How to Be Happy: Lesson #2
In Lesson #1, I mentioned The Pursuit of Happiness website. One of the links on the home page goes to the “History of Happiness,” which informs us that “the psychological and philosophical pursuit of happiness began in China, India, and Greece nearly 2,500 years ago.” The rest of the page is devoted to “the ideas of major thinkers, from East and West, who devoted much of the lives to the pursuit of happiness.” First on the list is Buddha.
It is easy to forget, if you’re me anyway, that Buddha (c. 564/480 — c.483/400 BCE) is not a deity but a person known as Gautama Buddha or Siddhartha Gautama and by other names that eventually got boiled down to “the Buddha.” He lived in northeastern India and taught the “Middle Way,” the catchall term for the Buddhist practices that lead to liberation. The liberation in question is from “the painful cycle of rebirth.” Things get complicated from there, so I’ll get off this path and back to Buddha and happiness. Here’s the crux of things according to the Big B:
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts. If one speaks or acts with pure thought, happiness follows one, like a shadow that never leaves.”
Sounds easy enough but then the flies start appearing in the ointment. Fly #1: According to the Fake Buddha Quotes website (“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha!” — who knew?), the words above are a bastardization of “Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.” If you ask me, the bastardizers did us a favor comprehension-wise. I’ll stick with that version.
Fly #2: What exactly is “pure thought”? When one looks at the definitions for “pure” in Merriam-Webster, as this one did, one finds zero help. Is it “unmixed with other things”? Or “being such and no other”? Or “free from what harms, vitiates, weakens, or pollutes”? Or “having good health and spirits”? There are, like, a zillion other sub-definitions. Maybe I can do a better job here. How about this “translation” of the not-original:
I think, therefore I am. I am because I think. I consist of my thinking [which is a terrifying thought…when I think about it]. If, when I speak or act, I try not to be a dick (see “A Serious Commitment“), happiness will shoe-gum me wherever I go.
Better but still a bit obfuscated.
Fly #3: “The problem with ordinary happiness is that it never lasts because the objects of happiness don’t last. A happy event is soon followed by a sad one, and shoes wear out.” This from ThoughtCo.’s take on “The Buddha’s Path to Happiness.” They see true happiness as a “state of enlightenment” that doesn’t depend on objects or events and therefore “does not come and go.”
Ah, finally. I think we have reached the core of Lesson #2 here. Buddha’s state of enlightenment/happiness might best be summed up by these immortal words from The Life of Brian: “Always look at the bright side of life” [whistling optional]. So, the way to achieve that sunny outlook is to approach everything you encounter with this “having good health and spirits” pure thought: “Yes, shoes wear out, but so what? I still have awesome feet.”
(Published originally on RatBlurt™, December 5, 2018.)
