ccxcone

There are many times when I find myself unhappy with my life. I wonder what it is I’m doing here, why I acted the way I did, or why I’m stuck in a cycle of living where I don’t know what the true answers are. I can’t say that I’ll ever find these answers, but I do hope that I can achieve a more direct and continuous state of happiness. Life is funny sometimes, because each time you think you’ve found the answer to your problems, each time you find yourself in a satisfying niche, each time you think you have it all, something takes away what you have, and shows you that your goal is far away. I think that most of my problems stem from a material view of happiness. I find myself defining my happiness through connections to other people, though seemingly meaningful events, and through day-to-day joys I find in my life. I’m not sure that these are the answers, because they rely on factors that rely outside of the self, they’re variable, and ultimately unreliable. True happiness, by definition, must be constant. It must not waver though changing conditions or situations, it must always be there. One might argue that such a condition of continuous happiness is impossible to achieve, but I believe (or at least hope) that such a condition is entirely possible for a human being to achieve. Since happiness cannot be defined through variable conditions, I must conclude that true happiness can only be found within the self. One must be content with their present, with their actions, content with their thoughts, and content with their intentions. If one can successfully achieve this, then true happiness may be attained. The questions come in where achieving this sense of happiness must be achieved. How can one perfect one self? How can one let go of all conditions that lay outside the self. These are the questions I ask myself, and the road of Buddhism is how I seek to find the answers.

Wyckd

i would like to offer to you.. JESUS CHRIST for you to find happiness....

Hawkspy

Yeah, i agree. If you want to be happy, make yourself a person you can be happy with. Make yourself able to react to variable conditions in a way that makes you happy. Yeah, sure, if you get shit piled on you all the time, your gonna feel a little less happy, but if you can just make the best of it and don't let it ruin you, you can take pride in that.
Don't think you need to be perfect, just make yourself a person who is able to improve and doesnt get caught up in what they think their doing wrong. If you think you screwed up, think about what went wrong and what you can change about yourself to improve. If you know you can always try to improve, than what goes wrong doesnt matter anymore.
I don't mean to force my opinions on anyone, but honestly, i don't think religion is the answer to happiness, i think its just one way you can be happy (if a sort of plastic way.) I think you will be the most happy if you just look at reality and dont try to apply some misleading analogy too it, unless you understand the purpose of religion. Religion is just that, an analogy that helps people follow certain morals. Dont you think that if you understand that, you dont need something like religion? Unless you just like analogies, but whatever.
Yeah being perpetually happy is good, and once you get in the right mindset (able to self criticize and improve, etc.)
there's nothing to it.

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""Like a rock thrown into the ocean,
Humanity was rising to the top." - Y'all dont wanna step to dis, Against Me!

tehblaed

Nice content of the post, but you really really should learn about paragraphs.

Xell101

True happiness I think lies in love, not unification of self I suppose I would be something to call it.

ARTelevision

ccxcone,
that works.
go for it.
best of luck.

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Wyckd

happiness comes from jesus!!!!!!

anti fishstick

happiness is wherever you choose it to come from.

but this inner happiness is exactly how i try to live for. i think that if people aren't happy with themselves or their life situations, and try to find happiness thru other people (significant others, relationships) then they aren't really succeeding in being happy. this also puts the people around them at a slight unfair disadvantage because they become more needy for attention [and happiness] through these other people, who may or may not be able to give it all to them. but the exchange in attention becomes unbalanced. the people are being forced to give a lot with little or no in return.

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And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~Anais Nin

Lebell

Wyckd,

Stop trolling this post.

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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skinbag

Wyckd- I hope your kidding, for Christ's sake. Proselytizers are one reason I rejected Christianity as a child. It's taken me a long time and lots of proper thinking inspired by the Buddha to come around to seeing some good in Christianity. Please don't stress my appreciation of Christ's teachings with such shallow blathering.
Ccxcone, I think you're right on the ball. I believe in the ongoing intospection you and then Hawkspy are referring to, with one added observation...I have noticed that meditation (on those good days when I practice it, anyway) gives me an accurate veiw to practice this introspection from.
When I don't sit, which is most of the time unfortunately, my examination starts from a self-centered view that skews the results of the self-examination.
-Edited to get back on track and reply to ccxcone.-

static

Dead on anti fishstick.
Happiness can come from some pretty odd places at times.

I do think though to be happy with someone else you first need to be happy with yourself. Relationships are a difficult place to try and work out who you want to be.

Personally I follow the four basic buddhist tenents as a philosophy, not a religion, i find them helpful at times.

If my travels around South East Asia have though me one thing it's that the happiest people i've ever met were Buddhist monks in Vietnam, that says alot.

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"Whenever someone thinks that they can replace SSL/SSH with something much better that they designed this morning over coffee, their computer speakers should generate some sort of penis-shaped sound wave and plunge it repeatedly into their skulls until they achieve enlightenment."
--Peter Gutmann

anti fishstick

relationships are also a part of working out who you want to be as well though.. but it is difficult of you haven't figured yourself out first. ;P i like taking long breaks of single life and celibacy after a relationship. just to soak everything in and reflect on what i've learned. to apply it with who i am and want to be..

__________________
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~Anais Nin

raeanna74

The times when I find I'm the happiest are not precisely when something outside of me is causing it but when I feel content with who I am and where I am in life at this time. When I am content with my body as it is with it's marks but still fully functional and when I am glad for a beautiful daughter who is healthy. I have been in hard times where I don't have those things and I have learned that I can still be content with where I am. When I speak of contentment I'm not saying that I don't desire to do anything to improve my body (exercise) or my place in life (working hard to improve it). It only means that I'm not worrying about what someone else has way beyond me and feeling unhappy that I don't have that. Does that all make sense to you? I can choose to be content and I can choose to be happy. Emotions are a choice.

__________________
"Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama
My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

static

I think that is a huge topic in an of itself.

__________________
"Whenever someone thinks that they can replace SSL/SSH with something much better that they designed this morning over coffee, their computer speakers should generate some sort of penis-shaped sound wave and plunge it repeatedly into their skulls until they achieve enlightenment."
--Peter Gutmann

MacGnG

buddhism can be a way of life not a religion....

it is the path i am trying to follow

you can live your life following a set of "rules" and examples that do not contradict your religion

thats y Judaism is so cool, cause i can do that

StormBerlin

My dad is a Buddhist and i swear he is so much happier because of it. We have a stange family... An athiest, wiccan, a mormon and a buddhist. and we all get along great I don't remeber who wrote it (and i'm too lazy to go back and look) but they said something along the lines of Jesus is the way to happiness and I just wanted to say that is not necessarily true. Only one of us believes in the traditional Jesus, and that isn't the basis of our happiness.

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"if anal sex could get a girl pregnant i'd be tits deep in child support" Arcane

toxic515

" Man cannot escape from the need for philosophy; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance" -Ayn Rand

_Religion is a primitive form of philosophy. It attempts to provide a theory of the nature of man, man’s place in the universe, and a guide to human action. But religion (in and of itself) admittedly has no rational basis, meaning: no basis at all. “Faith” is merely someone’s assertion (without evidence) that something is true. As a “guide” to life it couldn’t be more dangerous. And it is becoming an increasing danger to Americans as the 22nd century opens. The religious right’s efforts to enforce religion and destroy our rights is all around us: laws preventing abortion and assisted suicide, censorship, school prayer in public schools, laws against homosexuality, laws mandating the teaching of “creationism.”

I'm not at all opposed to allowing others to worship as they see fit. I encourage everyone to perceive reality. I am an ordained minister, rather well educated in Christianity and it's various forms, as well as Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and wiccan. I have not turned my back on ANY of them. The issue here is to perceive REALITY.

__Instead of turning to reason and reality many are turning to what they think is an alternative: religion. It is easier, they think, or worse, they FEEL.

In today’s industrial civilization, people recognize the difference between the secular and the religious. Even those who believe in the Bible, for example, would generally not proclaim Scripture to be science — any more than those who faithfully read their horoscopes would declare astrology to be part of astronomy.

That being the case, I often wonder exactly why we become so mired in the clutches of DOGMA. I have turned my back on DOGMA. I find that I was lied to in many ways. Not lied to with malice, but lied to in ignorance. Lied to by people who never had the courage or conviction to examine their thought process, their belief system.

_Faith and reason represent antithetical philosophies. The advocates of faith declare that we must accept as true that which is unknowable to the rational mind — that we must believe the pronouncements of some “higher” authority in the absence of any objective evidence, or in outright contradiction to the evidence. That's sadly true of each of the religions I have studied. By that statement, I mean the DOGMA. The tenants of each of those are something more, something different. Love, peace, spiritual development, and honesty are at the core, and those values any man of any faith can embrace wholeheartedly, and with the full power of REASON. Man grasps a concept and a truth solely by a process of reason, which is based on data provided by the senses.

At any moment, and across any lifetime, the choice is always either/or: either follow your reasoning mind, or abandon it and place something above it. There is no “middle-of-the-road.”
_____ANY dogma presented as a pure truth, without evidence, is an insidious attack on reason, and on the human capacity — and the human right — to live by means of one’s rational thinking.

You needn't turn your back on anything directly, but be certain you understand what you believe. Base it on empirical evidence, sensory input.

If mystical faith is the basis of knowledge, logic and persuasion are irrelevant. There is only the brute assertion: “Well, that’s what I feel like believing — and I believe that you better believe it too.” There is no recourse but force.
_Throughout history, wherever religion has dominated, freedom has disappeared. From the Catholic Inquisition’s persecution of Galileo for accepting the evidence of his mind, to the Iranian Ayatollahs’ sentencing of Salman Rushdie to death for expressing his views about Islam, to the current attacks on abortion clinics in the name of religion — the only way mysticism has been implemented is by force.

There is indeed an urgent need to defend reason. But let the battle lines be clear. The war is between those who subordinate reason to other considerations — whether subjective whims or supernatural dogmas — and those who intransigently uphold it.

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like a banana.

bermuDa

you won't find happiness in buddhism. life is suffering. happiness comes from ignoring the pain of existence, finding pleasure in something to distract your attention from the suffering. it is a copout emotion. I'm not saying happiness doesn't have merit, but it's not necessary in the life of a buddhist.

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DownwardSpiral

True happiness does not lie in Buddhism, or any religion for that matter. True happiness lies inside you, you decide what will make you truly happy and go for it. Buddhism if I recall, believes that in order to get rid of suffering you must cease to desire, right? Because in Buddha's belief, desire causes suffering. One can not truly cease to desire. We always want something. Whether it be for themself, someone they love, or for the world, we always desire something. That is why I think true happiness lies inside, and nothing else.

__________________
"So Keep on Pretending.
Our Heavens Worth the Waiting.
Keep on Pretending.
It's Alright."

-- H.I.M., "Pretending"

lordjeebus

I think a lot of misconception about Buddhism comes from someone's poor decision to use the term "desire" to describe something that's better thought of as "attachment."

Yes, I will always desire food, water, sex, etc. I don't think Buddha was suggesting that you overcome this.

I think what Buddha was talking about was obsessive attachment to particular things. For instance, I may be attached to the idea that I will get a job after graduating from college, or to my car, or to a specific woman. I develop feeling of entitlement, and when the target object is denied or lost, I suffer. If I had not attached myself to a particular worldly thing, I would not have suffered.

In a grand sense, most people are also attached to the world, and being alive in it. Because this attachment cannot be fulfilled -- we must eventually die, it causes near-universal suffering. If one recognizes and internalizes the impermanence of one's life, he or she can escape from the suffering that fear of death can cause.

minyn

survival instincts are just that... they are made to keep us alive. "overcoming" those will just get you killed

with buddhism comes the idea of karma and to aleviate yourself of karma you must be completely objective and without and opinion becuase that is wehre mistakes and bad things stem from.

And jesus freaks like Wyckd are the reason i dislike christians... people like my roommate are reason i dont . see how it works. being blind and closed off gets you no where hun. listen to the wisdom of TFP, its here for a reason.

the key is finding peace. finding happiness. do it however you can (within reason) and in a way that doesnt inhibit others from doing the same!!

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DownwardSpiral

Wyckd, happiness does not come from Jesus, it comes from you yourself.

__________________
"So Keep on Pretending.
Our Heavens Worth the Waiting.
Keep on Pretending.
It's Alright."

-- H.I.M., "Pretending"

GreasyP

I like your thoughts, but...
...I can't agree with that. There will always be ups and downs. The only way to never feel the bad things in life is to stop living. I feel closer to Buddhism than any other established religion, but that's one thing that always bothered me about Buddhism, I feel like they're running away from life. If happiness were constant, how would you know you were happy? It's all about contrast. Embrace the good, do what you can with the bad. Self-improvement is a worthy thing, but self-perfection will only lead to defeat, because perfection is relative, like the speed of light--no matter how close you get, it will always be as far away from you as it always was.

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littlewild

There is no light without darkness, no order without chaos and no happiness without sorrow.

What is true happiness? Will it still be there after your physical body perished? More importantly, will you remain in that state for eternity?

You can detach yourself from many things in this world by shutting down your mind. But you will not be able to detach yourself from the inevitable end no matter how hard you try. What then?

termit3

Take a look into some Nichomachean ethics to find out happiness really is

According to Aristotle, true happiness takes a lifetime. So you won't know if you are happy until you're gone.

lordjeebus

"Great love incurs great expense,
And great wealth incurs great fear,
But contentment comes at no cost."

--Tao Te Ching (albeit not a Buddhist text)

I think the Buddhist idea, nevertheless, is not to achieve happiness, which requires contrast, but contentment.

Could you be content with contentment? I personally admire those who are. I understand and respect those who are not.

taliendo

Does faith necessarily mean accepting DOGMA, or do you believe that it can also exist along side of reason with an extra-helping of a belief in the absurd? I would proclaim myself a Christian; after examining of many religions, it is the one that resonated with me. I too have thrown out the dogma of any and all churches that I have ever attended -- due mainly to the fact that I thought about it and reason over comes many of the arbitrary 'covenants' of the Church. BUT it is my faith that allows for a belief in the absurd. I have found that this world acts in a very non-committal way at times; you never know when shit's going to hit the fan, or when you may look up and find that you're standing inside of a miracle.

There are many things in life that exist outside the realm of logic and reason, it is my faith that allows me to accept and understand these great mysteries.

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-LIFE IS ABSURD-

datalink7

Then please explain my happiness, me being an Atheist and all...

Anyway, I once heard "Happiness is not getting what you want, but wanting what you get." To me, that means being thankful for the good things you have in your life, and living for today and not for tommorow.

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Ashes and diamons
foe and friend
we are all equal
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tecoyah

Unbelievable...Who is this Jesus guy anyway...have you met him?Or do you refer to books written by flawed men.I think Jesus was a wonderful being, but I would NEVER expect someone to accept MY interpretation of the right path.I do not wish to insult christianity for I have great respect for the teachings, I just find the endless attempts to spread the"good word" by mindless followers uncalled for and debasing.Do not ridicule that which you don't understand.

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

yellowgowild

I like how most people have such concrete and profound views on this subject.
Just chose the level of bullshit your comfortable living with and run with it.
Religon is the daughter of hope and fear, explaining to the ignorant the unknowable.

gtr71

Yeah. What he said!!

Mantus

Buddhism is strange.

It states that one must let go of one’s needs in order to achieve happiness. But isn’t the urge for happiness a need?

Also it doesn’t seem to take into account that without suffering there can be no happiness. One cannot exist without the other. Happiness cannot be constant, for if it was then it would lose its novelty.

lordjeebus

I think you're misunderstanding the basic ideas.

You're not supposed to get rid of needs -- everyone needs air, water, food, shelter, companionship, etc. You can't change that.

You're supposed to rid yourself of attachment -- entitlement is a big part of this. We feel entitled or drawn to particular things, and when they are denied, we suffer. If one goes through life without feeling that they have been wrongfully denied something, then they won't have that source of suffering.

Also, as I mentioned above, I think the goal is not happiness but contentment.

Frowning Budah

If you mean that happiness comes from Jesus teachings of love and tolerance I will agree. However, I don't feel the belief in Jesus as a being is necessary to be happy. I do believe that love of others is.

Sho Nuff

I used to want to be happy all the time until I had my heart broken. I had never experienced such an intense emotion. I felt alive and full of energy. Now what I seek is a balanced base level of experience taking all things at face value without bias and I enjoy every source of energy be it happiness, depression, fear, anger, sorrow, etc. I am exhilarated by the varying intensity and symptoms of each for their own merit. Why limit yourself to one state when so much stimulus and experience can be derived from the full range of emotions?

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I know Nietzsche doesnt rhyme with peachy, but you sound like a pretentious prick when you correct me.

striker3303

This is not to diss buddist lifestyle at all. I believe that is a way of life. Instead of that i try to live an honest life, and not believe in god, but believe in something. is that agnostic?

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