We all want to experience some happiness along the way but we’re often not quite sure
what happiness is. Is it the pleasure from a particular experience, being with a
particular person or in a particular place? Is it selfish to feel happy? Can we make
happiness a permanent fixture?
We are often so busy running around wanting happiness that we don’t see it right in
front of us; it is like dew on the grass, there for a little while but then gone. As soon
as you get some happiness, the feeling disappears just as quickly. As soon as you get some
pleasure, it too disappears like those droplets of dew, or like chasing a rainbow. This is
our usual pleasure-based experience of happiness and we waste a lot of time and energy
trying to find it. But relaxed and peaceful long-lasting happiness can certainly be
attained; it is quieter than our glimpses of heightened sensory pleasure but still rich
and deep.
‘Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on
yourself.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Happiness is what bonds us together. We all have the equal desire to have happiness and
at the same time we don’t want to feel pain or sorrow. And yet this is something we rarely
think about or truly understand. By remembering that every single other person wants the
same thing, we can begin to understand happiness as something full of compassion and
generosity, rather than a selfish search for pleasure, for fulfilling our own desires. As
the Buddha said, ‘Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life
of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.’ Happiness
makes you a good human.
For me, I think happiness comes with appreciation. Happiness comes when we are
completely inspired, when we are intimately connected with something that moves us,
something that really catches our attention. Wanting to improve our understanding about
anything, even in a small way, is very good. Learning makes us happy. For example, I
wanted to learn French as I felt I couldn’t communicate with my French students at all
well and this made me a little bit down. As I started to learn the language I had a
tremendous joy as my understanding improved. As we improve our understanding, we improve
our wisdom and we are able to do things more skilfully, to the benefits of others.
Remembering this helps you in your motivation. If you can continually be learning from
each day to the next with the motivation to give something to others and to the world then
happiness will stay by your side.