Excerpts

Happiness

Happiness

Happiness uplifts you
Happiness fills your heart, your mind, and your soul

Happiness gives you the strength you need
Happiness is a great feeling that
Enters your mind
Happiness takes the sorrow away

Happiness fills you life with joy
Happiness makes you feel happy, excited,
And thrilled

By maryam Kazmi
Created Thursday, February 24, 2011

Now, some people will bemoan this fact, wag their fingers in your direction, and tell you sternly that you should live every minute of your life as though it were your last, which only goes to show that some people would spend their final ten minutes giving other people dumb advice. The things we do when we expect our lives to continue are naturally and properly different than the things we might do if we expected them to end abruptly. We go easy on the lard and tobacco, smile dutifully at yet another of our supervisor's witless jokes, read books like this one when we could be wearing paper hats and eating pistachio macaroons in the bathtub, and we do each of these things in the charitable service of the people we will soon become. We treat our future selves as though they were our children, spending most of the hours of most of our days constructing tomorrows that we hope will make them happy. By Daniel Gilbert

The guideline for cultivation is understanding and awakening,
proper views and purity. Understanding and awakening is to be
without delusion, proper views is without deviation, and purity
is without pollution. This can be achieved by practicing the
Three Learnings of self-discipline, concentration, and wisdom

ALL BEINGS DESIRE HAPPINESS ALWAYS, happiness without a tinge of sorrow. At the same time everybody loves himself best. The cause for love is only happiness. So, that happiness must lie within oneself. Further,that happiness is daily experienced by everyone in sleep when there is no mind. To attain that natural happiness one must know oneself. For that, Self-enquiry, `Who am I?’ is the chief means.

But, what about the upside of life? Is there more to life than not being depressed or unhappy? What scientific research has found is that, just like computers are designed to work when properly turned on, humans are wired in such a way that when properly "turned on," they get happier. Their brains begin to secrete chemicals that make them feel better, their bodies get healthier, they make more money, their relationships improve, their marriages are more fulfilling, they live longer, and their overall sense of well-being and happiness gets better. And what is amazing is that we now have a lot of documentation to show exactly where the power buttons are and how to turn them on.

If you look at the list above, you'll see that all of these desires—as well as many others—are circumstantial. They are "states" within which we find ourselves, like rich or poor, degreed or not, renting or owning, skinny or fat. These states can change at any given time in our lives. But most of all, they are "outside us." What has the research into happiness shown us about our circumstances? The answer is surprising, especially since we live in a culture that is obsessed with the list above and others like it. Here is the finding: Circumstances account for only about 10 percent of our happiness.1