Monday, May 22, 2006
where is unhappiness?
Have you searched for unhappiness? Chances are, you haven't. Nobody would want that! Who wants to find Unhappiness? We spend our lives finding happiness. But the trouble is, you often observe that unhappiness is just really good at finding you. . .
Some of us have spent time trying to find just where unhappiness resides. And the revelation of where unhappiness comes from really wakes us up to how blindly we have perceived things. . . and also points to a way out of our sorry predicament. The bad news is that it's a place that's very close by. The good news is that knowing where this favourite hiding place is, we finally have the chance to root out unhappiness from our lives whenever it starts to squarter there like an illegal immigrant.
Unhappiness never exists outside of our own minds. Unhappiness likes to live in our own minds and often it does so undetected because we never thought it would be "in here" -- we always like to think it's "out there". This is because we spent our time looking at the external world outside our minds thinking that these are the sources of our unhappiness. However, unhappiness does not come from others, does not come from those "problematic people", it is not found in problematic things or events. There is nothing in the world that is inherently the cause of happiness nor unhappiness. It is the way the mind perceives these things that creates unhappiness or happiness because "the mind is the forerunner of all things". When we realise this, we stop blaming others and start to really work on ourselves. This has the side effect of transforming our relationships with others tremendously.
We need to take a step back. What causes unhappy states of mind? There is really only one thing: "grasping". Human nature likes to discriminate amongst the things we perceive. We look at all things through a filter of preconceived opinions and bias in our subconscious mind (meaning we are often not aware of this filter), and then immeditately, we discriminate amongst these things that we are looking at: we like this, we dislike that. As a consequence, we develop an aversion towards things we feel we do not like -- we want to run away from these things -- and an attraction towards things we feel we like -- we want to run towards these things. These two ways of grasping the phenomena of the world are the roots of unhappiness. Because of the existance of this process in our minds, this makes everything in the world, ultimately, unable to give us real satisfaction and peace. . . not to mention the fact that it causes us to run around a heck of a lot for nothing!
So how now? Once we know that unhappiness exists only in our minds due to its grasping nature, we can finally have a real shot at weeding unhappiness out of our lives. We need to learn how to observe how we perceive things. First, we honestly familiarise ourselves with the filters
of our perception: What are our bias? What do we hold as our values? Beliefs? What do we base our opinions and decisions on? Once we know what colours our perception, we become open to the fact that we have certain expections of how things should be and when things do not meet these expections, we are not disappointed because that is the nature of the way things are. Then there is no longer a gap between how we expect things to be and how things turn out. Because there is no gap, we do not feel there is a lack and so we dwell contented within the realm of our present experience. We relax internally and develop an open, equanimous mind and lessen it's grasping nature (it is hard, though not impossible, to totally eradicate grasping. Once you have done that, you would enjoy ULTIMATE HAPPINESS called Nirvana!)
Furthermore, if we become really observant, between "looking" and "grasping", we have a space for "choosing". No matter what external factors happen to disrupt our lives, you have always got a choice in how you want to react to these factors. Before we succumb to the automatic emotional response caused by our own biased pattern of thinking, if we have a sharp mind, we can choose how we want to respond. So even when unhappy things happen, we can choose not to be unhappy.
Are things starting to sound farfetched or too hypothetical or cheem by now? Hahaha. You need to practise it to believe it. Often, all this facts can become apparent to us in an instant's experience. We can create an conducive conditions for this revelation to happen to us if we practice yoga or meditation or any practice which helps us to
[1] slow down - mental phenomena happens quickly and so go by undetected if we live a harried life - when we slow down, slippery mental processes are easy to observe,
[2] develop strength, sharpness and alertness of mind to be able to observe clearly what is happening,
[3] develop a peaceful place within ourselves where we can start to observe how our minds work in a clear and non-judgemental way.
In stuff like this, a little guidance goes a long way. Take comfort in the fact that others have already done this work successfully and they are at hand to show you the way. But you need to be open to this and initiate the search. As the zen saying goes:"When the student is ready, the master appears."
Sounds like a lot of hard work? Here's the motivation:
Once you have found the source of unhappiness, you can choose to be happy always. . . So if you want to be happy in this life, make this your life's work.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Some of us have spent time trying to find just where unhappiness resides. And the revelation of where unhappiness comes from really wakes us up to how blindly we have perceived things. . . and also points to a way out of our sorry predicament. The bad news is that it's a place that's very close by. The good news is that knowing where this favourite hiding place is, we finally have the chance to root out unhappiness from our lives whenever it starts to squarter there like an illegal immigrant.
Unhappiness never exists outside of our own minds. Unhappiness likes to live in our own minds and often it does so undetected because we never thought it would be "in here" -- we always like to think it's "out there". This is because we spent our time looking at the external world outside our minds thinking that these are the sources of our unhappiness. However, unhappiness does not come from others, does not come from those "problematic people", it is not found in problematic things or events. There is nothing in the world that is inherently the cause of happiness nor unhappiness. It is the way the mind perceives these things that creates unhappiness or happiness because "the mind is the forerunner of all things". When we realise this, we stop blaming others and start to really work on ourselves. This has the side effect of transforming our relationships with others tremendously.
We need to take a step back. What causes unhappy states of mind? There is really only one thing: "grasping". Human nature likes to discriminate amongst the things we perceive. We look at all things through a filter of preconceived opinions and bias in our subconscious mind (meaning we are often not aware of this filter), and then immeditately, we discriminate amongst these things that we are looking at: we like this, we dislike that. As a consequence, we develop an aversion towards things we feel we do not like -- we want to run away from these things -- and an attraction towards things we feel we like -- we want to run towards these things. These two ways of grasping the phenomena of the world are the roots of unhappiness. Because of the existance of this process in our minds, this makes everything in the world, ultimately, unable to give us real satisfaction and peace. . . not to mention the fact that it causes us to run around a heck of a lot for nothing!
So how now? Once we know that unhappiness exists only in our minds due to its grasping nature, we can finally have a real shot at weeding unhappiness out of our lives. We need to learn how to observe how we perceive things. First, we honestly familiarise ourselves with the filters
of our perception: What are our bias? What do we hold as our values? Beliefs? What do we base our opinions and decisions on? Once we know what colours our perception, we become open to the fact that we have certain expections of how things should be and when things do not meet these expections, we are not disappointed because that is the nature of the way things are. Then there is no longer a gap between how we expect things to be and how things turn out. Because there is no gap, we do not feel there is a lack and so we dwell contented within the realm of our present experience. We relax internally and develop an open, equanimous mind and lessen it's grasping nature (it is hard, though not impossible, to totally eradicate grasping. Once you have done that, you would enjoy ULTIMATE HAPPINESS called Nirvana!)
Furthermore, if we become really observant, between "looking" and "grasping", we have a space for "choosing". No matter what external factors happen to disrupt our lives, you have always got a choice in how you want to react to these factors. Before we succumb to the automatic emotional response caused by our own biased pattern of thinking, if we have a sharp mind, we can choose how we want to respond. So even when unhappy things happen, we can choose not to be unhappy.
Are things starting to sound farfetched or too hypothetical or cheem by now? Hahaha. You need to practise it to believe it. Often, all this facts can become apparent to us in an instant's experience. We can create an conducive conditions for this revelation to happen to us if we practice yoga or meditation or any practice which helps us to
[1] slow down - mental phenomena happens quickly and so go by undetected if we live a harried life - when we slow down, slippery mental processes are easy to observe,
[2] develop strength, sharpness and alertness of mind to be able to observe clearly what is happening,
[3] develop a peaceful place within ourselves where we can start to observe how our minds work in a clear and non-judgemental way.
In stuff like this, a little guidance goes a long way. Take comfort in the fact that others have already done this work successfully and they are at hand to show you the way. But you need to be open to this and initiate the search. As the zen saying goes:"When the student is ready, the master appears."
Sounds like a lot of hard work? Here's the motivation:
Once you have found the source of unhappiness, you can choose to be happy always. . . So if you want to be happy in this life, make this your life's work.