|
DHARMA IN EVERYDAY LIFE
![](dilac11.gif)
- SEEK
HAPPINESS
By Nhat Quan
-
---o0o---
-
When finding happiness, you must first recognize your mental
state, and what factors you use to achieve happiness. You must
know that money and material wealth are necessary conditions
to live, but those things do not bring you joy. Therefore it
can be said:
-
- You don't need a lot of money, success or fame. You don't
need a perfect body or even a perfect partner. But if you want
to be happy, right now, at this very moment, you must know how
to equip yourself with some basic elements that you think will
help you achieve complete happiness.
-
When you think about some of the basic elements that help you
achieve happiness, you must know that there are many different
states. Like circumstances or external materials, some are
helpful, some are harmful, and some are neutral. So when it
comes to external factors, you should first try to identify
which types are good so you can pay attention to developing,
growing, and using them. Eliminate harmful substances. In the
same way, when you talk about the mind, there are thousands of
different thoughts or different minds. Of those, some are
useful, those you must embrace and nurture. Some are harmful,
which you must try to minimize, or eliminate.
-
So the first step in finding happiness is to learn. First,
know how negative emotions and behaviors are harmful to you
and how positive emotions are helpful. You must understand
that these negative emotions are not only very bad and harmful
to the individual but also harmful to society as well as the
future of the community and beyond, the whole world. With such
awareness, you can increase your determination to confront and
overcome them. Then you will understand the beneficial aspects
of positive emotions and behavior. Once you realize that, you
become determined to nurture, develop, and increase positive
emotions, no matter how difficult it is. So in the process of
learning and analyzing which thoughts and emotions are
beneficial and harmful, you gradually develop strong
determination and will change your feelings:
-
- Now the key to my happiness, my good future, is within my
reach. I must not miss that opportunity!
-
In Buddhism, the principle of cause and effect is accepted as
a natural law. Faced with reality, you must pay attention to
that rule. For example, in everyday experience, if there are
certain things that you don't like, the best way to ensure
that they don't happen is to make the conditions that normally
cause risk for that thing happen. That certainly won't happen
again. Likewise, if an event or thing has happened, it is
reasonable for you to find and collect the causes and risk
conditions for that event.
-
Indeed, if you desire happiness, you must find a cause that
does not cause risks to destroy happiness. And if you don't
want to suffer, then you must make sure that the causes and
conditions that risk suffering do not arise. Thus, evaluating
the principle of cause and effect is very important.
-
Now, let's talk about the importance of mental factors to
achieve happiness. Then your next task is to observe the
variety of mental states you experience. You need to recognize
different mental states, and distinguish and classify them to
see if they bring happiness or not.
-
Harmful emotions include:
-
- Anger, jealousy, and anger, etc...
-
You consider them negative states of mind because they disrupt
your mental happiness. Once you harbor angry or unkind
feelings toward someone, once your heart is filled with hatred
or negative emotions, the other person also seems to be
hostile towards you. So as a result, you will be more afraid,
more inhibited, and hesitant, and a feeling of insecurity will
occur. Once these negative emotions develop, you will feel
alone in a hostile world. All these negative feelings develop
because of feelings of hatred.
-
Types of positive emotions:
-
- Different from negative emotions are positive emotions,
which are mental states such as kindness and firm love. This
kind of emotion is very useful...
-
It's healthy for you to be compassionate, warm, and kind. If
you maintain the feeling of love and compassion, something
automatically opens a door within your mind. Thanks to that
you can communicate with others much more easily. And
affability most likely creates open honesty. You will see that
all people are like you, so you can easily relate to them.
This gives you more friendship. Then you have less need to
hide things, and as a result, feelings of fear, doubt, and
insecurity are automatically dispelled. In addition, you also
have feelings of trust towards others. On the other hand, for
example, you find someone who is very good and you know that
you can trust his or her abilities. But if you feel that
person is not kind, then you have to suppress something. You
feel:
-
- Oh, I know that person can do the job, but actually, I
probably don't trust that person.
-
At that time, you always have some fear to create distance
from that person. Therefore, cultivating positive mental
states such as kindness and love will lead to a healthy
mentality that will lead to greater peace of mind and
happiness.
-
The question specifically asked is:
-
- If happiness is simply a matter of cultivating positive
mental states, such as kindness and many other good things,
why are so many people unhappy?
-
To achieve legitimate happiness, it requires you to change
your way of looking and thinking, but that is not a simple
matter. Because you need to apply many different elements from
many different directions. Likewise, to achieve happiness, you
need many solutions and many methods to deal with and overcome
a variety of negative, changing, and complex mental states.
And if you are looking to overcome certain negative ways of
thinking, it cannot be accomplished by simply applying a
particular thought, or a certain technique, once or twice. It
is similar to taking proper care of your body, you need many
vitamins and nutrients, and not just one or two is enough.
Change takes time. Even changing the state of the body takes
time. For example, when you move from one climate zone to
another, your body needs time to adapt to the new environment.
Likewise, changing your mind takes time. There are many
negative mental traits, so you need to pay attention and react
to each one individually. This is not easy. It takes repeated
application of a series of different techniques and time to
familiarize yourself with the practice. That is the learning
process.
-
With time you can make positive changes. Every day, as soon as
you wake up, you can develop a positive, honest thinking
motivation such as:
-
- I will use today's time more positively. I shouldn't waste
today.
-
And at night before going to bed, review what you have
accomplished, and ask yourself:
-
- Did I use today as planned? If everything goes right, you
should be happy. If it's not right, regret what you did and
find out what was wrong that day.
-
Thanks to such methods, you can gradually strengthen your
positive mind.
-
For example, in my case, as a Buddhist monk, I believe in
Buddhism, and through my own experience I know that practicing
Buddhism helps me a lot. However, because of habit, over many
past lives, some things may arise such as anger or sadness. So
now what I need to do is first learn about the positive values
of practice, then make up my mind to build them, and then
try to practice them. At first, the positive practice is not
significant, so the negative influence is still strong.
However, eventually, as I strengthened my positive practice
more and more, the negative behavior automatically decreased.
So, the reality is that positive practice is a constant battle
within, replacing previous negative traits or habits with new
positive trait reflexes.
-
No matter what direction you are working in or what practice
method you follow, nothing is difficult thanks to constant
familiarity and practice. Through training, your thinking can
transform itself. Within Buddhist practice, many methods exist
to keep your mind calm when troublesome things happen.
-
By practicing these methods repeatedly, you may have some
disturbances and negative effects on your mind, but they are
not significant. Like undulating waves on the sea surface but
without much depth impact. Although my personal experience is
very limited, I find it very true in my practice. So, when I
receive some bad news, at that time I may experience some
disturbance in my mind, but it passes very quickly. Or I can
be upset and angry, but then it goes away very quickly. There
is no impact on the mind. No anger. This is achieved through
gradual practice, it cannot be achieved overnight.
-
When you methodically cultivate a kind heart, the cultivation
of happiness, and true inner change by choosing and focusing
on the goal of a positive state of mind and resisting a
negative state of mind pole
-
To achieve mental training, to achieve happiness, you need
moral conduct which is another characteristic of the type of
inner discipline that leads to a happy life. You can call it
moral discipline. Great spiritual teachers like Buddha advise
you to perform wholesome actions and avoid taking pleasure in
unwholesome actions. Whether your action is good or bad
depends on whether the action or behavior arises from a
disciplined or undisciplined state of mind. A disciplined mind
leads to happiness and an undisciplined mind leads to
suffering, and in fact, the Buddhist monks say that bringing
discipline to the mind is the essence of the Buddha's
teachings.
-
This type of discipline is also called self-discipline, not
discipline imposed on you by someone outside you. This type of
discipline is applied to overcome negative qualities.
-
It seems that the search for happiness is one way or another a
spontaneous process. Even under ordinary conditions, in your
daily life, you consider education to be a very important
factor in ensuring a successful and happy life. Knowledge
cannot be acquired naturally, you have to learn and practice,
and you have to go through some kind of systematic training
program. Likewise, wanting to do good deeds does not come
naturally, but you must consciously practice it.
-
Considered within the scope of religious activities. According
to religious tradition, there are regulations to help you in
how to behave, which way is good and which way is unwholesome.
However, in today's society, many people do not pay attention
to the need to have a good lifestyle. Because of this, I think
that you need to make a lot of effort and consciously work
towards achieving the knowledge of good living. For example,
although I believe that human nature is fundamentally gentle
and compassionate, I feel it is not enough that because of our
underlying nature, we must also develop appreciation and
compassion. awake to that truth. And changing the way you
perceive yourself, through learning and understanding, can
have a real impact on how you interact with others and how you
live your day-to-day life. You need to be able to judge the
near and far future consequences of your behavior and consider
both. Example:
-
- Overcoming anger, although animals also experience anger,
they do not know that anger is harmful. However, humans are at
a level where you have self-awareness where you reflect and
observe that when anger arises, it harms you. So you have the
negative judgment of anger. You need to know how to think. So
it's not as simple as putting your hand in the fire, and then
getting burned, and then knowing never to do that again in the
future. The more educated and knowledgeable you are about what
leads to happiness, and the more sophisticated what causes
suffering, the more effective you will be in achieving
happiness. So, because of that, I think education and
knowledge are very necessary.
-
Living in today's society, your attitude is often directed
towards education, this only makes you more talented, more
agile, and sometimes more cunning. Meanwhile, it seems that
people who are less educated and less sophisticated in terms
of educational training are more naive and honest. Even though
society does not emphasize this, the most important use of
knowledge and education is to help you understand the
importance of doing good deeds and bringing discipline into
your mind. When you appropriately use intelligence and
knowledge to bring about change in your heart to develop
kindness, you will be happy.
-
In short, in every century, people have struggled to define
the proper role of happiness in life. Countless philosophers,
scientists, and psychologists have all examined its
relationship to your happiness. In the third century BC,
Epicurus, based on his ethical system, boldly asserted:
-
- Happiness is the cause and result of a lucky life.
-
Although Epicurus acknowledged the importance of common sense
and moderation, he also recognized that indulging in sensual
pleasures leads to suffering.
-
Today, in a civilized society, you can more or less find
happiness in the caress or smile of your lover, in a luxury
hot tub on a cold, rainy afternoon, or in the way you look at
the beauty of the late afternoon. But many of you find
pleasure and happiness in the joy of drugs, the intoxication
of heroin, and the intoxication of rowdy alcohol. Some are
happy with the happiness of excessive sexual indulgence, and
the exhilaration of gambling in Las Vegas.
-
Although there are no solutions to help you avoid negative
pleasures, luckily you have a place to start, especially for
Buddhists. Just remember that what you are looking for in life
is happiness, as the Buddha pointed out, it is an unmistakable
reality. If you begin to address your life choices with that
in mind, you can more easily eliminate the things that are
harmful to you, even if they bring you temporary pleasure. But
because you have chosen your lasting happiness in life, you
are willing to refuse temporary and harmful pleasures. So you
have found happiness.
---o0o---
If you have any recommendations,
please e-mail to:
chuaduocsu@duocsu.org
|
|