| Happiness is here and now. Happiness is seems a very difficult thing to possess. It’s difficult because we don’t always have a good idea of what true happiness really is. We usually project our own ideas of what happiness is onto our everyday existence, and then we try to make sure that our life meets those same criteria. The more one wants the more one gets, and the more one gets the better one gets at wanting, and so we become stuck in a seemingly never-ending spiral of want-it, get-it, want-some-more, get-some-more, and so on. All of this wanting and getting has a built-in frustration factor that only grows with each repetition. We all have the tendency to struggle in our bodies and in our minds. We believe that happiness is possible only in the future. The realization that we have already arrived, that we don't have to travel any further, that we are already here, can give us peace and joy. The conditions for our happiness are already sufficient. We only need to allow ourselves to be in the present moment, and we will be able to touch them. What are we looking for to be happy? Everything is already here. We do not need to put an object in front of us to run after, believing that until we get it, we cannot be happy. That object is always in the future, and we can never catch up to it. We are already in the Pure Land, the Kingdom of God. We are already a Buddha. We only need to wake up and realize we are already here. I don’t care at all what happens to me when I die. That’s why I have a lot of time to care about what is happening to me in the here and the now. When I walk, I want to enjoy every step I take. I want freedom and peace and joy in every step. So joy and peace and lightness are what I produce in that moment. I have inherited it and I pass it on to other people. If someone sees me walking this way and decides to walk mindfully for him or herself, then I am reborn in him or in her right away - that’s my continuation. That’s what is happening to me in the here and the now. And if I know what is happening to me in the here and the now, I don’t need to ask the question, ‘What will happen to me after this body disintegrates?’ There is no ‘before’ and ‘after’, just as there is no birth and death. We can be free of these notions in this very moment, filled with the great joyful silence of all that is. • Be like a lion that trembles not at sounds. • Be like the wind that does not cling to the meshes of a net. • Be like a lotus that is not contaminated by the mud from which it springs. • Wander alone like a rhinoceros. - A Buddhist view of Happiness & The Lotus Bud ~ Issue No 47, Jan/Feb 2013 Reference; 1. www.lotusbudsangha.org 2. http://www.cloudwater.org/uploads/text%20files/A%20Buddhist%20View%20of%20Happiness.pdf |
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AuthorI am K. Indiran, an Engineer with more than twenty six years experience in Projects and construction. To know more about me see my blog, Archives
January 2015
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