Hi Everybody,
There's one important issue that we haven't yet touched upon in this discussion about happiness or well-being...and it's to do with money!! I really deal with this involved and controversial issue which stirs up so much emotional response, in Chapter 11, but we can't leave this happiness discussion without at least touching upon the immense importance most of us attach to the role of money in any picture of happiness we paint for ourselves. It's bound to crop up before long in any modern discussion of what constitutes well-being. You simply can't escape it. And if Buddhism is daily life, what does Buddhism have to say about it, to help us deal with it? And what kind of additional insights can the social scientists provide us with?
Edward Diener for example, from the University of Illionois, psychologist and eminent researcher in this field is one among many who has written about the materialist dead end, or what he calls the downside of today's vastly greater affluence. And there has been a huge amount of research that identifies two key ways in which this has a profound effect in diminishing our sense of well-being, both of which I suggest could sit comfortably in the middle of a Buddhist commentary about the suffering that can come from just wanting things.
On eis that there is just so much to be hungered after in our modern society, so much more on display in glossy showrooms and shopping malls and supermarkets and so on, that it has become a powerful external cause of inner discontent. It's a bit like all those sweets and chocolates on display at the checkout queue that can cause children to kick up so much fuss. The want them because they can see them, and can't understand why they can't have them. In very much the same way people can experience a real sense of loss and deprivation and frustration because they can't possess, can't carry away more of the stuff that is on display. In no way is it difficult to empathise with that situation. It rings absolutely true. Most of us have been there to some degree.
The second is related to the vast wave of media of all sorts that washes over all our lives these days. So we are all constantly being called upon to measure ourselves, who we are and what we have, against an endless procession of supposed role models on film and television and in countless lifestyle magazines, who are presented as being highly successful, and vastly better off, and therefore by implication...happier!
The equation seems to go wholly unquestioned, success equals wealth equals happiness. although of course we all know intellectually that is sheer nonsens, there is no such simple connection, or indeed any connection at all. But emotionally, it gets to us.
And that of course is precisely the way the modern advertising and marketing machine goes to work, playing with immense skill on our natural human tendency to compare ourselves with others, and therefore focus on what we haven't got, as opposed to all that we have.
That is to say it is another immensely powerful external cause of inner discontent.
Once again, it's clear that Nichiren Daishonin was acutely aware of exactly the same human weakness, in one of his letters written all those years ago, when he highlights the futility, and of course the intense suffering, that can come from that kind of constant itch to compare;
' For example ' he writes, 'a poor man cannot earn a penny, just by counting his neighbour's wealth, even if he does so night and day.'
But that having been said, we can't just blank it all out can we? The range of material possessions has never been greater, and with the constant global reach of film and television and the internet, the circle of comparison into which we are drawn is virtually unlimited. The consequent potential for what we might call induced dissatisfaction with our own lot is even greater. And it's important to note that it isn't simply a matter of envy. Not at all.
The psychologists tell us that it is both deeper and more insidious than that. If we can't achieve these sorts of symbols of success we tell ourselves, then what's wrong with us?We persuade ourselves that we are in some measure a failure, and since in this equation, success is what brings happiness, then clearly we just don't have what it takes to be truly happy.
Positive psychology has even coined a phrase to describe this downward spiral into which it is all too easy for us to be drawn. It's called ' reference anxiety,' the emotional burden if you like, of constantly trying to keep up with the material wealth we perceive so many other people as having...but not ourselves. We have allowed who we are if you like, to somehow become synnymous with what we have!'
Enough for today I think. That sets the scene. Next time we ask the question what does Buddhism have to say to help us rebalance ourselves in the face of this constant materialist onslaught, and the really important effect in our daily lives of something the psychologists call hedonic adaptation.
See you then.
Best wishes,
William
The Case For Buddhism is available on Amazon
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