Behind The Mask ~ BEYOND HAPPINESS
Someone
once asked me if I am happier as a monk than I was
before. What prompted this question I don’t
know, but I considered it for a few moments before
answering: "No, I’m not", and went
on to explain that, before, I was ignorant about ignorance,
and so could be somewhat happy. But now that I’m
aware of ignorance, and of how deep and strong it
is—both in myself and in the world around me—how
can I be happy? Happiness rooted in ignorance is false
happiness, an illusion.
Some words of an old Beatles’ song—Strawberry
Fields Forever—say pretty well what I’m
trying to say here: "Living is easy with eyes
closed, misunderstanding all you see". Before,
I was carefree—or rather, careless—and
stupid, understanding nothing and thinking only of
myself (and not doing a very good job of that, either!)
Fortunately, I didn’t remain like that forever,
as some thing or things happened to wake me up a bit,
to open my eyes and show me that happiness of the
kind I had been concerned with, or had known before,
is not a worthy goal in life—in fact, is not
a goal at all, for, like the horizon which ever-recedes
from us as we move towards it, it cannot be attained,
grasped or possessed, but always slips through our
fingers, leaving us feeling hollow, empty, frustrated
and unsatisfied.
Before anyone gets the idea from my words
that it is therefore better to know nothing and remain
ignorant and be happy than to know something and not
be happy, I should explain that I am not saying that
I am unhappy now, because although sometimes I am
(being this side of enlightenment), sometimes I am
happy, too. However, I know that, because they depend
very much upon circumstances, both happiness and unhappiness
are impermanent, and come and go. I have also found
something more important than personal happiness,
and that is Joy—the Joy of seeing through ignorance,
of seeing through something that binds us all, and
which we all suffer from in various degrees; and,
because it involves us all, seeing through it takes
us beyond the petty concerns of self. My search now
is not just for my own interests, as it was before,
but for humanity’s, because whatever—if
anything—I find of the Good, the Beautiful and
the True, will not be for me alone but for as many
others as I am able to share it with.
Like most people, I feel sad at times (for
reasons known and unknown, no doubt), but when I am
sad, I don’t feel sad about feeling sad, because
I know that, like everything else, it will pass. And
it does, and often in a way that I don’t notice
until later I realize that I’m not sad anymore.
If we make a big thing about sadness, as if it’s
going to last forever, we only prolong it and make
ourselves suffer needlessly. And would you like to
be happy all the time? If you say "Yes, of course",
it is only because you have never thought it through.
Forget about personal happiness, as far
as possible, and find Joy instead; it is a much more
refined and spiritual quality than happiness. If we
were happy all the time, we wouldn’t be happy
for long but would soon become bored and find it monotonous.
It would be like having our favorite food for every
meal, day in and day out, with nothing else; we would
soon get fed-up with it and wish for something else,
would we not? Our lives need variety, so that we have
a basis for comparison. Sadness can be seen to have
a positive aspect, as it gives meaning to happiness,
and helps us to appreciate it, which it would be hard
to do if there were no sadness.
If/when happiness arises, be happy, but
if it doesn’t, don’t be sad and don’t
worry. Constantly thinking about happiness is the
thing most destructive or preventive of happiness.
If/when sadness arises, hold on; it is ultimately
unreal, because it changes. Don’t grasp at either
of these things but understand their nature: how they
arise and pass away. True, you might not soar as high
as you did before—’get high’, so
to speak—but neither will you fall so low. And
it won’t—as you might think—become
boring. In fact, when we see it as it is—impermanent
and ever-changing—it becomes more interesting,
as we can see the interplay of things. It is seen
as boring only when we do not understand it and think
that things are ‘always the same’.
It is not uncommon to find that life seems
to get harder when we follow a spiritual way. But
perhaps this should be expected, as we have assumed
responsibility for our lives, and can no longer turn
away and pretend we don’t see. If things are
unfolding as they should, however, this is not the
only thing we find; at the same time, we grow correspondingly
stronger, and able not only to carry our own burdens
of life, but also to reach out to help others who
might be struggling under theirs. It is not just for
ourselves that we live, therefore, but for the community
that we call the World. |