Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

Matthieu Ricard

Language: English

Pages: 304

ISBN: 0316167258

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


A molecular biologist turned Buddhist monk, described by scientists as "the happiest man alive," demonstrates how to develop the inner conditions for true happiness.

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It all depends on how it is experienced. If it is tainted with grasping and impedes inner freedom, giving rise to avidity and dependence, it is an obstacle to happiness. On the other hand, if it is experienced in the present moment, in a state of inner peace and freedom, pleasure adorns happiness without overshadowing it. HAPPINESS AND JOY The difference between joy and happiness is more subtle. Genuine happiness radiates outward spontaneously as joy. Inner joy is not necessarily manifested

the world. AN ARTIFICIAL HIGH We might imagine that achieving sudden fame or sudden wealth would satisfy all our desires, but more often than not the satisfaction provided by such achievements is short-lived and does nothing to improve our well-being. I met a famous Taiwanese singer who, having described her discomfort and disenchantment with fame and fortune, burst into tears, crying: “I wish I’d never become famous!” Studies have shown that an unexpected situation—winning the lottery

come to this awareness, you still have gradually to familiarize yourself with each antidote—loving-kindness as antidote to hatred, for instance—until the absence of hatred becomes second nature. The Tibetan word gom, which is usually translated as “meditation,” more precisely denotes “familiarization,” while the Sanskrit word bhavana, also translated as “meditation,” means “cultivation.” Indeed, meditation is not about sitting quietly in the shade of a tree and relaxing in a moment of respite

only to be actualized. But that doesn’t happen by itself. Milk is the source of butter, but it won’t make any if we simply leave it to its own devices; we have to churn it. The qualities of enlightenment are revealed through transformation at the far end of the spiritual path. The fact is, each stage is a step toward fulfillment and profound satisfaction. The spiritual journey is like traveling from one valley to another—beyond each pass lies a landscape more magnificent than the one behind it.

text) CHAPTER 13: ENVY 1. Swami Prajnanpad, Lettres à ses disciples, vol. 3, La Vérité du bonheur (Paris: L’Originel, 1990). (back to text) CHAPTER 14: THE GREAT LEAP TO FREEDOM 1. A. Comte-Sponville, Petit traité des grandes vertus (Paris: PUF, 1995). (back to text) CHAPTER 15: A SOCIOLOGY OF HAPPINESS Epigraph: Daniel Kahneman, “Objective Happiness,” in Kahneman, Diener, and Schwarz, eds., Well-Being. 1. Ruut Veenhoven, for example, has inventoried and compared no fewer than

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