We have been taught that comfort makes us happy, that getting what we want makes us happy, that having things go the way we want makes us happy, that having an infinite variety of choices makes us happy.
It’s nice, it’s pleasurable, but it’s not happiness.
What contributes to our happiness? What takes away from our happiness? When we contemplate these questions in a deep way, they can bring us back to our center, back to our heart, and back to our being. Happiness comes from loving the simple things and appreciating them.
There are so many kinds of connection… with friends, family members, strangers in line… on a deeper level we can have an intimate connection with the truth of our being, with the sacred dimension of life, and with what we call ‘the world around us.’
The Zen master Dogen talked of enlightenment as an absolute intimacy (connection) with the ten thousand things. In Buddhism when they say, “The ten thousand things,” they mean everything.
Connection with everything. That is happiness.
Adapted from The Simple Joy of Being by Adyashanti
Parabola Magazine Spring 2019
Excerpted from The Most Important Thing: Discovering Truth at the Heart of Life.
I’m going to look for this book!