Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

by Matthieu Ricard

Had I renounced the Western world? Renunciation, at least as Buddhists use the term, is a much-misunderstood concept. It is not about giving up what is good and beautiful. How foolish that would be! Rather it is about disentangling oneself from the unsatisfactory and moving with determination toward what matters most. It is about freedom and meaning—freedom from mental confusion and self-centered afflictions, meaning through insight and loving-kindness.

Happiness does not come automatically. It is not a gift that good fortune bestows upon us and a reversal of fortune takes back. It depends on us alone. One does not become happy overnight, but with patient labor, day after day. Happiness is constructed, and that requires effort and time. In order to become happy, we have to learn how to change ourselves. LUCA AND FRANCESCO CAVALLI-SFORZA

Every man wants to be happy, but in order to be so he needs first to understand what happiness is. JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.

The common factor to all of these experiences would seem to be the momentary disappearance of inner conflicts. The person feels in harmony with the world and with herself. Someone enjoying such an experience, such as walking through a serene wilderness, has no particular expectations beyond the simple act of walking. She simply is, here and now, free and open.

Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure than he is inflated by success. He is able to fully live his experiences in the context of a vast and profound serenity, since he understands that experiences are ephemeral and that it is useless to cling to them. There will be no “hard fall” when things turn bad and he is confronted with adversity. He does not sink into depression, since his happiness rests on a solid foundation. One year before her death at Auschwitz, the remarkable Etty Hillesum, a young Dutchwoman, affirmed: “When you have an interior life, it certainly doesn’t matter what side of the prison fence you’re on. . . . I’ve already died a thousand times in a thousand concentration camps. I know everything. There is no new information to trouble me. One way or another, I already know everything. And yet, I find this life beautiful and rich in meaning. At every moment.”7

Nor is happiness a state of exaltation to be perpetuated at all costs; it is the purging of mental toxins, such as hatred and obsession, that literally poison the mind. It is also about learning how to put things in perspective and reduce the gap between appearances and reality.

Sukha is the state of lasting well-being that manifests itself when we have freed ourselves of mental blindness and afflictive emotions. It is also the wisdom that allows us to see the world as it is, without veils or distortions. It is, finally, the joy of moving toward inner freedom and the loving-kindness that radiates toward others.

One must practice the things which produce happiness, since if that is present we have everything and if it is absent we do everything in order to have it. EPICURUS

Stephen Kosslyn, a Harvard professor and one of the world’s leading researchers in mental imagery, once told me that when he wakes up in the morning it is not the desire to be happy that gets him out of bed but the sense of duty, the sense of responsibility for his family, for the team he leads, for his work, for humanity. He maintained that happiness is not among his considerations. And yet when we think about it, the satisfaction of accomplishing what we consider to be worthy goals through a long-term effort strewn with obstacles undeniably reflects certain aspects of true happiness, sukha. It is what allows a sense of harmony within ourselves. In doing his “duty”—and even if he believes that suffering and hardship “build character”—such a man is clearly not seeking to cultivate his own unhappiness or that of humankind.

How do we dispel this basic ignorance? The only way is through honesty and sincere introspection. There are two ways we can undertake this: analysis and contemplation. Analysis consists of a candid and systematic evaluation of every aspect of our own suffering and of the suffering we inflict on others. It involves understanding which thoughts, words, and actions inevitably lead to pain and which contribute to well-being. Of course, such an approach requires that we first come to see that something is not quite right with our way of being and acting. We then need to feel a burning desire to change.

Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment, not the gratification of inexhaustible desires for outward things.

LOOKING WITHIN, LOOKING WITHOUT Seeking happiness outside ourselves is like waiting for sunshine in a cave facing north. TIBETAN SAYING

We look for happiness outside ourselves when it is basically an inner state of being.

Marcus Aurelius wrote: “Look within; within is the fountain of all good.”2

As the French philosopher Alain has written, “You don’t need to be a sorcerer to cast a spell over yourself by saying ‘This is how I am. I can do nothing about it.’”

Those who seek happiness in pleasure, wealth, glory, power, and heroics are as naive as the child who tries to catch a rainbow and wear it as a coat. DILGO KHYENTSE RINPOCHE

Suffering can be triggered by numerous causes over which we sometimes have some power, and sometimes none. Being born with a handicap, falling ill, losing a loved one, or being caught up in war or in a natural disaster are all beyond our control. Unhappiness is altogether different, being the way in which we experience our suffering. Unhappiness may indeed be associated with physical or moral pain inflicted by exterior conditions, but it is not essentially linked to it.

A study of quadriplegics found that although most acknowledged having considered suicide at first, a year after having been paralyzed only 10 percent considered their lives to be miserable; most considered theirs to be good.6 Just as it is the mind that translates suffering into unhappiness, it is the mind’s responsibility to master its perception thereof. A change, even a tiny one, in the way we manage our thoughts and perceive and interpret the world can significantly change our existence. Changing the way we experience transitory emotions leads to a change in our moods and to a lasting transformation of our way of being. Such “therapy” targets the sufferings that afflict most of us and seeks to promote the optimal flourishing of the human being.

If there is a way to free ourselves from suffering We must use every moment to find it. Only a fool wants to go on suffering. Isn’t it sad to knowingly imbibe poison? SEVENTH DALAI LAMA

Buddhist texts say that in the cycle of death and rebirth, no place, not even one the size of a needle’s point, is exempt from suffering.

According to Buddhism, suffering will always exist as a universal phenomenon, but every individual has the potential for liberation from it.

As it happens, wherever life exists in the universe, so does suffering: disease, old age, death, separation from loved ones, forced coexistence with our oppressors, denial of basic necessities, confrontations with what we fear, and so on.

THE FOUR TRUTHS OF SUFFERING Over 2,500 years ago, seven weeks after attaining enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, the Buddha gave his first teaching in the Deer Park outside Varanasi. There he taught the Four Noble Truths. The first is the truth of suffering—not only the kind of suffering that is obvious to the eye, but also the kind, as we have seen, that exists in subtler forms. The second is the truth of the causes of suffering—ignorance that engenders craving, malice, pride, and many other thoughts that poison our lives and those of others. Since these mental poisons can be eliminated, an end to suffering—the third truth—is therefore possible. The fourth truth is the path that turns that potential into reality. The path is the process of using all available means to eliminate the fundamental causes of suffering. In brief, we must: Recognize suffering, Eliminate its source, End it By practicing the path.

Having come to grips with this idea, how do we learn to control pain instead of being its victim? Since we can’t escape it, it is better to embrace it than to try to reject it. The pain persists whether we succumb to dejection or hold on to our resilience and desire to live, but in the latter case we maintain our dignity and self-confidence, and that makes a big difference. There are various methods to achieve that end. One method uses mental imagery; another lets us transform pain by awakening ourselves to love and compassion; a third involves developing inner strength.

After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, Tenzin Choedrak, the personal physician of the Dalai Lama, was first sent to a forced labor camp in northeastern Tibet along with some one hundred others. Five prisoners, himself among them, survived. He was transferred from camp to camp for nearly twenty years and often thought that he would die of hunger or of the abuse inflicted on him.6 A psychiatrist who specializes in post-traumatic stress and who treated Doctor Choedrak was astonished that he showed not the least sign of post-traumatic stress syndrome. He was not bitter, felt no resentment, displayed serene kindness, and had none of the usual psychological problems, such as anxiety, nightmares, and so on. Choedrak acknowledged that he occasionally felt hatred for his torturers, but that he always returned to the practice of meditation on inner peace and compassion. That was what sustained his desire to go on living and ultimately saved him.