Introduction
Happiness does not come automatically....It depends on us alone. One does not become happy overnight, but with patient labor, day after day. Happiness is constructed, and that requires effort and time. In order to become happy, we have to learn how to change ourselves.
Luca and Francesco Cavalli-Sforza
The psychoanalyst C.G.Jung once described the role of a "Gnostic intermediary" as someone who himself plunges into spiritual depths and emerges to bring the vision of that inner possibility to the rest of us. Matthieu fills that role.
....Matthieu often represents the Buddhist perspective, speaking with a fluid intelligence that easily weaves together spiritual and scientific paradigms.
In Happiness he draws on both his ease in the world of scientific studies and philosophy and his intimate familiarity with the wisdom traditions of Buddhism, bringing these streams together in a seamless offering. The resulting insights are both inspiring and pragmatic. The vision of happinessconjured here challenges our everyday notions of joy, making a convincing argument for contentment over collecting "good times," for altruism over self-centered satiation. And beyond that, Matthieu suggests how we can all cultivate the very capacity for such happiness.
On the other hand, Matthieu offers no quick fix, for he knows well that training the mind takes effort and time. Instead he goes to the root of the mechanisms that underlie suffering and happiness, offering refreshing insights into how the mind functions and strategies for dealing with our most difficult emotions. The result is a sound road map, one based on cultivating the conditions for genuine well-being. (p. xv)
Daniel Goleman's Foreword (Oct. 2005)
....achieving durable happiness as a way of being is a skill. It requires sustained effort in training the mind and developing a set of human qualities, such as inner peace, mindfulness, and altruistic love. (pp. 7-8)
All the ingredients... to find a way to a fulfilled life...: a profound and sane way of thinking and the living example of those who embodied wisdom in their words and actions. There wasn't any of the "do what I say, not what I do" that discourages many seekers all over the world. (p. 8)
Tibet under China's occupation (between 1967 and 1972 when Matthieu visited it):
I also served as Khyentse Rinpoche's interpreter and travel with him to Europe and to Tibet when he first returned to the Land of Snows after thirty years in exile. In Tibet, all that was left was ruins. Six thousand monasteries had been destroyed, and many of the people who had survived --unlike the million Tibetans who died of famine and persecution --had spent fifteen or twenty years in labor camps. Khyentse Rinpoche's return was like the sun suddenly rising after a long dark night. (pp. 8-9)
A friend of mine who spent many years in a Chinese concentration camp in Tibet told me that when he was being interrogated, he was forced to stand motionless on a stool for days on end. When he collapsed, those brief moments lying on the icy cement floor of his cell, before he was dragged to his feet again, were delightful relief to him. While this may be an example...of happiness resulting from the attenuation of suffering, my friend took pain to point out that only his stable condition of inner well-being allowed him to survive years of incarceration and torture. (p. 51)
The quest:
...when I was twenty words like happiness and benevolence did not mean much to me. I was a typical young Parisian student....But I didn't have much sense of how to lead my life except playing it by ear, day in and day out. I somehow felt that there was a potential for flourishing in myself, and in others, but had no idea about how to actualize it. Thirty-five years later, I surely still have a long way to go, but at least the sense of direction is clear to me and I enjoy every step on the path. (p. 14)
The purpose:
...This book... is not a "Buddhist" book as opposed to a "Christian" or an "agnostic" book. It was written from the perspective of "secular spirituality"....As such it is intended...for the heart and mind of anyone who aspires to a little more joie de vivre and to let wisdom and compassion reign in her or his life. (pp. 14-15)
What is happiness?
By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it. (p. 19)
...it is the purging of mental toxins, such as hatred and obsession, that literally poison the mind. It is also about learning how to put things in perspective and reduce the gap between appearances and reality. To that end we must acquire a better knowledge of how the mind works and a more accurate insight into the nature of things, for in its deepest sense, suffering is intimately linked to a misapprehension of the nature of reality. (p. 23)
Sukha is the Sanskrit word for happiness. It refers to the state of lasting well-being that manifests itself when we have freed ourselves of mental blindness and afflictive emotions. It is also the wisdom that allows us to see the wold as it is, without veils or distortions. It is, finally, the joy of moving toward inner freedom and the loving-kindness that radiates toward others. (p. 25)
Reality and Insight
We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.
Rabindranath Togore, Stray Birds (New York: Macmillan, 1916)
Like a rainbow that forms when the sun shines across a curtain of rain and then vanishes when any factor contributing to its formation disappears, phenomena exist in an essentially interdependent mode and have no autonomous and enduring existence. Everything is relation; nothing exists in and of itself, immune to the forces of cause and effect. Once this essential concept is understaood and internalized, the erroneous perception of the world gives way to a correct understanding of the nature of things and beings: this is insight. Insight is not a mere philosophical construct; it emerges from a basic approach that allows us gradually to shed our mental blindness and the disturbing emotions it produces and hence the principle causes of our suffering. (pp.24-25)
Ignorance
When we talk of ignorance, it has nothing to do with stupidity. In a way, ignorance is very intelligent, but it is an intelligence that works exclusively in one direction. That is, we react exclusively to our own projections instead of simply seeing what is there.
Chogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (Boston: Shambhala, 1973).
Ignorance, in the Buddhist lexicon, is an inability to recognize the true nature of things and of the law of cause and effect that governs happiness and suffering.
(p. 27)
When selfish happiness is the only goal in life, life soon become goalless.
Romain Rolland, Jean-Christophe, Volume VIII (Paris: Albin Michel, 1952).
Seeking happiness outside is like waiting for sunshine in a cave facing north.
Tibetan saying
We are very much like birds that have lived too long in a cage to which we return even when we get the chance to fly away. We have grown so accustomed to our faults that we can barely imagine what life would be like without them. The prospect of change makes us dizzy. (p. 38)
Those who seek happiness in pleasure, wealth, glory, power, and heroics are as naive as the child who tries to catch a rainbow to wear it as a coat.
Dilgo Khynentse Rimpoche (p. 40)
Happiness and Pleasure: The Great Mix-Up
Pleasure is the only shadow of happiness.
Hindu proverb
Pleasure is the direct result of pleasurable sensual aesthetic, o intellectual stimuli. It is fleeting, dependent on circumstances, on a specific location or moment of time, unstable, exhausted by usage and repetition, centered on the individual experience, and may lead to selfishness or conflict with the well-being of others. (pp. 40-41)
Happiness and Joy
If joy is to endure and mature serenely... it must be linked to other aspects of true happiness: clarity of mind, loving-kindness, the gradual withering of negative emotions, and the disappearance of selfish whimsy. (p. 44)
Inward freedom
The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, one chief energy must be concentrate on achieving reform from within. (p.4)
Mahatma Ghandi
Spiritual Practice or Mind Training
....achieving durable happiness as a way of being is a skill. It requires sustained effort in training the mind and developing a set of human qualities, such as inner peace, mindfulness, and altruistic love. (pp. 7-8)
All the ingredients... to find a way to a fulfilled life...: a profound and sane way of thinking and the living example of those who embodied wisdom in their words and actions. There wasn't any of the "do what I say, not what I do" that discourages many seekers all over the world. (p. 8)
Spiritual Practice can be enormously beneficial. The fact is, it is possible to undergo serious spiritual training by devoting some time every day to meditation. More people than you may think do so, while leading family lives and doing absorbing work. The positive benefits of such a life far outweigh the few problems of schedule arrangement. In this way we can launch an inner transformation that is based in day-to-day reality.
When I was working at the Institute Pasteur and immersed in Parisian life, the few moments I reserved every day for contemplation brought me enormous benefits. They lingered like a scent in the day's activities and gave them an entirely new value. By contemplation I mean not merely a moment of relaxation, but an inward turning of the gaze. It is very fruitful to watch how thoughts arise, and to contemplate the state of serenity and simplicity that is always present behind the scrim of thoughts, be they gloomy or upbeat. This is not as complicated as it might seem at first glance. You need only give a little of your time to the exercise in order to feel its impact and appreciate its fruitfulness. By gradually acquiring through introspective experience a better understanding of how thought are born, we learn how to fend off mental toxins. Once we have found a little bit of inner peace, it is much easier to lead a flourishing emotional and professional life. Similarly, as we free ourselves of all insecurities and inner fears (which are often connected to excessive self-centeredness), we have less to dread, and are naturally more open to others and better arms to face the vagaries of existence. (p. 56)
(to be continued)
Source:
Matthieu Ricard. Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill. Translated by Jesse Browner. (New York, NY: Little, Brown, and Company, 2003)
