The art of happiness

[Netti-Netti]

....I agree with Seattlegal's "Perhaps."

Hi Dream, what part of SG's "Perhaps" position do you agree with?

I think you once said, NettiNetti, that you have to recognize the tragedy of living while maintaining a positive attitude, which sounds to me like a balance of left & right perspectives.

I was raising a basic issue: Redemption without a condition to be redeemed would be a moot point.

I don't see how one can make a case for a "progression towards truth" without recognizing fundamental problems like false consciousness, illusion of control, craving, clinging, and various delusional emotions that feed misguided action. If all this makes for an acceptable state of affairs, why make an effort to overcome any of it?

If suffering is not a problem, why seek relief from it? If sin is not a problem, why seek salvation?

 

[seattlegal]

Maybe to "Test all things" in light of G-d's Word is a form of Right Mindfulness and Right Intention, yes? A way of dealing with atttachment, craving, and clinging, yes?

Perhaps.

...yet I agree with Seattlegal's "Perhaps."

Hi Dream, what part of SG's "Perhaps" position do you agree with?

[satire] Kewl, do you also have a sure-fire cure for the hiccups? If not, a sure-fire means of salvation should be marketable without the added bonus hiccup cure. Have you contacted a patent lawyer about it? Just think of all {money you can make,}--err, I mean good you can do with it. {not to mention all the fame you'll get,}--err, I mean good karma you'll generate. There is just one slight glitch: there is some fine print. You can find it on this thread. [/satire]

I was raising a basic issue: Redemption without a condition to be redeemed would be a moot point.

Christianity stipulates repentance, and Buddhism stipulates renunciation.

I don't see how one can make a case for a "progression towards truth" without recognizing fundamental problems like false consciousness, illusion of control, craving, clinging, and various delusional emotions that feed misguided action. If all this makes for an acceptable state of affairs, why make an effort to overcome any of it?

If suffering is not a problem, why seek relief from it? If sin is not a problem, why seek salvation?

Wouldn't recognizing these things, even in hindsight, in a progressive manner, and making corrections constitute progression towards truth?

 

[Netti-Netti]

[satire] Kewl, do you also have a sure-fire cure for the hiccups? If not, a sure-fire means of salvation should be marketable without the added bonus hiccup cure. Have you contacted a patent lawyer about it? Just think of all {money you can make,}--err, I mean good you can do with it. {not to mention all the fame you'll get,}--err, I mean good karma you'll generate. There is just one slight glitch: there is some fine print. You can find it on this thread. [/satire]

The statement you were responding to was framed in a question form to reflect appreciation for the tenative quality of the suggestion made. There wasn't anything about the language that indicated unwarranted certainty. I think perhaps you're off on a tangent here.

Christianity stipulates repentance, and Buddhism stipulates renunciation.

Very different approaches.

Wouldn't recognizing these things, even in hindsight, in a progressive manner, and making corrections constitute progression towards truth?

Of course.

 

[seattlegal]

[satire] Kewl, do you also have a sure-fire cure for the hiccups? If not, a sure-fire means of salvation should be marketable without the added bonus hiccup cure. Have you contacted a patent lawyer about it? Just think of all {money you can make,}--err, I mean good you can do with it. {not to mention all the fame you'll get,}--err, I mean good karma you'll generate. There is just one slight glitch: there is some fine print. You can find it on this thread. [/satire] The statement you were responding to was framed in a question form to reflect appreciation for the tenative quality of the suggestion made. There wasn't anything about the language that indicated unwarranted certainty. I think perhaps you're off on a tangent here.

Actually, no. Let's go back and review:

Maybe to "Test all things" in light of G-d's Word is a form of Right Mindfulness and Right Intention, yes? A way of dealing with atttachment, craving, and clinging, yes?

Perhaps.

My satirical post was asking this question: Can you consistently hold Right Mindfulness and Right Intention without any help? {I highlighted some examples of how Right Mindfulness and Right Intention can become twisted, and how we might cover these twists up with rationalizations, deceiving ourselves in the process.}

Very different approaches.

Both having the possibility for the same side effect of fooling yourself, no? Hence the need for testing and reflection.

 

[Netti-Netti]

Not being happy, and not doing what it takes to purge the hate we cling to? (Forgive others?)Forgiving oneself even.

Strange to think that it would seem as though it's better to hold onto the hate than to let it go and give one's heart to the L-rd. In effect, this is hate claiming priority over G-d's love. Isn't this yet another form of clinging to self?

So why would one fail to do what it takes to purge the hate? Wouldn't it be because of the effect attachment has on judgment. Attachment clouds the mind and helps perpetuate wrong intent by clogging up the spiritual channel.
Attachment keeps the person from seeing that they should be doing something different from what they are doing.

Not being happy, and not doing what it takes to purge the hate we cling to? (Forgive others?)

Perhaps holding onto hate and holding one's heart back from G-d bespeaks the sense that G-d wouldn't respond to the turning toward G-d. This feeling of being doomed to remain forever unworthy of G-d's Blessings and therefore without hope of receiving the Blessings makes for grievous unhappiness. From Dark Night of the Soul:

But what the sorrowful soul feels most in this condition is its clear perception, as it thinks, that God has abandoned it, and, in His abhorrence of it, has flung it into darkness; it is a grave and piteous grief for it to believe that God has forsaken it. It is this that David also felt so much in a like case, saying: 'After the manner wherein the wounded are dead in the sepulchres,' being now cast off by Thy hand, so that Thou rememberest them no more, even so have they set me in the deepest and lowest lake, in the dark places and in the shadow of death, and Thy fury is confirmed upon me and all Thy waves Thou hast brought in upon me.'​

This sense of separation from the Divine may be projected as fear of abandonment or fear of loss of social support:

'Thou hast put far from me my friends and acquaintances; they have counted me an abomination.' To all this will Jonas testify, as one who likewise experienced it in the belly of the beast, both bodily and spiritually. 'Thou hast cast me forth (he says) into the deep, into the heart of the sea, and the flood hath compassed me; all its billows and waves have passed over me. And I said, "I am cast away out of the sight of Thine eyes, but I shall once again see Thy holy temple" (which he says, because God purifies the soul in this state that it may see His temple); the waters compassed me, even to the soul, the deep hath closed me round about, the ocean hath covered my head....​

-------------------------------------
Recognizing that idolatry will mean losing salvation, Jonah proclaims "Salvation is of the LORD."

Then the Lord spoke to the fish and then spit Jonah out on the dry land.

You can run, but you can't hide from yourself.

That never stopped anybody from trying.

 

[Netti-Netti]

Right Mindfulness and Right Intention can become twisted, and how we might cover these twists up with rationalizations, deceiving ourselves in the process.

True. It's easy to fool the most unsuspecting victim - oneself. So you would suggest being doubly mindful?

 

[seattlegal]

True. It's easy to fool the most unsuspecting victim - oneself. So you would suggest being doubly mindful?

Buddhists take refuge in the Three Jewels to deal with cutting through delusion.

 

[Netti-Netti]

Buddhists take refuge in the Three Jewels to deal with cutting through delusion.

Interesting.

Should we look into specific mindfulness practices?

 

[seattlegal]

Interesting.

Should we look into specific mindfulness practices?

That would be up to the individual and their sangha to decide.

 

[Netti-Netti]

What do you notice first, the weeds or the flowers?

The original poster wrote:

One way to get rid of these negative mental states, which keep one away from true happiness, is to realize the usefulness of compassion. From a buddhist perspective, anybody want to share how they would overcome these problems?

Some would say that Buddhism is a pessimistic philosophy because it is largely concerned with the weeds. Kunzang Pelden:

The Buddha has given his Bodhisattva children four forces so that they can accomplish the welfare of beings: aspiration, steadfastness, joyfulness, and relinquishment (the ability to let go or desist). The latter three derive from the first. Aspiration is based on fear of suffering.​

Logically, one way to maintain high levels of aspiration is to sustain a high level of fear. The practitioner is constantly on the lookout for the weeds for fear that they're going to take over. The weeds are the effects of negative action.

Arguably, the Buddhist paradigm is essentially a model of avoidance learning - "the process by which an individual learns a behavior or response to avoid a stressful or unpleasant situation." (Encyclopedia of Psychology).

In Buddhism, happiness appears in large part as the absence of suffering.

 

[Ciel]

Well, all beautiful flowers were once only weeds.........
And weeds as flowers of natural freedom manifest their own beauty in resilience and strengh of being...... even joy.

If there were only one book of Buddhist wisdom I would choose it would be...
"the bliss bestowing treasure" [Wiki quote, and I agree] of "The Lotus Sutra".

Watson Contents - Lotus Sutra

For it shows another face of the many facets of Buddhism and proves by transmission of frequency utmost joy and bliss if one is able to remove themselves from the plough share of mud and mundane.

Yes it is possible to move beyond suffering through mindfulness and no mind if to live in empty space of no matter, yet there is an all encompassing level to a far greater existence where it is realised bliss is as the very breath and ultimate connection of life......and beware it is contagious.....

Sometime all we need do is allow ourselves the natural state of happiness and drop the fear, for it is the antithesis to love and natural being.

- c -

 

[Netti-Netti]

And weeds as flowers of natural freedom manifest their own beauty in resilience and strengh of being...... even joy.

Indeed. What if a weed is just a flower that no one appreciates?

Sometime all we need do is allow ourselves the natural state of happiness and drop the fear

In describing the human's relation to the Divine, roughly half of the English translations of the Bible use the term "fear." The other half use the term "wonder." Perhaps attitude makes a difference??

 

[Snoopy]

To be happy requires acceptance of what is; not striving after what is not and cannot be.


"A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.”

- Dogen.

s.

​

 

[Netti-Netti]

"The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for."

- Maureen Dowd​

 

[seattlegal]

Never read a thread as this creating such complexities out of nowt.

Happiness rises outside the realms of complex...... it is not a complex thing.

But if you want.......
It is a matter of discarding the layers of should and should not towards the simplicity of the core of inner being where life is spontaneous, acting without external cause, gracefully natural and unconstrained..........

Happiness is opening to love and inner God space where life flows outward generating the positive.

- c -

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
~Dalai Lama​

Interdependent co-arising?

 

[Netti-Netti]

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.​

~Dalai Lama​

"Happiness arising"? Mmm, not crazy about it.

From Canto 15 of the Dhammapada, the section called "Happiness":

Victory begets enmity, the defeated dwell in pain.
Happily the peaceful live, discarding both victory and defeat.


​

 

[Netti-Netti]

Christianity stipulates repentance, and Buddhism stipulates renunciation.

Does the renunciation extend to happiness?

Do Buddhists renounce a desire for happiness?

 

[seattlegal]

Does the renunciation extend to happiness?

Do Buddhists renounce a desire for happiness?

According to my understanding (which might very well be incorrect,) they renounce desire (attachment/aversion), which might produce transient happiness, along with suffering. The renouncing of the transient extinguishes suffering and produces lasting happiness.

Dhammapada 21:1 (or verse 290)
290. If by renouncing a lesser happiness one may realize a greater happiness, let the wise man renounce the lesser, having regard for the greater.​

 

[Netti-Netti]

Dhammapada 21:1 (or verse 290)

If by renouncing a lesser happiness one may realize a greater happiness, let the wise man renounce the lesser, having regard for the greater.​

That would have to be the perfect quote in this instance, SG!

It is seems the Buddhist plan of action for attaining happiness does indeed involve renouncing certain kinds of happiness as a way of managing the problem of evil. I'd tie this into what you wrote previously:

"In Buddhism the problem of evil relates to suffering, which in turn reflects

ignorance and attachment (desires and aversions) in a world the very nature of which does not lend itself to any kind of lasting happiness."
Partaking of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

An article I found by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu deals with the tree of knowledge from a Buddhist point of view. It's kind of interesting given that Buddhism ordinarily does not deal with G-d. The article starts out with a description of how our ability to be happy was impaired:

Those of you who are Christians or who have read the Bible will be familiar with the story of tree of the knowledge of good and evil that appears at the beginning of Genesis. It tells how God forbade Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He warned them that they would die if they did not obey. If you understand the meaning of this passage, you will understand the core of Buddhism. When there is no knowledge of good and evil, we can't attach to them, we're void and free of dukkha. Once we know about good and evil, we attach to them and must suffer dukkha. The fruit of that tree is this attachment to good and evil. This causes dukkha and dukkha is death, spiritual death.

​

Adam's children, down through the ages to us, carry this burden of knowing good and evil, the burden of the self that attaches to good and evil and suffers spiritual death. We identify things as good and attach to them. We identify things as bad and detach from them. We are trapped in worldly conditions by our dualistic obsession with good and bad. This is the death of which God warned. Will you heed His warning?
​

The Buddhist response to the human condition seems fairly straightforward: short-circuit the process that leads to unhappiness. The idea is to eliminate the basic problem of hunger, which is "the problem that leads to dukkha."


How is this accomplished? By releasing attachment. How does one release attachment? By means of knowledge or insight. What knowledge or insight would that be? That would be insight into sunnata,"the voidness of 'I' and 'mine'":

In sunnata there's no hunger. Even the most subtle levels of hunger disappear. Therein dukkha is quenched and true spiritual peace remains. This is the final goal. As long as there is the slightest hunger, it prevents the final goal. As soon as all hunger has been extinguished, and with it all problems and all dukkha, genuine emancipation is evident. Emancipation in Buddhism is this freedom from hunger that comes with the realization of sunnata (voidness).​

We note here that the term Nirvana means "to extinguish." In light of sunnata doctrine of void, which some say is the Buddha's single most important teaching, Nirvana may be considered "supreme voidness."
Sunnata

The problem is desire. Buddhists seeks to eliminate unhappiness by extinguishing the desire that leads to unhappiness. It is unclear whether the end result is a positive form of happiness. There is no fulfillment because once you attain the end state, you no longer have any desires to be fulfilled. Even spiritual emotions are of no apparent value since there is no "I" to experience them or appreciate them. Actually, it is unclear how you can appreciate anything if you don't even want anything. After all, we value things we want, right?

Given the preoccupation with severing the bonds of suffering, I am inclined to say that a Buddhist renunciate doesn't care about happiness, but is more concerned with relieving unhappiness. The focus is on finding ways to make their lives less painful by extinguishing desire, releasing attachment, and quenching ego and dukkha, blowing out or extinction.

Buddhism stipulates renunciation.

Initially, it seemed that it wouldn't make much sense to strive for a state of happiness if one has no desire for it. Indeed if you don't desire it, why would you get any satisfaction from it, should it come your way? Your post -- including the quote of Dhammapada 21:1 -- clarifies the issue: transient happiness that is being renounced in favor of a more stable or lasting happiness. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu again:

The final goal of Buddhism, the highest liberation, isn't a mind that is merely happy or quiet. The ultimate goal is total freedom from all attachment, from any clinging to "I" or "mine."..... Buddhism aims to eliminate the kind of happiness and enjoyment that depends on things to satisfy its hunger.​

 

[seattlegal]

Got a link to that article, please?