What Is Happiness?

The way in which we define happiness will govern our life. If we think that happiness is dependent, then we’re relying on conditions which are, by reason, temporary.

If there is conditional happiness, there must be unconditional happiness.
True happiness is being free of conditions, and that is clarity without fixations or obsessions.

We live in a complex mess, and we put up with this complex unhappy-mess with its bits of excitement that occur and disappear, and go looking for more of the same. This is addictive behaviour.

Spiritual retreats can be like that – we feel we have to go ‘somewhere’ to find peace. We can’t escape this world of conditions, but we can realise the natural peace within, anywhere. The worse the situation, the better, as it tests our stability.

The path to enlightenment is the middle way
– the balance between
the extreme suffering of the lower realms
and the extreme pleasure of the higher realms.

We can either follow others’ unhappiness,
or learn from them.