Hi Everybody,
Almost everybody I've spoken to over the past couple of days seems to feel a genuine low-level anxiety over the election of Mr Trump. Well perhaps not so low-level!! One very balanced very mature professional guy actually used the word ' terrifying.'And to be fair there would seem quite a bit to be fearful about if we take his own words at face value, as to what he is hell bent on doing once he gets in office. I've increased my morning daimoku substantially to lift me over this low point. It's remarkable how much it helps in thinking through to a more positive outlook on the day. Which takes us neatly through to today's topic, Buddhism and Hapiness. Last week we ended on a brilliant quote from psychologist Martin Seligman,
' Optimism is a learned skill and once learned it increases achievement at work and improves physical health. ' Brilliant.
Another psychologist and writer, Daniel Goleman makes a similar point,
'Optimism 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, we have a clear choice. If it so happens that we have built the absence of hope into our lives up till now, or even pessimism and despair, once we become fully self-aware of that situation, we can learn how to replace those negative life states with optimism and hope. That is a powerful modern confirmation of the proposition that Buddhism has always presented to us. A Buddhist practice is entirely about building a wholly capable who can do precisely what Goleman is talking about, having the courage and the resilience to meet ' those challenges as they come up,' rather than being knocked down or disabled by them.
So Buddhism, with it's essential humanism and its focus on the power of the human spirit sets out to define greater happiness for oneself and others as the fundamental objective of human life. Not in some after life, but in the here and now. And as I write that, after many years of Buddhist practice, I am intensely aware of just how bold and uncompromising and value-creating that is as a vision of life. No if's and but's and maybe's. That it says is what we are seeking. And it's all the more remarkable in that it was set out all those years ago when life was considerably rougher and tougher and certainly less forgiving than it is now.
And once again the extraordinary thing is just how closely that principle accords with the views of today's evolutionary biologists and positive psychologists who argue, strictly on the basis of their research that the quest for happiness is the ultimate motivational force in life. What does ' ultimate ' mean in this context? It means that it doesn't require any further definition. It speaks for itself. We may initially express it to ourselves in other terms; we want to be healthy for example, or have better relationships, or a better job, or achieve a qualification and many other items of desire that we might list, but all those items are only important in the sense that they contribute to our happiness. They are stepping stones if you like on the way to our ultimate goal.
Nuff said for today.
Best wishes,
William
PS The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon and as a download on Kindle.
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