The purpose of this article is to point at lasting joy. To get there, we have cover some uncomfortable spots, so please stay tuned to the end if you want the good news.
Life is full of ups and downs. On a day to day basis you may experience peaks and troughs of feelings like pain and pleasure, good moods and bad moods, which often depend on what appears to us through the senses. Maybe you get up for breakfast and find out that you are out of milk. Bummer. Then you look out the window and see a blue jay on the window sill. Look! A blue jay! You might say out loud with excitement. Cool! You get an hour to go to yoga which you really need, but when you show up the yoga teacher you like is away. That day you might be on your way to a wonderful wedding or a maybe a funeral. All on life's appearances whether big or small seem to have an effect on us. This is an alternating joy and pain, in big and small ways, which is totally dependent on our habitual thinking and how we mix that habitual thinking with the unpredictable series of events which appear to us.
Whether you are getting that new great job, or getting fired, whether you are getting that fudge oat bar you love or spilling coffee on your new pants, when we look outside ourselves for happiness we are at the mercy of a never ending stream or changing appearances. As well, we may also be trying to ignore some uncomfortable truths such as the fact that no matter what kind of life and world we construct for ourselves on the outside, it all eventually comes to an end. All things change and even our body is impermanent. When I look at how we busy ourselves with technology and entertainment I often wonder if it is all done just so that we can ignore this un-examined area called impermanence and death. We are very busy doing something that is for sure. Yet, where is it getting us?
Most spiritual traditions have a way of pointing this out. The Buddha's first teaching was suffering. He taught four noble truths and the first one is the truth of suffering or dukha in sanskrit. Yet the Buddha also taught that this kind of suffering is not necessary and that we can actually discover lasting joy.
So if joy is not something that we can attain at the whim of appearances and habitual patterns, then how do we attain it? And how is that possible? Well you could look at some simple logic and say "Duh, then don't be at the whim of appearance and habitual patterns?" Certainly, that is part of the picture and this is way easier said than done. The mindfulness traditions also point to the basic nature of mind itself as a key part of the solution. The "experiencer" of temporary joy and pain is the mind. So the key point here is to bring the mind to the path of training and awakening. Mind becomes the main tool we use to free ourselves from our confused relationship with appearances and our addiction to self-defeating habitual patterns. Not only that, but mind is also the source of happiness itself, once we are able to see its true nature. The actual deeper nature of this experiencer is quite joyful. This kind of joy is independent of any pattern or appearance. The mind in its ordinary state is peaceful, kind, at ease and happy. So looking to mind as the source of lasting happiness is the recommendation here. You could say it is another hypothesis we need to test. If you have tried all the promises from external sources only to see there is something fishy going on and that lasting happiness based on a sand castle is not realistic, then you might be ready for an alternative. That alternative is within your own being.
So in the next post I will be talking about how to get started with training the mind and recognizing the true nature of mind.
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