Hi Everybody,
I can't remember an autumn as beautiful as this one. My run through the woods in the morning with Gatsby is just a joy with this wonderful backdrop of reds and yellows and browns all around, and the ground carpeted in golden leaves. I think its because its been so dry and so still, so that the leaves are still largely on the trees instead of being soggy piles on the ground. Gatsby's not interested in the colours. His focus is entirely on the squirrel population!
OK so we've just started the chapter on Buddhism and Happiness. , and one of the fundamental qualities that we might argue, sets Buddhism so clearly apart is that it presents itself right from the start as being about ordinary people attaining happiness in this lifetime. Not happiness in some heaven 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 or situation has been achieved, or this or that obstacle has been removed.
And that word ' when' is important too. 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 that happiness we seek. It becomes if you like a self-imposed barrier to moving to a better place.
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 establish in our lives 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 golden times, but at any time. Mo matter how challenging and disturbing the vicissitudes and circumstances of our life may be.
That is of course a huge and potentially life-changing idea, but it is also so unusual, so counter-intuitive, that it 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 very 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 much later that I came to learn that this same promise, this same perception if you like, which is utterly central to Buddhist belief, is echoed in the work of many of today's sociologists. Martin Seligman for example, Professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University, and one of the founding fathers of the growing school of positive psychologists,;
'Optimism is a learned skill. Once learned it increases achievement at work and improves physical health.'
That's a crucial point that 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 it serves to enhance and improve the entire spectrum of our lives, at work and at play.
Enough for today.
Hope it all adds up for you.
See you next time.
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon as a paperback and on Kindle as a download.
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