Jeff wrote:
> >Just food for thought : )
>
> munch <grin>. Sharing is the goal.. not agreeing.
> We can not be sure how a bite tastes to someone else,
> but we can munch together.
And you, Jeff, are a good cook, often coming up with some tasty tidbits.
In the spirit of sharing . . .
> I'll add my view to your [Eric's] summary. It uses slightly
> different words, but may be the same ideas. These
> words become tricky when we try to talk about subjects
> involving feelings and unknowns.
My summary was the impression I got when I read your post. Since my views
on the subject are different (from the book, my summary and your views),
I'll add them below. I'm sorry, I don't have Jeff's gift of brevity ; )
In general my impression of the outline in your original post was not very
good, as was probably obvious from the way I chose to summarize the
outline. It seemed too negative and resigned to suffering for my taste.
>From what I know of Buddhism, and Zen in particular, there is the idea that
this world is virtually just illusion and not a particularly nice place;
one should strive to rise above the earthly temptations, suffering and
mental illusions to an enlightened state of being. Assuming I'm not
totally off the mark here (which is entirely possible), and knowing that
you, Jeff, are interested in Buddhism, I think I can see what the ideas in
the book are saying to you.
> >We do not know what happiness is.
>
> Knowledge about happiness is growing
> but still incomplete.
We know a lot about happiness, but it is different for each of us, and so
difficult to discuss. I'm not sure that, collectively, _we_ know any more
about happiness than the people of any other time or place. Perhaps
happiness is not something that can be defined by a group, at least not in
detail.
> >We look in the wrong places.
>
> A majority of us make assumptions about
> happiness which do not match the world
> very well. It is possible that one does
> not look for "happiness" and the act of
> looking gets in the way of our contentment.
We each know what makes us happy, but we're not often aware of this
knowledge. Most people have some trouble defining or describing happiness
for themselves or listing the things that lead them to happiness. We often
are too willing to take someone else's list or description. This, I think,
is the source of much misguided effort.
> >There never was a time when people were happy.
>
> Happiness is a relative term and satisfaction
> with life has gone through cycles. At no time
> did any culture capture happiness or remove
> suffering.
At almost all times and in almost all places there has probably been _some_
people who would describe themselves, or be described, as happy. It is not
impossible to achieve, but again conscious knowledge and understanding of
it has probably always been on the weak side.
> >There never will be a time when people are happy.
>
> The future does not appear to hold any sudden
> breakthroughs in understanding happiness, and it
> doesn't matter. The present is where feelings
> exist (happiness is a feeling?) so we should not
> focus on the future.
Again, there will always be _some_ people who are happy. I don't think
there is much sense in talking about happiness as a characteristic of a
society; it seems too individual. Understanding happiness is probably not
a prerequisite to experience happiness; although perhaps a conscious
knowledge of how happiness occurs in one's life might be very helpful
toward increasing it. Perhaps over time people can accumulate some kind of
knowledge that will help other people recognize the sources and types of
happiness in their own lives. Such knowledge may have be found and lost
many times over the centuries.
> >There never was a time when people understood happiness.
>
> Our understanding of happiness has gone through cycles
> and has never been complete.
I'm sure some people have understood it, at least well enough to make it
flourish in their own lives, and perhaps the lives of others. (And perhaps
that is enough.) I'm sure there are people like that around me, too. I
feel I could get in touch with my own knowledge of happiness if I put some
time and energy into it. The fact that I don't or haven't, very much,
means that I don't value it as much as the other things I spend my time
doing. This is curious, but seems true.
> >There never will be a time when people will understand happiness.
>
> Our future understanding of happiness does not look
> very likely. It is a vague term and possibly we
> need a new concept or definition to work with.
Again, as a society, I have doubts that it could be meaningfully
"understood". On an individual level, I'm positive people can, and some
do, understand it. If it were to become more of a priority for a society,
I would expect to see more people consciously able to make happiness
flourish in their lives. I don't see that past, present and future have
much to do with happiness, except if some general observations were to be
recorded for people of later times to use in their own understanding of
happiness. This is done to some degree through books, etc.
> >We shouldn't expect our lives to be very happy.
>
> Yes, we can open doors for happiness/contentment
> to enter, but "expecting" it to enter does not
> help.
We can reasonably expect our lives to be _happier_ if we make an attempt to
become conscious of its sources, roles and effects in our lives, and make
an effort to increase "habitat for happiness". Unreasonable expectations
like getting something for nothing, or getting more because you want it, or
getting a lot for a little, etc. are another matter entirely.
> >We can learn to be content.
>
> Yes, we have a better handle on the concept of
> contentment.
We _can_ learn to be content, and it is often easier to achieve than
happiness. I also think, though, that being content with contentment can
also be a way for some to avoid the effort and exploration involved in
finding happiness, or many other things for that matter. In other words,
it can be a sophisticated rationalization for laziness or underachievement.
By that I'm not standing up for the work ethic or anything like that. I
just think that humans, as witnessed by watching young children, are
innately curious and ravenous learners. On the other hand, some
overachievers could stand to learn to find some contentment. The point I
set out to make was that I think it is not necessary to convince ourselves
that we should _settle_ for contentment thinking happiness too elusive.
Happiness is all around us and obtainable.
> >We will be content if we learn to accept less.
>
> Expecting and accepting less from others and from
> the earth is part of the path to contentment, but
> not the whole path.
Our society could use a dose of accepting less and being content and
understanding "enough", but that's a different topic : ) Learning to be
content has more to do with accepting what _is_ than accepting less.
Sometimes, what _is_ is more than we thought possible!
> >There are a lot of wonderful things that we can choose to enjoy.
>
> Yes, most of us ignore and take for granted the gifts of
> life. Also, much of life requires education or action
> to extract enjoyment from.
I can't add much to the above on this. "Choosing" requires awareness and
some understanding of how it works in order to manifest it in one's life.
Education and action are therefore important.
> >They are things our culture doesn't emphasize or value much.
>
> Yes
This seems true; I wonder why we don't value happiness? Pessimistically, I
can see that contentment is not good for the economy. Perhaps a
fascination of the "new and improved" is a stringer social force.
> Yes, we should not be passive and helpless when it comes to living.
> I would add a small ZEN twist in here. Looking for answers that do
> not exist may be a problem. Life may always have smoke and
> mirrors, and it is the choosing of which questions to ask
> that is a key. One of my suspicions is that defining happiness
> or looking for perfect answers may be a dead end.
>
> Also, i'm not sure the answers are that easy to see. At least
> they have not been for me.
I agree that defining happiness is not necessary to experience it or
increase it. I suppose it is necessary if a group of people proposes to
talk about it. Perhaps on a more general level there is some benefit in
discussing personal experience with happiness and encouraging it to
flourish in one's life. But being such an individual matter, we can only
hope to have meaning on that general level.
So, here are my definitions (as of this moment and off the cuff, so to speak):
Happiness is a general feeling of well being, including and/or overlapping
with feelings such as contentment, inspiration, belonging, purposefulness,
love and joy.
Contentment is a deep acceptance of the way things are, without expectation
or judgement.
Bon Appetite!
Eric Storm
