Hi Everybody,
I'm off to India next week, to visit my beloved daughter Jessica, who works at the moment in Mumbai, with her family, and practices with an incredibly active and lively and colourful group of Indian ladies...and a few men!! As it happens many of them have read either The Reluctant Buddhist or Buddhism and the Science of Happiness so when we go there it is as if they know Sarah and myself already. Last year for example we held a really lively Introduction to Buddhism meeting that didn't want to come to an end. Anyway, since I'll be away for a couple of weeks I thought I might make up the lost time by writing two or three additional episodes before I go. So this is one of them!
So we've started Chapter Four, Buddhism and Happiness, and last time we ended with the comment that I really do think there is a virtue in our being a bit tougher on ourselve, so that we take the time and the trouble to think through more completely the ways in which we use, and perhaps misuse, this ubiquitous word.
' And there are I think, compelling reasons for this. Above all perhaps the fact that if you are even vaguely interested in Buddhism, let alone practice it, you simply can't escape the word. You can't have failed to notice for example the number of times the word happiness has cropped up in the text so far, which mirrors the fact that it occurs a great deal in Buddhist discussions. In fact Buddhists will often say that the fundamental reason for their practice is nothing less than greater happines for themselves and those around them. And if we give that a moment's thought, that too is somewhat surprising, inthe sense that if I were to ask you to go away and search for the word ' happiness' in other religious liturgies, you might never come backl! Why? Because the sinple fact is that we have to search very hard indeed to find the word happiness in those contexts; happiness in the here and now that is, in this life, rather than in some heavenly hereafter. That's a very important distinction. The fact is that most religions don't talk about happiness in this life as having anything to do with the purpose of their existence, or indeed talk about it at all.
Buddhism undoubtedly does, and I hasten to add, that observation I've just made is not in any way a value judgement. Not at all. It is simply, an observation. But it is one of the fundamental qualities that, we might argue, sets Buddhism so clearly apart from other major religions, because it presents itself, right from the start, as being about ordinary people attaining happiness in this life. Not happiness after death. Or in some idealised utopian life space in this world. Or some vision of a pleasant life we might hope to achieve when this or that qualification has been gained, or when this or that obstacle has been removed.
And that word ' when ' is important to. many of us can find ourselves mentally trapped in the prison of the ' when, ' as it has been called by the psychologists; this tendency to persuade ourselves that only when this or that change has taken place, only then we might perhaps achieve the happiness we seek. It becomes if you like a self-imposed barrier to moving to a better place in our lives.
The way Buddhism responds to that situation is to say that we need to recognise the immense power that resides in our freedom of choice. That whether we realise it or not, whether we believe it or not, we have within us all the resources we need to choose, and to establish a stable sense of well-being in our lives. Not when anything has been added or removed, but now. It argues strongly that we can learn, that we can train ourselves, to achieve that goal now. Not just in the good and the golden times, but any time. No matter how challenging and disturbing the vicissitudes and the circumstances of our life may be.
That is of course a huge and potentially life-changing idea, but it is so unusual, so counter-intuitive, tha tit is extremely difficult for most of us to come anywhere near accepting it...when we first encounter it. It just doesn't make sense we say to ourselves. There must be some sort of catch.
It took me personally a long time to learn that there isn't. That the catch is primarily our lack of self-belief, our lack of conviction in ourselves. And it was only later that I learned just how strongly this perception, that is utterly central to Buddhist belief, is echoed in the work of many of today's sociologists.
Martin Seligman for example, illustrious Professor of Psychology at Pennsylvania State University, and one of the founding fathers of the school of positive psychology, in his illuminating book, What you Can Change and What You Can't,
'Optimism ' he writes, 'is alearned skill. Once learned it increases achievement at work and improves physical health.'
That's a crucial point he is making isn't it? It's not just about having a nice warm feeling within. The happiness associated with optimism he is saying, is life-giving.' It serves to enhance and improve our lives at work and at play.
As we've already seen, Daniel Goleman, psychologist and brilliant science writer, says almost exactly the same thing.
' Otimism and hope...like helplessness and despair...can be learned. Underlying both is an outlook psychologists call self-efficacy, the belief that one has mastery over one's life and can meet challenges as they come up.'
So they are saying, as Buddhism has always said, we have a clear choice. If it so happens that we have built the absence of hoipe into our lives up till now, or even pessimism and despair, once we become fully self-aware of that fact, we can learn how to replace those negative life states with optimism and hope.'
As I write that I feel that if this is the one message that people take away from this book...then all the effort of writing it will have been more than worth while.
See you next time.
Keep smiling.
William Woollard
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