“I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness”
the Dalai Lama
The 14th Dalai Lama along with a renowned psychiatrist wrote a book called the ‘Art of Happiness. The psychiatrist has, in this book questioned the Dalai Lama with his topics covering a wide spectrum on the conduct of life.
I always had two conflicts in my mind- what is the purpose of life and what is essential, to live life. What I was seeking, sought me out through this book. Both these questions were answered without any delay, in the first line of the book itself that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. If you ever scrutinize the definition or concept of happiness provided by various spiritual institutes or in various holy books, the commonality of it all is that happiness is not dependent on any extrinsic factors but is to be created intrinsically.
Gradually with the teachings of the Dalai Lama and further important reflections of H. Cutler from the point of view of a psychiatrist, our perceptions are altered through this book.
Sources of happiness
The Dalai Lama expounds on the simplest sources of happiness in life which includes inculcating self-worth in our character, sense of gratitude and elimination of our tendency to compare every aspect of our life with others’.
Every individual ought to make a choice for pleasure or happiness and that shall itself lead the way to happiness in life.
Training the mind for happiness
The Dalai Lama emphasizes on kindness, warmth, and compassion as fundamental character of an individual. Without cultivating those, happiness can be a far-fetched goal. Additionally, he asserts that empathy promotes health. He teaches us to identify and eliminate negative mental states like hatred, anger, intolerance because, such negative states occur with our failure to achieve love and affection.
Hence, we ought to reset our priorities in life with the ultimate aim– ‘happiness’
Relationship
The Dalai Lama clearly states that a relationship built primarily on sexual desire is like a house built on a foundation of ice; as soon as the ice melts, the building collapses. Watching romantic movies, we have learned to idealize love even with the harsh reality of love being complicated in front of us. We must see the real picture, beyond the false representations of the ‘high’ with falling in love because such ‘high’ is just like the high induced by the drug; they will go away with time.
So, in order to make a relationship succeed, we just need the true foundations of mutual respect, compassion and affection.
Suffering
There is an in-built instant aversion and intolerance to suffering in us. We would go to any length to avoid it but will not accept a simple reality that suffering and pain is the underlying state of our existence. In Buddha’s own public teachings, the first thing taught was the principle of the four noble truths, the first of which is the truth of suffering. We often face problems in life but not finding a solution to it and an incessant worry, rejection, or re-enforcement of it creates more suffering and pain.
So, embrace the impermanence of things because life is change, the more we hold on to what was, the more grotesque life becomes.
Conceptually, pain is important to warn of the danger that lies ahead and to be heard, it must be unpleasant!
Bringing about change
Inner- discipline is the keyword to bring about any change in oneself. We should be able to establish new behaviour patterns which do not happen overnight and takes years to develop. Coupled with realistic expectations and positive states of mind in response to any negative state of mind, change can be brought about. With introspection and a little common sense, we can easily find antidotes to any negativity in us. For example, sincere motivation can be an antidote to anxiety, honesty to oneself counteracts lack of self-confidence like love for hate and change is inevitable.
Conclusion
If happiness is what you seek, mould your consciousness in a way that it rejects gloom at any chance and gets into action to seek happiness, whenever possible. Do not wait for a reason to get happy but create a chance to smile wider!
