we also see even the power we grant to educate and inform us, is used in such a way that it is directly harmful, dangerous, and at times destructive of our needs and desires — damaging and undermining our very ability to survive as a species. In fact, our way of life is based upon the manufacturing of suffering — advertising being an egregious example of this.
Any community that lives on staples has relatively few wants. The community that can be trained to desire new things, even before the old have been entirely… consumed, yields a market to be measured more by desires than needs. And man’s desires can be developed so that they will greatly overshadow his needs.
Is it any wonder that we are suffering today?
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
Suffering? Here Is A Way To End It.
When We Accept The Present Just As It Is, We Can Do So Because Of The Tranquillity We Have Accomplished Through Our Meditative Practice.
Some might think of this as a surrendering to what actually is right now, and this can be the case prior to the actual accomplishment of a state of tranquillity. Once we reach tranquillity, however, by its very definition, we face whatever the present moment brings with an open acceptance of whatever it is.
Surrendering, is an intentional act; open acceptance is an autogenous response — it is an ‘automatic’ neutral affective response to what is the case now. But both of these are different in regard to what we will get, because accepting what is the case now, does not impinge on our ability to desire something better in the future, whereas, surrendering can lead to despair and a loss of hope.
Open acceptance arises unbidden from deep within our being, but we can also be discontented with the present state of things with an eye towards their presumed continuation as is, or perhaps deteriorating in some way — and yet still accept them as they are right now. For example, we can accept our current situation in life right now and yet still desire to improve our situation because we feel that we could do better.
If we have been able to develop tranquillity, and with it the ability to accept whatever will come, we will not suffer even if our desire to improve or ameliorate something in our lives is defeated. This is because tranquillity affords us the autogenous response of open acceptance of what is, but it does not undermine our cognitive capacity to see the possibilities for an improved future. And if we are so inclined, we can focus our attention in ways that may create the conditions necessary for a desired change to occur, from what is at this very moment to what we would like to have be the case in the future.
We, of course, cannot know the future, so how can we know if a desire can be fulfilled or not, unless we try? And the truth is that it is our desires that motivate us to accomplish things that we wish to have in our lives.
The key to the correct approach here is to keep in mind at all times that unfulfilled desires cause frustration, which is suffering, and so we must temper our expectations in such a way that we always maintain a state of tranquillity, remaining open to whatever actually comes. This means that we are vigilant in monitoring our expectations, not allowing ourselves to become so attached to a certain idea — which is only an imaginative construction at this point — that we come to crave it’s realization.
This way, we will not be frustrated by what does come, or less so, or not for very long, and thus we will not suffer as much, or at all, if our desire remains unfulfilled. And presumably, our desires will be tempered to some degree by our experience going forward. This is called wisdom. So far, so good.
These two ways of being require our vigilance, because it is one thing to be automatically open to the present, but quite another to not ‘rue the day’ in the sense of constantly looking back on what has already occurred. Perhaps it was an opportunity lost. Perhaps it was an opportunity that never ‘materialized.’ Regardless, ‘looking back’ keeps one cemented in place. To be open to the present while desiring a better future requires our being vigilant in not ‘looking back,’ nor desiring more than we can get. This vigilance protects us from harm only if we are able, at all times, to remain vigilant regarding the formula: continuing to desire that which we cannot have leads to suffering. If we can remain cognizant of our desires and learn to turn away from those that we wisely know cannot be satisfied — at least in the near term — while remaining genuinely enthusiastic about whatever may come in the future, then we can experience the exact same satisfaction from our selective desires, as we might have obtained from those that we could never satisfy.
Contemplate that for a few moments. It’s not just a matter of not suffering, it’s a way to be happy in each and every moment of your life. Which is to say, our not being disappointed can lead to our being happy.
And there is a dialectical nature to all of this: even if our desire not to desire that which we cannot have fails completely, because we have desired something that we really knew, or should have known would never happen, if we enthusiastically greet this failure — and learn from it — we not only do not suffer because of it, we develop a greater wisdom to apply to our future efforts. I am always amazed by scientists who enthusiastically greet each failure as having learned something important that will improve their work.
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
👈 || UNSAYING | TRADITION | MEDITATION | DISCUSSIONS | BACK MATTER || 👉