Happiness Revisited

A puppy dog is running in circles, chasing after its own tail. Astonished, a big dog asked,” what are you doing?”

“Haven’t you heard that for us happiness is where the tail is? I’m pursuing happiness. That’s why I’m running in circles. Don’t you want to pursue happiness?” the puppy dog retorted.

“All I know is as long as I march forward in earnest, happiness will always be right behind me,” the big dog declared proudly.

The above parable, taken from Between Ignorance and Enlightenment (Book 2) by The Venerable Master Tsing Yun whom I blogged about previously (see here), is a succinct illustration of the exhortation “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”

However, the more I read about happiness especially from the Buddhist perspective, the more I feel that the exhortation needs to be viewed in a holistic sense lest it gives room for particular interpretation that may be construed as a counter example as occurred in my previous blog (see the comments). Thus, happiness cannot be pursued in its own end, but it always ensues from the attainment of something that we pursue as a goal.

Another way is to change the conditions or environment whereby even our hard-wired brain, which filters our manifestation of emotions including happiness, can be changed in the process as discussed in my other blog article, Happiness Index.

A cogent explanation is offered by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in his book, The Universe in A Single Atom under the Chapter: Toward a Science of Conciousness:

“Until recently, I gather, scientists believed that after adolescence the hardware of the human brain becomes relatively unchangeable. But new discoveries in neurobiology have uncovered a remarkable potential for changeability in the human brain even in adults as old as I am. At the Mind and Life conference in Dharamsala in 2004, I learned of the growing sub-discipline of neuroscience dealing with this question, called “brain plasticity.” This phenomenon suggests to me that traits that were assumed to be fixed – such as personality, disposition, even moods – are not permanent, and that mental exercises or changes in the environment can affect these traits. Already experiments have shown that experienced meditators have more activity in the left frontal lobe, the part of the brain associated with positive emotions, such as happiness, joy, and contentment. These findings imply that happiness is something we can cultivate deliberately through mental training that affects the brain.”

One mental training that would ensure a happy outcome is to adopt the world view as admonished by the Venerable Master Tsing Yun (excerpted and translated from Annals of Conditions):

“Whenever we face adversity, anger arises easily. Some like to etch their anger into rock, so the anger lasts a lifetime; others like to mold their anger into shifting sand, so the anger vanishes rapidly; still others empty their anger into flowing water, so the anger is banished from the heart forever. They let misunderstanding and gossip slip away silently; and they stay unperturbed, their self serene.”

Hakuna Matata!