https://www.stillwatermpc.org/dharma-topics/true-happiness-is-impermanent-but-it-can-be-renewed/
True Happiness Is Impermanent but It Can Be Renewed
Image Caption: Calligraphy by Thích Nhất Hạnh.
Dear Still Water Friends,
Decades ago when I was struggling to find meaningful work, I came across a description of the word “vocation” that changed my life. It was a passing comment in a book whose title I no longer remember: Vocation is “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” The quote was attributed to the Presbyterian theologian Frederick Buechner. The memory of that quote and its impact on me arose as I was reflecting on this week’s focus on the Second Mindfulness Training: True Happiness.
For me, Thầy’s (Thích Nhất Hạnh’s) “true happiness” is essentially the same as Buechner’s “deep gladness,” and the great issue many of us are struggling with now is “How can we mindfully respond to the increased suffering that we believe is occurring, or is about to occur, in our lives, the lives of those we love, in our country, and everywhere on earth?” The ongoing challenge for each of us is to identify actions that both generate true happiness and reduce the suffering that is in us and all around us. And to do that, it is important that we deeply understand true happiness.
The Second Mindfulness Training, as revised by Thầy in 2012, is:
True Happiness
Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to practicing generosity in my thinking, speaking, and acting. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others; and I will share my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need. I will practice looking deeply to see that the happiness and suffering of others are not separate from my own happiness and suffering; that true happiness is not possible without understanding and compassion; and that running after wealth, fame, power and sensual pleasures can bring much suffering and despair. I am aware that happiness depends on my mental attitude and not on external conditions, and that I can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already have more than enough conditions to be happy. I am committed to practicing Right Livelihood so that I can help reduce the suffering of living beings on Earth and stop contributing to climate change.
In a clarifying 2005 Dharma talk entitled “True Happiness” Thầy addresses three pivotal teachings that are pertinent to our understanding and practice of the Second Mindfulness Training. (Note: the subheadings are mine. The indented text is from Thầy’s talk.)
1. Happiness is a practice
We should distinguish between happiness and excitement, and even joy. Many people in the West, especially in North America, think of excitement as happiness. They are thinking of something, or expecting something that they consider to be happiness, and, for them, that is already happiness. But when you are excited you are not really peaceful. True happiness should be based on peace, and in true happiness there is no longer any excitement. …
You have to cultivate happiness; you cannot buy it in the supermarket. It is like playing tennis: you cannot buy the joy of playing tennis in the supermarket. You can buy the ball and the racket, but you cannot buy the joy of playing. In order to experience the joy of tennis you have to learn, to train yourself to play. In the same way, you have to cultivate happiness.
2. Happiness is not something we get
So we learn that happiness is not something we get after we obtain the so-called conditions of happiness: namely, the material and emotional comforts. True happiness does not depend on these comforts; nothing can remove it from you. When we come to a practice center, we are looking to learn how to cultivate true happiness.
3. Happiness is impermanent
Impermanence means that everything is changing, including the happiness that you are experiencing. The step you are making allows you to get in touch with the Kingdom of God, with the Pure Land of the Buddha, with all the wonders of life that bring happiness. But that happiness is also impermanent. It lasts only for one step; if the next step does not have mindfulness, concentration, and insight, then happiness will die. However, you know that you are capable of making a second step which also generates the three powers of mindfulness, concentration, and insight, so you have the power to make happiness last longer. Happiness is impermanent; we know the law of impermanence, and that is why we know that we can continue to generate the next moment of happiness. Just as when we ride a bicycle, we continue to pedal so that the movement can continue.
Happiness is impermanent but it can be renewed, and that is insight. You are also impermanent and renewable, like your breath, like your steps. You are not something permanent experiencing something impermanent. You are something impermanent experiencing something impermanent. Although it is impermanent, happiness is possible; the same with you. And if happiness can be renewed, so can you; because you in the next moment is the renewal of you. You are always changing, so you are experiencing impermanence in your happiness and in yourself.
This Thursday evening, after our meditation period and our recitation of the Five Mindfulness Trainings, we will explore together how our understanding of true happiness might guide our responses to the challenges we face in our lives and our world.
- What does true happiness (or deep gladness) mean to you?
- What practices help you generate it?
- How might a more wholehearted practice of true happiness inform how you greet and respond to difficulties and challenges?
You are warmly invited to join us.
Below is an excerpt from Thầy on true happiness and interbeing, and an excerpt from the Frederick Buechner book that contains his description of vocation. (With the help of the internet I found it for the first time this week.)
Many blessings,
Mitchell
From a Thích Nhất Hạnh Dharma Talk on True Happiness, September, 2005
The Insight of Interbeing
Happiness is no-self, because the nature of happiness is interbeing. That is why you are not looking for happiness as an individual. You are making happiness with the insight of interbeing. The father knows that if the son is not happy then he cannot be truly happy, so while the father seeks his own happiness, he also seeks happiness for his son. And that is why the first two sentences have a wonderful meaning. Your mindful steps are not for you alone, they are for your partner and friends as well. Because the moment you stop suffering, the other person profits. You are not cultivating your individual happiness. You are walking for him, for her, you are walking for all of us. Because if you have some peace in you, that is not only good for you but good for all of us.
With that mindful step, it might look as though you are practicing as an individual. You are trying to do something for yourself. You are trying to find some peace, some stability, some happiness. It looks egoistic, when you have not touched the nature of no-self. But, with insight, you see that everything good that you are doing for yourself you are doing for all of us. You don’t have a self-complex anymore. And that is the insight of interbeing.
From Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC by Frederick Buechner
VOCATION
It comes from the Latin vocare, “to call,” and means the work a person is called to by God.
There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, say, or the superego, or self-interest.
By and large a good rule for finding out is this: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need to do and (b) that the world needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a), but probably aren’t helping your patients much either.
Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
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