"Happiness Is ..."
by Rev. Kimi Riegel
December 7, 2003

 One of my friends in Divinity school was Hadiki. Hadiki is a Buddhist Monk who now lives in Japan . Hadiki and I had many wonderful conversations. The first one I remember was the time we were standing together in a line for food at our first fall community picnic. Hadiki asked me, “What is this, feminism?” Needless to say that was quite a conversation, given that Hadiki came from a very male dominated society where the notion of feminism hadn't really even begun. Hadiki was always one for asking the simple question or stating the simple obvious fact that made us all stop and think.

One other very significant memory I have of Hadiki, happened during one of our classes. We were learning about Pastoral Care. Each of us got a turn role-playing the minister’s part and other class members were playing the part of congregants. It was Hadiki’s turn to be the minister. He was facing two classmates who were pretending to be married, but were coming to tell the minister they were divorcing. They poured out their sad story of how they couldn’t get along. They fought all the time and didn’t love each other anymore. When they finished Hadiki asked them about their home. “Do you live in a nice home?” They looked at each other questioning and explained that yes they had a nice home in a nice neighborhood and the children went to good schools. “How about your children are they healthy?” Hadiki asked. Why yes, they were very healthy and did quite well in school; the oldest had gotten into a good university. “What about jobs and money?” Hadiki asked. “Do you have jobs that you like that give you enough money to buy food?” Well yes they both liked their work most days and there was sufficient income. At this point Hadiki pushed back his chair and said, “You may go home now. You have much to be happy for.” And he got up and bowed, as he always did, to indicate the conversation was over. 

The class was in shock! What kind of help was that? It certainly didn’t fit with our model of active listening. Hadiki explained that in his mind these two people had much to be thankful for, there was much in their life to bring them happiness. They needed to stop focusing on what was not working and get on with the business of living the happiness that was there.

This was the beginning of several conversations between Hadiki and me. I just didn’t understand how a couple could be expected to live in an unhappy marriage. He thought the marriage had all the ingredients for happiness so it was in their power to make it happy. 

Over the years Hadiki and I talked many times about quietism, which is withdrawal from the world, a state of passivity or calmness. Quietism comes from the notion that there is no effecting change in the outside world; everything that happens happens within us. Buddhism, to some degree, depends on this notion that what will happen will happen, and there is very little we can do about it.

And yet .. And yet …

I began reading the Dalai Lama’s writings many years ago, and his most recent book, The Art of Happiness, offers some of the same kind of advice Hadiki gave. We can make ourselves happy by focusing on what we have instead of what we don’t, and remembering all beings have worth and dignity. Today I find that advice very helpful. Ten years later I realize that so much of the happiness I find in the world depends on what I am looking for. So maybe Hadiki’s advice wasn’t so bad after all?

Perhaps the most powerful statement in the Dalai Lama’s book is: happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind than by external events. If you think about it, it’s true. On any given day we can have a series of events that on another day we respond to differently. If I am stressed to get out the door, my son’s fantasies about his shoes being monsters that eat his feet just get me more frustrated. If I am relaxed, those same fantasies bring me joy and I play with him and his very active imagination. It’s not my son, but my internal state that determines my happiness. 

Research has shown that even people who have won the lottery fairly quickly return to their normal baseline state. Happiness seems to have very little to do with the outside world.

I feel it important to state here I am not talking about depression. If you are someone for whom unhappiness is a general state of mind, if events or experiences that would make others feel happy don’t bring you joy, I would encourage you to seek help. Depression is a real issue, and even if Hadiki wouldn’t agree with me, I think we often need more help then the “pull yourself out of it,” advice offers. Please, if you find yourself in this category find someone to talk with.

But back to the Dalai Lama. If happiness has very little to do with outside events then what is it? Some have suggested that we are born with a genetic predisposition to a level of happiness and depression, which certainly fits into today’s medical model of dealing with life. If you are not happy it must be brain chemistry. And while I buy that as true to some extent I also believe that within that chemistry we have a range of what is possible for us. And that range involves our attitudes toward the world and our inner resources. While we may have good health, our physical needs met, and even good friends, if we do not have the state of mind to appreciate our good fortune it is of no value. 

The Dalai Lama, like most Buddhists, believes that our suffering originates with ourselves and that we can train our minds to see and thus feel differently.

Our level of satisfaction or happiness in life tends to be linked to our tendency to compare. Depending on who we compare ourselves with we either feel happy or discontented. As the poem Desiderata by Max Ehrmann states:

If you compare yourself with others
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater
and lesser persons than yourself.

If we can learn as the song this morning said, “To want what we’ve got” we go a long way toward happiness. If we can learn to turn off our comparing mind, we find ourselves much happier, which leads to the question of desire.

Even if we don’t compare ourselves to others there will be things we desire and can’t have, especially in this culture. Of course Buddhists put desire at the top of the list of causes for suffering. From a Buddhist prospective it is desire that keeps us from inner contentment. It is a desire for permanence. It is a desire for bigger, faster cars. It is the desire for any thing that we do not have that makes us feel discontented. It seems that the “more, more” attitude feeds on itself. The more we have the more we want and the more we want leads to dissatisfaction as we eventually reach the limits of what we can have. Thus we have unhappiness. Developing a grateful attitude, an appreciating attitude, will go a long way toward removing desire and making room for happiness.

The second Buddhist concept related to happiness for the Dalai Lama is our relationships with each other. He believes that the connections to other humans will give rise to an internal sense of worth and dignity. Without connections to other human beings life becomes very hard. Even if one has wealth and possessions our lives feel empty unless we have a purpose and so often our purpose or meaning in life revolves around helping others. If we stop and think of the happiest moments in our lives, they were generally about others and perhaps the happiest of those are when we are sharing a genuine connection.

So how do we get better at an attitude of gratitude and how do we deepen our connections to one another? Practice.

An attitude of gratitude develops like so many other things through practice. Discipline is a dirty word in our culture of “enjoy it now” consumerism. Yet, it is simple disciplined actions that teach our minds to focus on the positive. Each morning when we rise say something simple like, “I want to utilize this day in a positive way.” Then at the end of the day we ask ourselves whether we have accomplished that goal and strive to keep at it. This is not just new age positive thinking, but in fact very old Buddhist teaching. And now science is even catching up to the notion that we can change our thinking, and with our thinking so changes our feelings. As we can now see with MRI scans, new learning and practice of that learning actually changes the patterns and connections in the brain. The brain puts cells to different uses as needed and actually expands its capabilities as required. Thus, if we practice gratitude and positive thinking, our capacity for these feelings increases. Part of the road to happiness thus lies in practicing being happy. Happy with whom we are. Happy with what we have. 

To deepen our connection with others we must learn to develop compassion. Compassion is a central part of the Buddhist tradition. Hadiki might have told that couple to go home and practice being happy but he would have made an even greater impact on their happiness if he had told them to go and find something nice to do for each other and together, some thing to do for others. Even scientific studies have shown that reaching out to help others can induce a feeling of happiness, a calmer mind and less depression. 

One Buddhist text suggests that the first step toward the compassion that leads to happiness is “equalizing self and others” in which we learn to cherish others as much as ourselves. We do this by thinking, “Just as my happiness is important, so too is the happiness of everyone else.” 

If compassion is the wish for others to be free of their suffering as much as we wish that freedom for ourselves, we can start simply by feeling compassion for those closest to us; realizing that our children, our spouses and the people we care for have as much desire to rid themselves of suffering as we do. We can fairly easily feel compassion for those whose suffering is obvious, the poor, the homeless, the lonely, the young and the elderly. How ironic it is that it is harder for us to feel compassion for those closest to us, actually to live compassionately in our everyday lives, than it is to wish it for more distant others. For most of us then, maybe those closest to us is the place to start. Then, perhaps we can expand our feelings of compassion to the greater community and eventually even to those that we feel are our enemies. 

Compassion builds connections and feelings of affection that go beyond money and material possessions. These feelings of affection will hold us when times get rough and bring us delight as we look back over our lives. Compassion develops a happiness that is lasting. 

So Hadiki was right, at least it seems that way to me now. Our happiness is dependent on our attitudes. It matters that we care for others. It matters that we live simply and value what we have. It matters that even in times of struggle we have a store of happiness we can draw on. I am not suggesting that we never allow ourselves to be unhappy or discontented. Depth in life requires us to experience all the range of emotions we have. Sadness is a part of life, but so is happiness. I am suggesting that there are ways to be happier each day. Being happier each day makes us healthier too. People who are happy tend to have fewer physical ailments. So in order to be healthier and live longer, be happy. This holiday when we all hope for more happiness, remember each day to count your blessings. Remember to do something kind for someone else just because they too deserve the same happiness you do. May it be so.