Is Happiness enough?

Aged 85, Ken continues to tour and bring genuine happiness and joy to the world after nearly 60 years in showbiz.
He still holds the Guinness World record for the worlds longest ever joke-telling session at a show in the 1960's-
1500 gags in 3 and a half HOURS - 7.12 a minute... Thats a LOT of happiness! Thanks you Ken!

It's quite hard to start an article about something as universally desirable, elusive and individualistic as happiness when, in and off itself, it's almost impossible to define. Ask twenty people and you would offered twenty different answers as to what it means to each person, each one valid. I'm unhappy with the start of this article, but there you go, it's done, no turning back now... Just got to let go and move on. It's all rather difficult and perplexing. I sincerely believe that the quest for happiness is the one unifying factor that binds me to and puts me on a level pegging with each and every one of the seven billion or so other people on the planet. All of the animal kingdom too in fact, on land, in the sea and in the air, in it's immense breadth and depth, "red in tooth and claw". This seems quite a novel thought, and often strikes me when commuting to work, watching the news or simply sat in a public area with little to do but observe and reflect. Whats more, I firmly believe that all life on earth wishes to move towards happiness and away from suffering. Even if you wanted to question whether animals have the capacity to experience "happiness", they almost certainly wish to continue to move towards contentment and away from malaise. There are a few notable exceptions such as invertebrates that get eaten as part of their species' mating ritual and subsequent intercourse (what a way to go!), but even in these cases, by and large all life on earth wishes to avoid suffering and migrate towards pleasure, contentment, and happiness, however loosely you wish to term it.  Sado-masochists gain pleasure from their own mental suffering or physical pain, and most people with long term mental health issues, such as Anhedonia (the inability to experience pleasure) do not actively wish life-long suffering upon themselves as preferable to it's cessation. I myself have gone to some pretty dark places over the years, as have many others, and phrases such as "death's sweet kiss" and "the sweet release of death" are common place in our modern vernacular to the point of not even raising an eyebrow. All this to me suggests that, consciously or otherwise, all life on earth wishes to avoid suffering, and works towards the end of it. In the history of humanity, these have been the holy grail of human endeavours: what is happiness, and how do we bring about the end of suffering?

Happiness, on the most straightforward level, is an emotion, a subjective sense of ease and well-being that can be seen to indicate how well an individual feels that their life is going at any given moment. It can also be used to denote our chronic or habitual levels of positivity therein. As the greek philosopher Aristotle once said, "What constitutes happiness is a matter of dispute", and I only write on the subject with that caveat/disclaimer firmly established. These are just my thoughts and reflections, and please don't take it as given that I think I can speak for everyone in the world. I clearly can't, thank heavens! Essentially though, I see "happiness" as something that everybody hopes to achieve, but few have any real ideas as to how to define. Surely it is only when we are able to pull apart terms such as "happiness" and "suffering" that they begin to start to take shape in our minds. If we can begin to understand the flavour of the happiness that we seek, then our attempt to use it in the emotional kitchen of our lives will fare much better, perhaps?

"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace"

So how to define these terms? In the context of Buddhism, suffering, anxiety and discontentment is known collectively speaking as "Dukkha", and its emotional counterpart, as "Sukkha", suggestive of "ease", "comfort" or "pleasure". Etymologically speaking, these words fascinate me, originating as that do from an ancient Indian language called Pali, spoken approximately 2,300 years ago. "Sukkha" and "Dukkha" were originally words which referred the the axle-hole on a cart or chariot upon which the wheels were dependant, "su" meaning good, "du" meaning poor and "kha" meaning "aperture" or "hole". A poorly fitted set of wheels on a cart or chariot makes for a rather uncomfortable journey and to this day phrases such as 'running smoothly" and "having a rough ride of it" take there origins from this and are still commonplace in modern English today. Thus we can say that in Buddhist terms, Dukkha and Sukkha are that which will directly affect how we experience our own journey through life. Dukkha itself, traditionally speaking, is then categorised into three increasingly subtle levels: the basic suffering of ordinary life (physical discomfort and pain of accidents, illness, old age and death etc), the inner suffering and anxiety of change (trying to hold onto things in an ever-changing world) and finally the suffering of conditionally dependant human existence (the level upon which things in life never seem to make us lastingly happy or match our expectations).

Dukkha... Much like one's own stupidity, is all pervasive, multi-faceted,
and resistance to which is futility itself...

Quite often, alongside sudden trauma or devastating loss, it is this intolerably neutral itch that cannot be scratched, this gaping vacuum in our hearts that can never be filled that leads people to depression, excessive drinking or recreational drug-taking and tragically in some cases even suicide. The truth of the matter is of course that there is nothing in and of this world can irreversibly and permanently fill this hole. Happiness and contentment cannot be purchased, cannot be carved in stone forever more. No marriage, career, item or idea is going to in and of itself take us to a place of lasting bliss and pleasure. We cannot rely on external factors to "make us happy". Everything in this world is impermanent, and subject to change. Everything in this world is made up of a composite in nature, including us. Things are made of parts and those parts themselves don't last either. There is no "job" - it is a series of circumstances and factors including the location, the commute, the colleagues, the work, the salary, your prospects and potential for growth there, how it is viewed by your peers (favourably or otherwise), the satisfaction you get from it... the list is endless. Because these various factors are constantly changing too, we can see that all things in this world will become an eventual cause of frustration or at the very least fail my make us permanently happy, now and forevermore. Nothing on earth will stop us getting old, sick and eventually dying, This is not pessimistic, this is just the way life really is. There is nothing new to get upset abut here, nothing you don't already know. That's not to say that life is a thankless, joyless experience from which there is no pleasure to be gained. Clearly there is. Its just that if we are solely reliant on our sensory experiences, as fleeting and temporary as they are, then we will find ourselves like the greyhounds at a race track, perpetually trying to catch the mechanical rabbit. I despise adverts that show implausibly attractive, tanned, athletic young people with the latest waistline, designer watch, drink or car, laughing with their friends and having the most unassailably jolly time as a result of it all. I firmly believe that these ethically repugnant adverts set up unrealistic expectations for the audience, once more dangling the ungraspable carrot of bogus gratification before us. We can often feel that upon acquiring the right car, job, partner, haircut and home, all at once, then we will be happy. We are conditioned to endlessly and insatiably crave; to desire, to appropriate, and to consume that which promises release from our frustrations, our insecurities and anxieties, but never will. Otherwise, why would we buy anything new ever again? The genuine but temporary enjoyment or high of the drunk, the drug user, the retail therapist and the lover will all eventually turn to dust in the cold light of day. Happiness solely based on pleasure and sensory gratification, therefor, is not for the wise of this world, and will in all likely lead to more frustration and dissatisfaction and suffering. 

Hard to believe that this is the same person after just a few years of crystal meth addiction. It seems implausible, but this all stemmed from the same desire to move from suffering to happiness that we all share. We are her.

What most of us seek is freedom. Political freedom notwithstanding, for most of us in this world there are two types of freedom which we desire. Most of us humans desire freedom OF the senses, the desire to do what we want, when we want, with whomever we want, which we mistakenly chase after and yearn for, often hurting ourselves in the process. However, unbeknownst to the majority, there also there exists the less commonly desired "freedom FROM the senses". Many years ago, I realised that one of the most basic mistakes I habitually make is confusing pleasure/gratification with happiness and contentment. Pleasure, as we have already established, is fleeting. Happiness and contentment seem to me to be more endearing. Pleasure is based on external things, happiness is something we can learn to cultivate from within. Again, I want to stress that the Buddha taught the "middle way" between the two extremes of renunciation and over-indulgence. It's not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with having a smart car, a loving partner, a nice home, good food and sensible levels of recreational toxicity. Its simply that we can't expect them to be a sound basis for a lasting and endearing level of emotional positivity. In the short term, they do indeed make us happy. But is happiness enough?

We all need time to ourselves...
Simplicity can lead to stillness, and like a lake, a still mind will reflect more. 

I've been reflecting a lot about upon happiness vs. contentment. Is it psychologically realistic to be happy all the time? Following my back injury and subsequent chronic sciatica in April this year, I have been forced to ponder this more closely. My choices these days seem manifestly twofold, and no more. I can either be in pain and miserable, or in pain but living with a sense of initiative, purpose and contentment with where my life is heading. "Happiness" to me seemed to be quite a high-energy, excitable word. There is a joyfully effervescent quality to it that is in itself wonderful, but by setting the bar so high for our emotional states to register as "happy", are we setting ourselves up for a fall? Very few people would argue that its impossible to be happy all the time, no matter what life throws at you, but perhaps contentment is the way forward? Happiness seems to me to be unstable and again (like pleasure) over-dependant on external, sensory experience, and like a candle exposed to a draft, is susceptible to sudden bursts of worldly winds. Contentment, serenity, and deeper feelings of inter-connectivity seem to be more stable than either the fleeting rapture of pleasurable experiences, or the unrealistically high expectations that come with "happiness" based on external factors. "Contentment" of course could be abused by those lacking the motivation to want to change, but so long as we try to better ourselves for the benefit of others and to bring awareness to the simpler joys in life, then we can slowly learn to break the endless oscillation between trying to neurotically grasp after what we want or push away against what we don't. Sangharakshita, the founder of the western Buddhist movement (of which my own Manchester Buddhist Centre is a part of) often points out that some sense-based pleasures can indeed have a soothing, expansive effect on the mind, making it more pliable, more flexible, more refined. This newly-refined quality of mind can result in temporarily lifting us out of the prison of our habitual ways of thinking, and can point us to higher, inexpressible truths in life. We can experience an absorption within the moment, a certain tangible stillness, openness and receptivity to the one-ness of it all. The sound of birdsong in the mornings, the warmth of the sun on our necks, the gentle pitter-patter of autumnal rain whilst waiting at a bus stop, the smell of fresh cut grass, the smiles of strangers greeting each other, the gentle reassurance of having just enough food in your belly... A good book, a sunset, a poem, a painting, a hug from a friend, knowing that you just helped a stranger, paying a compliment to someone... The wonder of living in a time where you can read this electronically... A smile... All these gems of our fortuitous circumstances present themselves to us daily, a vast array of simple, fleeting moments on the edges of our awareness, begging to be picked up and held up to the light of our child-like wonder. The trove is full, the jewels that we have so tirelessly and fruitlessly sought after all these years, over countless dusty and arid miles, were right here, all along, sown into the lining of our own jackets!

Being mindful and grateful of the subtle sense of rapture that often runs unnoticed through our experiences
can be a gateway to contentment and lasting serenity.

In life, contentment perhaps is not so much about getting what you want, but learning to want that which you already have. Not so much about asking ourselves "Why am I so infrequently the person that I want to be?" but more interestingly, "why do I so infrequently want to be the person that I am?" Is the pursuit of something as unreliable and elusive as happiness enough of a goal to truly bring meaning to our lives? Contentment and happiness may not the goals of the Buddhist path, freedom is. But they are by-products of living "the good life", as it used to be called. A life well lived, confronting that which befalls us with the grace, equanimity and wisdom to persevere, and still lead an authentically human existence. A life of kindness to others, of generosity, of contentment. An honest life, a loving life, a compassionate life, trying to exemplify the best of us all, pushing onwards, ever onwards, tracing out our never ending arc across the path of the eternally setting sun...

Yours, contentedly, The Dharma Farmer






May any merit gained in my writing thus be dedicated and go to the alleviation of the suffering of all beings.