Matthieu Ricard – Habits of Happiness
Salepage : Matthieu Ricard – Habits of Happiness
We all have a deep down yearning for pleasure and well-being, whether consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, in the short or long term, in everything we do, wish, or imagine.
If you look at the literature of the East and West, you will notice an astonishing range of definitions of happiness. Some people feel that I only believe in remembering the past and picturing the future, never in the present. Some individuals believe that happiness is the quality of the freshness of the current moment.
It is critical to comprehend what happiness is since it determines the quality of every moment of our life. There are many misconceptions about what joy is, which is why, despite our desire for pleasure, we appear to shy away from it. Despite our desire to escape pain, it appears that we are rushing towards it.
Happiness and pleasure are two of the most prevalent. However, if you examine the features of those two, you will notice that pleasure is dependent on time, object, and location. It is something that — natural changes. For example, take chocolate cake: the first serving is exquisite, the second not so good, and we become disgusted. Happiness, or, to put it another way, well-being, is more than just a pleasant experience. It is a profound sense of tranquility and fulfillment, a state that penetrates and underpins all emotional states, as well as all the joys and tragedies that life may bring.
Instead of looking outside for pleasure, we should search within. You don’t need external conditions to be happy, but you do need strong interior conditions through which we see the world, the mind that transforms everything into happiness and pain.
However, if we look at our own experiences, we can see that wrath, hatred, envy, arrogance, and compulsive desire do not leave us in such a nice mood. They are also harmful to the enjoyment of others. So we may say that the more such feelings infiltrate our minds, the more wretched and tortured we feel. On the contrary, everyone understands deep down that a selfless act of compassion might save a child’s life or make someone happy. We don’t need the praise. We don’t require any thanks. The sheer act of doing so gives me a sense of inadequacy. And we’d like to be like way all the time. We have the capacity to alter our thinking. Consciousness is like a mirror that reflects all pictures. In the mirror, you may make both nasty and attractive faces. That is permitted by the mirror, but the mirror is not contaminated, corrupted, or transformed by those pictures.
There are several methods for attempting to train our thoughts. Mind training is founded on the concept that two opposing mental variables cannot coexist. You might fall in love and then despise. But you cannot wish to injure and wish to help the same item or person at the same time. So that’s the way to go. When compared to jealousy, rejoice. As opposed to excessive clutching and fixation, a sense of inner liberation.
Another approach is to seek a universal remedy to all emotions. When we are annoyed, hateful, or furious with someone, or preoccupied with something, our minds return to that item repeatedly. Every time it returns to the thing, it strengthens the fixation or displeasure. So it’s a self-perpetuating cycle. So, rather than focusing outside, we must now turn our gaze within. Consider rage itself. When you think about anger, it will fade like ice in the early sun. If you do this often, the proclivity, or tendency, for anger to resurface will become less and less each time you dissolve it. This mental training will, of course, take time, but it is the only way to progress.
We carefully examined the brains of persons who meditated on the concept of compassion, and the results show that they are significantly happier. All of this demonstrates the importance of mind training. This is not only a luxury. This is not a vitamin supplement for the soul. This is something that will influence the quality of every moment of our existence. We are willing to devote 15 years to schooling. We enjoy jogging and working out. We go to great lengths to maintain our beauty. Yet, we spend remarkably little time focusing on what is most important – the way our minds work — which, one again, is the ultimate factor determining the quality of our experience.
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This is a TED talk synopsis.
