Happiness is a Focused Heart "Speak or act with a pure mind and happiness will follow you," says Buddha. We all have this potential through the power of thought. But if the ideals of the mind are not tempered by the attitudes of the heart, we lose the energy to be truly joyful. How, then, do we connect with those experiences that bring about a meaningful change of consciousness, dropping suffering to live joyously? The path to true happiness, according to Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happinesss (Shambhala), is to liberate our minds from enslaving concepts of inadequacy and loneliness. The author of this book, Sharon Salzberg, founder of the Insight Meditation Center in Barre, Massachusetts, observes that rather than being happy, we often adopt wish-fulfilling fantasies that we hope will protect us from the suffering that other people experience. The projection of our dreams onto surrogate painkillers, however, deludes us with but temporary enchantment. We tend to separate ourselves from what appears painful and cling to what we think we need in order to be happy. When someone else appears to possess some token of happiness, we may harbor feelings of desire --grasping, greed, attachment -- that perpetuate judgment, making comparisons, envy, avarice, and discrimination. The world suddenly becomes threatening, and we respond with anger wrought by the pangs of vulnerability. The key to true happiness are the "heavenly abodes": lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. These attitudes of the heart liberate us from toxic emotions that are rooted in aversion and attachment. They reverse the feelings of longing and pain that lead to estrangement. Through lovingkindness, we cultivate an unconditional equality of the feeling that is not compromised by likes and dislikes. Compassion creates the conditions for unobstructed love by dissolving separation and allowing us to witness the true nature of suffering in the world. Joy moves us to be happy for the fortune of others. It translates our inner experience of compassion into an outward act of community service. Equanimity is the inner feeling of abundance that proffers generosity. These "heavenly abodes" together engage in "a powerful dance of mutual support" to extend richness and joy for ourselves and for all beings. The most common practice for experiencing the "heavenly abodes" is through our daily interactions with each other. Some people find it helpful, particularly in difficult situations, to visualize the abodes while meditating. The selfless and boundless nature of meditation looks deeply within, to a state of mind that exists prior to the conditioning effects of fear and isolation; a state in which we are inviolably whole. Feelings of compassion and joy transcend egoic limitations that enable us to arrest routine unpleasantries without habitual defensiveness and withdrawal. When we connect to ourselves in this way, we learn to extend these internal experiences to our day-to-day relationships with those we know and do not know. Continued experience with the "heavenly abodes" shifts our thoughts from a mode of struggling to control external circumstances toward a sense of internal stability. This new focus on love and compassion shows us that even throughout painful encounters we are still free to control what we experience. Equanimity empowers us to feel pleasure without craving or clinging, and to feel pain without condemnation or hatred. True happiness may not be at all far away. By contemplating the "heavenly abodes," we will likely change our views as to where to find it. (Digest by Clayton O. Montez, Atlantic University.) |