The UK government intends to shape its policies according to what promotes happiness and wellbeing. But what is happiness, and what are the factors, according to Buddhism, that develop it? Thought for the Day 17th January 2012
When my two year-old son got his main Christmas present his face lit with intense happiness. Then he learned he couldn’t have all the other presents he wanted and he howled with frustration. It’s a familiar problem to parents. As the government’s Wellbeing Agenda recognises, being happy is a central human concern. But it’s elusive. It’s not the same as pleasure, and, as my son discovered, some happiness produces craving and then brings misery. Yesterday’s report from the institute of Economic Affairs questioned whether fostering happiness is the business of the state at all.
Nonetheless, psychology has learned that states like stress and depression aren’t as intractable as they seem and we can to foster wellbeing by adjusting our attitudes and behaviour. The Happiness Movement urges us to help others, keep learning and have a positive approach, and over the years I’ve tried to follow similar advice from the Buddha. However, I think Buddhism has something distinctive to contribute to the debate.
Buddhism starts with the fundamental character of human existence. Everything we experience, it says, is impermanent and constantly changing. That’s true of our possessions, our relationships and our bodies, as I’m uncomfortably reminded whenever I look in the mirror and wonder where my hair went. Everyone wants to find happiness and avoid suffering, but we go about this in unhelpful ways: clinging to what we find pleasant and resisting what we find unpleasant. Finding an alternative means changing not just our behaviour, but our minds themselves; drawing on our inner resources, rather than seeking happiness outside ourselves; and adapting ourselves to life as it is, not as we’d like it to be.
This is an agenda for personal change, not just a philosophy. It follows that a simpler life with fewer possessions will probably leave us happier than a complex life with more. Clarity and understanding are more helpful than constant stimulation and entertainment. And generosity and compassion accord with the truth that we are deeply connected to others and therefore bring more satisfaction than selfishly pursuing our own concerns.
The Wellbeing Agenda is encouraging because it suggests that we can take the initiative in creating our happiness. But that inevitably raises fundamental questions about what happiness really is and how it comes into being. That’s where Buddhist insights into experience and Buddhist practices for changing the mind, can help. The issue for Buddhism isn’t how we can make ourselves happy, but how we can live in accordance with reality so that happiness naturally arises.
Hi Viśvapāṇi
You say “Everything we experience, it says, is impermanent and constantly changing.”
Yes, but so what? Heraclitus knew this too. It has been a constant feature of the Western intellectual tradition since Classical times, to observe that “everything changes”. With what result?
The Pāli texts make a slightly different point which is that it is your *experience itself* which is impermanent and constantly changing. In fact “the Buddha” never applies paṭicca-smuppāda to objects (with a single minor exception that doesn’t really affect the argument). What arises and passes away, according to the seldom quoted concluding stanza of the Chariot Simile (SN 5:10; PTS S i.136), is only dukkha. Sue Hamilton shows that dukkha equates with all experience prior to bodhi. Objects don’t come into it. At least not until after the Abhidharmikas became interested in ontological questions and start treating dharmas as objects.
The Buddhist teaching is not focussed on objects, but on what it calls mental (including cognitive and affective) processes. So when you say “That’s true of our possessions, our relationships and our bodies” in a way it’s beside the point. What’s imporant, in the early textual tradition at least, is that it is true of our moment to moment experience whatever the object which stimiulates the arising. And, crucially, it is true even when the object itself does not perceptibly change (which is quite a lot of the time).
In conversation with Nāgabodhi I gather that this point of view is quite consistent with the MBSR approach to well-being.
When you say happiness is about “how we can live in accordance with reality so that happiness naturally arises” I’m not sure what you mean by “reality” (though I’m pleased at least to see that you do not capitalise it). If by reality you mean the observation of Heraclitus, I have to say that it did not exactly transform Western society. If we are talking about experience (as a dependent construct) then in what sense does “reality” apply?
Regards
Jayarava
PS the font colour in the comments area is such a light grey that they are practically unreadable! I had to write this in Notepad and paste it in. Please consider using a higher contrast colour.
Hi Jayarava,
You are quite correct. I meant the phrase ‘everything we experience’ to mean, ‘experience’, a point which I also learned from Ms Hamilton, though perhaps that’s a bit subtle for breakfast radio. By reality I mean the dhammas which are marked by the three lakkhanas, and yes I understand that dhammas are mental events! I guess the value of speaking of reality here is that it has a colloquial meaning and also a canonical one: ‘things as they really are’ = reality, though I guess it risks substantialism, if that’s the word.
I’m not sure how to change the font, but I’ll investigate.
Vishvapani
I thoroughly enjoy All of your articles, and postins on FaceBook. I am a true fan, and a true brother in the Dharma, ~aka Dharma Mitra Jeff Stefani, a Long-time ‘GFR-Mitra,’ from the US. And now, the Trirantna Buddhist Community: Detroit-Royal Oak, Michigan, USA