Cultivating Happiness, Here and Now(Spring Flowers)

Cultivating Happiness, Here and Now

Discussion date: Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at our weekly Thursday evening practice

Dear Still Water Friends,

This spring I began an experiment to see how I could cultivate happiness during those cold, rainy days, weeks, and months of March, April, and May. It wasn’t as easy as I expected it to be. Although I found many ways to water seeds of happiness, freedom, and solidity in myself and others, I also discovered how difficult it could be to shift my awareness to joy when I was in the midst of feeling sad or anxious.

Thich Nhat Hanh tells us we can cultivate happiness while learning how to “suffer well,” which not only transforms our own lives, but enables us to support others in nurturing their happiness, too:

We all want to be happy and there are many books and teachers in the world that try to help people be happier. Yet we all continue to suffer.

Therefore, we may think that we’re “doing it wrong.” Somehow we are “failing at happiness.” That isn’t true. Being able to enjoy happiness doesn’t require that we have zero suffering. In fact, the art of happiness is also the art of suffering well. When we learn to acknowledge, embrace, and understand our suffering, we suffer much less. Not only that, but we’re also able to go further and transform our suffering into understanding, compassion, and joy for ourselves and for others.

One of the most difficult things for us to accept is that there is no realm where there’s only happiness and there’s no suffering. This doesn’t mean that we should despair. Suffering can be transformed. As soon as we open our mouth to say “suffering,” we know that the opposite of suffering is already there as well. Where there is suffering, there is happiness.

According to the creation story in the biblical book of Genesis, God said, “Let there be light.” I like to imagine that light replied, saying, “God, I have to wait for my twin brother, darkness, to be with me. I can’t be there without the darkness.” God asked, “Why do you need to wait? Darkness is there.” Light answered, “In that case, then I am also already there.”

If we focus exclusively on pursuing happiness, we may regard suffering as something to be ignored or resisted. We think of it as something that gets in the way of happiness. But the art of happiness is also the art of knowing how to suffer well. If we know how to use our suffering, we can transform it and suffer much less. Knowing how to suffer well is essential to realizing true happiness.

Do you sometimes wonder if you are “failing at happiness”? Or are you also challenged (as I was this spring) to sustain the experience of joy when it does arise?

This Thursday, I’ll present five practices Thay has offered to nurture happiness and transform suffering. Afterward we will share whatever touched us about these practices. In addition to the quote above taken from an article by Thay published in The Lion’s Roar earlier this year, I’m offering below another excerpt from that article about the role suffering well plays in creating happiness. I hope you’ll find these previews intriguing and that you’ll join me on June 16th to explore cultivating happiness, here and now.

Lynd Morris


 Excerpts from “Five Practices for Nurturing Happiness” by Thich Nhat Hanh, published in The Lion’s Roar, January 2016

Healing Medicine

The main affliction of our modern civilization is that we don’t know how to handle the suffering inside us and we try to cover it up with all kinds of consumption. Retailers peddle a plethora of devices to help us cover up the suffering inside. But unless and until we’re able to face our suffering, we can’t be present and available to life, and happiness will continue to elude us.

There are many people who have enormous suffering, and don’t know how to handle it. For many people, it starts at a very young age. So why don’t schools teach our young people the way to manage suffering? If a student is very unhappy, he can’t concentrate and he can’t learn. The suffering of each of us affects others. The more we learn about the art of suffering well, the less suffering there will be in the world.

Mindfulness is the best way to be with our suffering without being overwhelmed by it. Mindfulness is the capacity to dwell in the present moment, to know what’s happening in the here and now. For example, when we’re lifting our two arms, we’re conscious of the fact that we’re lifting our arms. Our mind is with our lifting of our arms, and we don’t think about the past or the future, because lifting our arms is what’s happening in the present moment.

To be mindful means to be aware. It’s the energy that knows what is happening in the present moment. Lifting our arms and knowing that we’re lifting our arms—that’s mindfulness, mindfulness of our action. When we breathe in and we know we’re breathing in, that’s mindfulness. When we make a step and we know that the steps are taking place, we are mindful of the steps. Mindfulness is always mindfulness of something. It’s the energy that helps us be aware of what is happening right now and right here—in our body, in our feelings, in our perceptions, and around us.

With mindfulness, you can recognize the presence of the suffering in you and in the world. And it’s with that same energy that you tenderly embrace the suffering. By being aware of your in-breath and out-breath you generate the energy of mindfulness, so you can continue to cradle the suffering. Practitioners of mindfulness can help and support each other in recognizing, embracing, and transforming suffering. With mindfulness we are no longer afraid of pain. We can even go further and make good use of suffering to generate the energy of understanding and compassion that heals us and we can help others to heal and be happy as well.

Generating Mindfulness

The way we start producing the medicine of mindfulness is by stopping and taking a conscious breath, giving our complete attention to our in-breath and our out-breath. When we stop and take a breath in this way, we unite body and mind and come back home to ourselves. We feel our bodies more fully. We are truly alive only when the mind is with the body. The great news is that oneness of body and mind can be realized just by one in-breath. Maybe we have not been kind enough to our body for some time. Recognizing the tension, the pain, the stress in our body, we can bathe it in our mindful awareness, and that is the beginning of healing.

If we take care of the suffering inside us, we have more clarity, energy, and strength to help address the suffering of our loved ones, as well as the suffering in our community and the world. If, however, we are preoccupied with the fear and despair in us, we can’t help remove the suffering of others. There is an art to suffering well. If we know how to take care of our suffering, we not only suffer much, much less, we also create more happiness around us and in the world.

in: Dharma Topics
Discussion Date: Thu, Jun 16, 2016


Share:

This week
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Sun, February 5 Mon, February 6

Silver Spring Morning Meditation

Friends in Different Places

Tue, February 7

Takoma Park Morning Meditation

Tuesday Evening Gaithersburg Group

Wed, February 8

Silver Spring Morning Meditation

Spanish-Speaking Online Practice

Still Water Kent Island

Thu, February 9

Takoma Park Morning Meditation

Fri, February 10

Silver Spring Morning Meditation

Sat, February 11