Grabbing Happiness

The way we usually go about being happy reminds me of someone in a cash-grabbing machine: we approach the whole matter as if there’s only a finite amount of happiness out there that we’d better grab as quickly as possible before someone else gets it first. 

Attempting to be happy in this way is as futile as trying to make an ice sculpture out of boiling water.

There’s something within all of us that intuitively knows we have a fundamental right to be happy. But the problem begins with the way we define happiness in the first place, and the behaviors that spring out of this misunderstanding that ultimately lead to more suffering.

We might experience what feels like a happy state of mind when something works out in a way that matches our ideas and expectations of how things ought to be. But this kind of contentment is short-lived because it’s based on something outside of ourselves, something that has built within it the seeds of impermanence and therefore, suffering.

It’s easy to confuse pleasurable feelings for true happiness. It’s very tempting to base our happiness on the fleeting events and circumstances that arise and fall all around us. But eventually we need to realize that being happy isn’t the same as experiencing pleasurable feelings. There’s a more steady, constant, and unconditional version of happiness we might wish to explore once all of our tired old ways have finally left us frustrated and exhausted. 

For starters we can redefine what our reference point for happiness is.

Instead of seeing happiness as a series of temporary, pleasurable thoughts and physical sensations, what would it mean to redifine it as the ability to always learn about ourselves, other people, and this world we live in? Life is frequently offering us opportunities to do just this. So no matter what happens, we always have the chance to view all of our constantly changing experiences as a way to better know ourselves and others. We can notice our feelings and reactions instead of getting caught up in the comings and goings of our outer experience. We can transform the way in which we relate to the circumstances of our lives so that every moment is nothing more than a mirror that teaches us something interesting about who and what we are.

We can consider the possibility that happiness is already our natural state. It will never be brought about by something “out there” that we need to strive for the way someone in a cash-grabbing booth strives so desperately grab at the hundred dollar bills swirling all around. We’re already complete and good and perfect, even though it may not appear that way all the time. Imagine how absurd it would be if someone were doing this and managed to score a few hundred bucks but then later found out that s/he had a hidden bank account with 10 million dollars in it? 

Our condition is just like that.

Instead of seeing happiness as something removed from where you are right now, try settling into things as they are and seeing each moment as another opportunity for growth and understanding.


Life will never fail to make us happy if this becomes our new reference point.

Four Ways to Work the Four Immeasurables into Your Daily Life

Ironically, what fuels all of our misery-inducing behaviors is an underlying desire for happiness. All of us wish to be safe, to be happy, to be healthy, and to have an easeful life experience. Even those people that seem bent on making themselves and others miserable through unhealthy choices and actions are doing so because they think what they’re doing might bring about happiness. 

 No matter how many times our usual methods fail to make us happy, we keep on trying over and over again, hoping for a different result, hoping that maybe this time it will work. Incidentally, this is the very definition of insanity. Talk about samsara!

What fuels our behaviors are underlying thoughts like these: Maybe this new pair of shoes will make me happy...maybe this next drag on my cigarette will do the trick...maybe if I yell at her/him loud enough this time I’ll feel better...maybe this next beer will give me some piece of mind...maybe if I get laid tonight I won’t feel so lonely...maybe one more joint will calm me down...maybe a new boyfriend or girlfriend will make me feel loved and secure...or maybe this new spiritual teacher will help me be enlightened and therefore HAPPY.

 At some point (hopefully) we get fed up and realize it’s time for a new approach to this happiness thing.

The Buddha taught his followers to rouse within themselves four “perfect virtues” or “immeasurables” that can help cultivate internal qualities that can lead to happiness (for real this time). It’s helpful to approach these qualities as something already inherent within you rather than something “out there” you need to cram into your heart. Think of these virtues as hidden talents that just need some consistent practice so they can flow more naturally and spontaneously. You might be a natural piano player but you can’t headline a concert until you practice stroking the ivories a little bit each day. 

The Four Immeasurables are Loving-kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity.

Here are four ways you can cultivate these qualities in your daily life:

1. LOVING-KINDNESS is a sincere desire for everyone, without exception, to be happy.  At different points during the day, keep it simple and silently say “May you be happy” to random people you see on the street, at work, on the subway. If you can’t muster up an intention for happiness towards people you don’t know, try it with first with yourself (“May I be happy”) or just repeatedly send a wish for happiness towards someone in your life you find it easy to do this for.

2. COMPASSION is a wish that other people be free from suffering. Some times this one requires an ability and willingness to read between the lines a bit. Often it is easy to notice who is in some kind of pain but usually we overlook those people who might be suffering just as much--like an irate boss or coworker or the person in the subway who's being so bloody aggressive. So throughout the day, instead of trying to judge and fix and fight back, recognize that most people are experiencing some degree of pain or discomfort in their lives, just as you are. Focus on one or more people each day that you come across and offer them an intention like “May you be free from suffering and whatever is causing it.”

3. SYMPATHETIC JOY refers to the ability to have a genuine sense of appreciation for someone else’s happiness or good fortune.  It's helpful to consider that there isn’t a finite amount of happiness in this world that some people hoard and other people miss out on. Happiness is something attainable by all of us. So practice cultivating a sense of sympathetic joy when you see someone who you normally might inspire a feeling of envy. You won’t necessarily make the envy disappear completely or all that quickly, but you can transform it into an understanding that someone else’s experience of great fortune or contentment demonstrates that you can experience those positive things as well. Don’t get caught up in the circumstances and stuff around that person’s happiness (like their money or a job or status) but instead focus on the happiness itself. It isn't stuff that we want, it's the good feeling that the stuff brings about within us.

4. EQUANIMITY is an ability to recognize and experience all things and all beings as equal. Throughout the day consider people with whom you have strong disagreements with and think of how they might have been at the moment of their birth and how they might be at the moment when they will die one day. The time in between goes by in a flash. Birth and death are the great equalizers that we are all subject to. Also, observe each emotion you experience throughout the day and practice with noticing it’s qualities in a neutral kind of way rather than judging it as good or bad. Don’t get caught up in trying to attain more pleasure or in pushing away more pain, just let the day unfold as it does and notice how things are always changing, changing, changing. The sky doesn’t bitch and moan with every passing cloud or storm--it simply hangs out and takes pleasure in being the sky.

Be like the sky.

How to Turn Confusion into Curiosity

We often find ourselves thoroughly confused as to what’s going on. 

You think you know someone but they say something that seems grossly out of character or they do something that doesn’t match our expectations of who we think they are or ought to be.Work is awesome but then someone gets hired or fired or you have a new boss or your responsibilities change or your benefits get cut and it doesn’t seem so great anymore.

You’re totally in love with your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse but then something goes awry and suddenly, a relationship that once seemed like the greatest thing since sliced bread is now a source of great pain.

Perhaps you’ve experienced a loss of some kind and don’t know how to make heads or tails of the ensuing emotional roller coaster ride.

 What the hell is going on? What are we supposed to do when we’re confused?

Confusion is a highly unsettling mind state that practically BEGS for resolution. We all want to know things; we all like certainty. It’s comforting to have a clear sense of what’s happening in our lives and we all more or less want to know what we can expect to happen in the future. Having some certainty gives us a sense of control in what otherwise feels like a chaotic world filled with arbitrary experiences that might harm us in some way.

The trouble with our usual approach to confusion is that we so desperately want it to go away that we’ll hastily arrive at a resolution whether it’s an appropriate one or not, simply for the sake of allaying the great discomfort that goes hand in hand with confusion. We might impulsively say something hurtful that we later regret, or break off a relationship rather than sitting with the possibility that the other person might do it first.

But this kind of approach never really works in the long term. While confusion might seem very daunting, in fact it can be one of the best things that ever happens to us. When we don’t know what’s going on, a whole lot of possibilities open up that may lead to something better than we ever imagined. 

In Zen there’s something called a “don’t know mind.” Keeping a don’t know mind requires that we simply be fully present with whatever we might be doing at any given time without entertaining ideas about the past or the future. We simply show up for life as it is right here or now without struggling against it. When we make a practice out of this, we can better see things as they are without having to fix or alter our moment to moment experience. And when we see things as they are we realize they’re very workable and...dare I say?...quite wonderful. 

We can realize that confusion isn’t somehow a barrier to whatever it is we consider to be “enlightenment.” In fact, our confusion is an essential aspect of our already inherently awakened minds. Confusion is just another interesting example of the unlimited potential of your mind and all the cool stuff it can come up with. So instead of being put off by a confused state of mind, try spending some time with it and notice all of it’s interesting physical qualities and the myriad of thoughts that arise. Don’t get caught up in those thoughts and don’t slam the door on them either: doing so is as futile as trying to squeeze a cloud into a glass jar.

From the second it started, I had no idea what the movie Inception was about but once I remembered it was just a movie, I stopped trying so hard to figure it all out and once I did so I was able to settle down and appreciate the words and images before me without getting so stuck on what it all meant and how it all might turn out.

Our lives deserve the same attention and regard we can apply to a mind-f__k of a movie so give this approach a chance and see what happens.

A 9/11 Lesson: Transforming Terror into Lovingkindness

The Twin Towers once exemplified freedom and American capitalism. On September 11, 2001, they were abruptly transformed into symbols of terror and tragedy. Our hearts collapsed along with those buildings that morning, as did all of our misguided notions about security, prosperity, and permanence.

On that day the things that terrify us were realized in the most dramatic and poignant way imaginable. We fear that we may lose the things and people we care most about. We worry that life won’t go the way we want it to. We are afraid of poverty, of not having enough. We are fearful that we might be harmed, and we are very, very afraid to die.

On this otherwise beautiful late summer morning, our once optimistic society devolved into a culture of fear and suspicion. Politicians capitalized on this in many ways and attempted to counter hatred with more hatred and violence. Air travel went from being an affordable adventure to a pricy and inconvenient undertaking. People eventually grew more wary of Muslims to such a ridiculous degree that it’s actually considered debatable as to whether or not a mosque should be allowed to be built near the World Trade Center site.

In some ways our hearts opened from this experience but in way too many other ways they contracted. Shortly after the towers fell I went to St. Vincent’s Hospital to see what help was needed shortly but they were so flooded with volunteers they were turning people away. 

People who never before owned an American flag were suddenly placing them on their windows and walls and storefronts. In some ways it felt like an expression of solidarity, yet often it felt like an excuse to indulge in some knee jerk version of tribalism and duality. 

We suddenly had a new enemy to fear--and unbeknownst to many, that enemy was fear itself.

It’s not as if fear wasn’t already a deeply ingrained aspect of our day to day lives, it’s just that after this national tragedy we were forced to confront the power of terror and decide what ought to do about it. 

* * * 

So we’re left with this uneasiness, this fear of what may or may not transpire one day. We’re terrified at the prospect of not getting what we want or losing what we have, or of getting what we want and realizing it isn’t as great as we had hoped so we better find something else to try to allay that persistent, nagging, underlying unease.

Legend has it that a group of monks were practicing in the forest one day and witnessed all kinds of frightening sights and sounds coming from the tree spirits hovering around them. The monks left the forest and returned to the Buddha, asking if he would send them somewhere less daunting but instead he told them to go back to very same the forest where they had just gotten so shaken up. In reaction to this they developed an aversion to the forest and began watering the seeds of hatred within themselves.

He said that he would equip them with all of the protection they would need, and then proceeded to teach them about metta or lovingkindness. They learned about the importance of forgiveness, kindness, and how to cultivate an intention not to harm anyone. They learned phrases like:

May you be safe.

May you be happy.

May you healthy.

May you live with ease.

They went back to the forest and did the metta practice prescribed by the Buddha as a remedy for their fear. As the monks cultivated lovingkindness through both their words and actions, the monks gradually developed a different perception of the forest and the spirits and they felt safe. Nothing seemed so scary any more. The tree spirits were so moved by the loving energy being put forth that they vowed to care for and protect the monks from that day forward. And they did.

* * * 

September 11 demonstrated that our attempts at keeping things together ultimately fail. Everything is in a constant state of change and evolution, and sometimes our experience is really terrifying because we don't know for sure what comes next. While we try our best to control our world and create some semblance of solid ground under our feet, life has a way of doing what it wants to do without any regard for our preferences, opinions, and yes, our fears. 

The one and only thing we can count on is that life will always unfold as it does.

During this time leading up to the ten year anniversary of 9/11, many of us are recalling what we were doing and how we felt upon hearing the news that airplanes had slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and another missed it’s target when passengers decided to rush into the cockpit and disrupt what would presumably have resulted in the destruction a third iconic building. The fear and sorrow was palpable for people all around the world on that beautiful sunny day, and we realized that we could no longer entertain the illusion that no harm could ever set its foot on our doorstep.

What are we to do with those aspects of ourselves or our lives that terrify us? 

Instead of being depleted or paralyzed by fear, and instead of allowing it to take us over and dictate our actions, we can use it as a path to awakening.

We can use fear to remind us never to take anything for granted because our time here is precious and short. 

The potency of fear can serve as a means to alert us to the reality that our lives really matter and we are called upon to spend our time wisely.

Rather than looking at “the enemy” that did something “to us” we can remember that all things are interdependent. No action occurs in a vacuum--and whether it takes seconds or weeks or decades, all of our actions have an eventual result.

Instead of viewing others with suspicion and bigotry, we can consider the fact that basic goodness is unequivocal. 

When we counter fear with lovingkindness both through our intentions and our actions, we end up on a very different playing field in which we recognize that all people have the same inherent value and dignity. We start by learning to have compassion and love for ourselves so that extending this to others becomes spontaneous and natural.Operating from this presumption can lead to happiness for ourselves and other people. When we develop a sincere desire that all beings everywhere be happy, our perception shifts and what once terrified us no longer has to be so troubling. In fact we realize that we were suffering from a mistaken view of things. Viewing others through the prism of moral outrage does nothing but cultivate more terror in a world that needs more love. 

May all beings everywhere conquer terror with lovingkindness.