The Art of Happiness

Will it bring me happiness?

I think prayer is, for the most part, a simple daily reminder of your deeply held principles and convictions. I, myself, repeat certain Buddhist verses every morning. The verses may look like prayers, but they are actually reminders. Reminders of how to speak to others, how to deal with other people, how to deal with problems in your daily life, things like that.

There are so many things that divide humanity, so many problems in the world. Religion should be a remedy to help reduce the conflict and suffering in the world, not another source of conflict.

Similarly, so long as we know and maintain an awareness that we have this marvelous gift of human intelligence and a capacity to develop determination and use it in positive ways, in some sense we have this underlying mental health. An underlying strength, that comes from realizing we have this great human potential. This realization can act as a sort of built-in mechanism that allows us to deal with any difficulty, no matter what situation we are facing, without losing hope or sinking into self-hatred.

Here, once again, we return to the importance of motivation. Then, I try to remind myself as far as my own motivation is concerned, I am sincere, and I tried my best. With a sincere motivation, one of compassion, even if I made a mistake or failed, there is no cause for regret. For my part I did my best. Then, you see, if I failed, it was because the situation was beyond my best efforts. So that sincere motivation removes fear and gives you self-confidence.

Since general stress lowers the threshold for what may trigger anger, the first step is preventative: cultivating an inner contentment and calmer state of mind, as recommended by the Dalai Lama, can definitely help. And when anger does occur, research has shown that actively challenging, logically analyzing, and reappraising the thoughts that trigger the anger can help dissipate it. There is also experimental evidence suggesting that the techniques that we discussed earlier, such as shifting perspective or looking at different angles of a situation, can also be very effective. Of course, these things are often easier to do at lower or moderate levels of anger, so practicing early intervention before thoughts of anger and hatred escalate can be an important factor.

But I think that if you could try to consider each individual as truly equal to yourself—no more important but no less either—I think that would be enough to start with.

Perhaps that is the ultimate meaning behind our suffering. It is our suffering that is the most basic element that we share with others, the factor that unifies us with all living creatures.

He concluded that the very unpleasantness of pain, the part that we hate, is what makes it so effective in protecting us and warning us of danger and injury. The unpleasant quality of pain forces the entire human organism to attend to the problem. Although the body has automatic reflexive movements that form an outer layer of protection and move us quickly away from the pain, it is the feeling of unpleasantness that galvanizes and compels the entire organism to attend and act. It also sears the experience into the memory and serves to protect us in the future.

So I think that our tendency to go to extremes is often fueled by an underlying feeling of discontentment. And of course there may be other factors which lead to extremes. But I think it is important to recognize that while going to extremes may seem appealing or ‘exciting’ on the surface, it can in fact be harmful. There are many examples of the dangers of going to extremes, of extreme behavior. I think that by examining these situations you’il be able to see that the consequence of going to extremes is that you, yourself, will eventually suffer.