Split Thread - "Happiness" in Buddhism and Zen

[Hoko]

This hits home for me.
Thank you to Matthew for the original post and thank you to Jundo for his insightful commentary.

When I first came to Zen it was to attain enlightenment which I had conflated with happiness.
I think a lot of Westerners do this because we're taught that being unhappy is bad and we should never be unhappy and if we're every unhappy for any reason it's clearly someone else's fault and we need to sue them into giving us money so we can buy more stuff which will, of course, make us happy...

Well it didn't pan out for me (neither did alcoholism or anti-depressants, btw) so I put it in the "tried it" pile and moved on.
I went off and played around with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and made a deep exploration of Martin Seligman's research on happiness.
Again, no dice.
Dukkha, but no dice...

But I came back to Zen when I read a little more about "attainment mindset" and realized that Zen wasn't about achieving whiz-bang all the time happiness.
In fact, the idea that you're supposed to be happy all the time or that by achieving some temporary peak experience (kensho?) you'll never be unhappy again is actually pretty naive.

Suddenly Zen was very practical and applicable (it always was, I just couldn't see it) and not some esoteric process focused on acquiring an inachievable state of bliss.
Jundo has mentioned that Philip Kapleau's Three Pillars of Zen and other books from that time painted a misleading picture that many Western minds seeking escape latched on to. I agree with his assessment as that was one of my first introductions to Zen and I made the exact same assumptions.

In actual fact, I was hindering my own "progress" (there is nowhere to progress to) by trying to get "there" (no here, no there...).
In life, as in shikantaza, dropping the metaphorical hammer you're hitting yourself with (reference to Jundo's video!) you get out of your own way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEK5PEsRZ1k

I read somewhere that it's kind of like two mirrors facing each other and in your efforts to see infinity your own stupid head gets in the way and blocks the view! Lol

Creating some separation between my self and the steady stream of preferences between my ears is a nutshell explanation of how Zen practice has benefited my existence.
Nichi nichi kore kōnichi as someone very wise once said: "every day is a good day".
When happy, chop wood, carry water. When sad chop wood, carry water.

Just sit.

Gassho,
Hoko
#SatToday/LAH

[Jundo]

[ATTACH]5069[/ATTACH]

Sometimes I wear a wig too.

[emoji2]

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

I take it that you are being serious, because it would not be appropriate to joke about these things (even in Texas).

There are actually a few figures in modern and ancient Buddhist history who were so. A modern figure is Issan Dorsey, the wonderful Teacher and humanitarian from San Francisco ...

https://antinousforeverybody.wordpress.com/tag/issan-dorsey/

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Jakuden]

I take it that you are being serious, because it would not be appropriate to joke about these things (even in Texas).

There are actually a few figures in modern and ancient Buddhist history who were so. A modern figure is Issan Dorsey, the wonderful Teacher and humanitarian from San Francisco ...

https://antinousforeverybody.wordpress.com/tag/issan-dorsey/

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

I wonder if he should be added to our disabled ancestor list?

Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


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[Jundo]

I wonder if he should be added to our disabled ancestor list?

Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


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No, I don't feel so, because this is not a disability. It is someone's way of life. Of course anything, even a fixation on appearance and clothing in any form, can do us all harm (Issan also had other issues with drugs and promiscuity that were harmful and which he rejected). However, just feeling comfortable dressing a certain way is nothing more than what makes someone happy.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Jakuden]

No, I don't feel so, because this is not a disability. It is someone's way of life. Of course anything, even a fixation on appearance and clothing in any form, can do us all harm (Issan also had other issues with drugs and promiscuity that were harmful and which he rejected). However, just feeling comfortable dressing a certain way is nothing more than what makes someone happy.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

Sorry, I was unclear, I was referring to the fact that he lived with AIDS and set up the hospice.

Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


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[Jundo]

Sorry, I was unclear, I was referring to the fact that he lived with AIDS and set up the hospice.

Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


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I see. It is a good suggestion. Perhaps we can update this section to include those with all manner of illnesses, which would include AIDS. We have tended to avoid including by name very recent people in the list.

Those men and women, each and all Teachers in their way, who have struggled with addictions, confusion, depression and mental conditions often misunderstood.

Gassho, Jundo

SatTodayLAH

[Jakuden]

I see. It is a good suggestion. Perhaps we can update this section to include those with all manner of illnesses, which would include AIDS. We have tended to avoid including by name very recent people in the list.

Those men and women, each and all Teachers in their way, who have struggled with addictions, confusion, depression and mental conditions often misunderstood.

Gassho, Jundo

SatTodayLAH

Yes... so many people and yet so marginalized that they are hard for us to find. I’m sure many of them would have been satisfied with just some health and peace, in light of the topic of the thread... sometimes we may forget what health and safety we do already have in our pursuit of “happiness.“

Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


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[Ryudo]

Butiful/interesting thread.
Thank you.

Gassho
Ryudo/SatToday

[Tairin]

Wonderful post Hoko!


Tairin
Sat today

[Jishin]

I take it that you are being serious, because it would not be appropriate to joke about these things (even in Texas).

There are actually a few figures in modern and ancient Buddhist history who were so. A modern figure is Issan Dorsey, the wonderful Teacher and humanitarian from San Francisco ...

https://antinousforeverybody.wordpress.com/tag/issan-dorsey/

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

Hi Jundo,

I not being serious. That said, In my world it is perfectly normal to joke like this. Without going into to too much detail:

---My deceased father was gay.

---His surviving lover is who I consider my real father. My children, consider him grandpa "Bill" but sometimes we call him "Billy Jean" - an affectionate name. Bill's current lover is also "Granpa" Trey.

---I am privy to the wonderful gay world culture which includes a sometimes twisted sense of humor (my dad's sense of humor was super twisted).

---I mourned with my family the death of a significant portion of friends during the 80's with AIDS.

---We currently have gay friends and my wife's best friend is gay.

---I had no trouble sharing with the US Navy my confused sexuality as a teen leading to an early but honorable discharge.

---Study the Kinsey scale.


I am in the "In" and I can get away with kidding around while some can't. I wish the dividing lines of race, sex, gender, etc etc would dissolve so people were not so uptight about kidding around.

Likewise, I can get away with Jewish jokes and many other topics because of the same reasons. The problem is this mean of communication. It does not capture the whole picture.

TMI, I know but I am sure that there are tons of people out there who don't talk about this sort of thing when in fact it is perfectly normal. An interesting fact is that according the the DSM III you were considered mentally ill if you were gay but in 1972 the manual was changed and it was no longer considered an illness.

I think it is appropriate if you think it so and not appropriate if you think it so.

Anyway, there is the background for my humor.



Gasho, Jishin, ST

[Kyonin]

Hi all,

In our western way of thinking we assume that happiness is to live without discomfort, surrounded by love and have a solid bank account that covers for all our needs. I think many new schools of Buddhism capitalize on this in order to bring in new people.

However, and this is what kept me in Zen practice, is the fact that happiness is much closer to equanimity than to bliss. We don't push aside what we don't like nor we go about editing life. We observe things as they are and surf the waves of samsara. If we have to go through pain, we just do that without creating drama. If we are enjoying a concert or a relaxed afternoon with the family, we just do that without falling into euphoria.

A lot of people tell me I some kind of Vulcan that hides his feelings. Not at all. I laugh like mad when enjoying a comedy or a joke. I cry like a baby when sad things happen. It's just that feelings come, they stay the time they need to stay and then equanimity comes in again.

Now to get to this point we need to make zazen part of our lives and maybe after some years of practice, we would slowly live in equanimity. I think that's why Zen practice is not so popular :P

Gassho,

Kyonin
Sat/LAH

[Jundo]

Hi Jundo,

I not being serious. That said, In my world it is perfectly normal to joke like this. Without going into to too much detail:

---My deceased father was gay.

Hi Jishin,

I understand. Some folks, however, might misunderstand here in our current day when folks are very sensitive to such things, so best to say this. Folks don't get this kind of joke so easily sometimes.

My brother was gay too, in the 1950s. He struggled a lot with that fact because it was hard to be a gay man then, was estranged from some in my family. He died a few years ago.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Doshin]

I continue to learn. Thank you eveyone,

Doshin
St

[Mitka]

Buddhism and especially Zen have always, especially in the North Asian formulations, had more emphasis on finding peace in this life, not only in some future life or realm.

Oh yes. I mentioned the switch from otherworldliness to thiswordliness just to note that I think it is Western culture that is having this influence on Buddhism, just as it is on traditionally otherworldly religions like Christianity. Since Buddhism always emphasized “salvation” in this world, it was tailor-made, I think, to appeal to hedonistically burnt-out Westerners hungry for happiness.

Second, some of the modern Teachers, if you look closely, are actually doing a bit of "bate and switch" on their use of "happiness," which turns out to be much as the "joyous and content to be joyful, joyous and content to be sad, joyous and content to be healthy, joyous and content to be sick sometimes" aspect that you hear around here quite often. I have spoken about this and all the Dalai Lama's books on "happiness":

I didn’t mean to disparage any teachers (and you are right, Eckhart Tolle, for example, teaches exactly what you describe). I think happiness is quite a worthy goal, if rightly understood. And I certainly wouldn’t be practicing myself if I didn’t think my practice would bring more peace and calm into my life.

Personally though I wonder if “happiness” is the right word to use when describing the kind of peace that comes with enlightenment. I would say a better term would be “equanimity.” The Buddha taught the way to remove suffering… not necessarily the way to be happy. Removing suffering, of course, is an excellent foundation for happiness, but then again one will not always be happy while walking the path. You cannot be happy to have brain cancer, for example, nor can you be happy to go into a dangerous surgery to remove the tumor knowing that you might die on the table and may never see your loved ones again. But you can certainly accept that that is the way things are and not make it out to be a problem, and enjoy the remaining time with your family (which may be your last) while you still have time. Nor can you be happy when a loved one dies. But you certainly can be at peace about it, even through the tears.

Also I think a lot of spiritual seekers are confused as to what they mean by the word happiness. Many take their idea of happiness wholesale from Western culture. If you look at advertising, our account of happiness is entirely external. Wealth, fame, having lots of friends, being the toast of a party, going on adventures, accomplishing something everybody thought would be impossible. According to our culture, being “happy” is a life of stimulations, flitting from dinner parties to mountain climbing to driving a brand new Audi on the Autobahn to starting a new relationship to winning the Nobel Peace Prize. This gets translated to “When I become enlightened, then my life will really start. People will love me, they will line up outside my door to venerate me and listen to my wisdom. I will be the talk of the town, thousands will come from all over the world to see me. I will experience great peace and contentment, and I won’t have any problems, and I will write beautiful books that thousands of people will buy and I will make a lot of money, and I will use the money to spread my teaching to every corner of the world, and everyone will know my name, and life will be a grand adventure.”

I used to think like this, actually.

Sometimes this “happiness” even includes material wealth. Through the “law of attraction” once you stop grasping after material things, they come to you anyways. Or, another way I have heard it expressed: keeping the ego in place uses up so much energy that once it is gone, all this mental energy is freed up to be put to use and naturally you become more efficient and your work is of higher quality which can then lead to more value being assigned to you and thus more material wealth.

Frankly, if somebody just wanted to be "happy happy happy", I think there are pharmaceuticals that will do the job faster and deeper than any meditation ... at least for a short time.

I sometimes think that the Tibetans writers chose the word "Happiness" in their literature to impress Westerners. The problem is that some folks may hear that and think that they are going to find the key to 24/7 "laughing gas" happiness ... and are a bit disappointed when in fact what is delivered is something much more subtle (though fathomlessly richer).

I quite agree. There is a disconnect there, and maybe the word “happiness” was not very well chosen. Especially during the 60s and 70s Westerners looked at meditation as a natural way to get high. That view has been mostly relegated to the trash bin, I believe, but still I think even today a lot of people have a vague idea that being enlightened will mean they will walk through the rest of their life with Cloud Nines mysteriously appearing under each and every one of their footsteps. Happiness is equated with peak experiences. Thus the attraction of drugs, and dangerous sports like BASE jumping, and ecstatic spiritual experiences like being born again, kundalini awakening and kensho.That’s not the kind of happiness the Buddha was talking about, as you pointed out.

But, whether understood correctly or not, I guess my original point was that a lot of people in the West are interested in enlightenment because of the promise of happiness it will give them. Generalizing here,forgive me, but it seems to means that Westerners are not interested in pie-in-the-sky promises like heaven or a Pure Land, existing outside of the samsaric or dimensional cycle as bodiless energy after death, bodiless consciousness, or what have you. They want real, concrete solutions to fix the problems in their lives and enhance their quality of living. And I think that is the soteriological environment that Buddhism entered when it migrated to the West.

However, I still go with the "old school" Zen folks who offered that our Way provided some real answers to "Big Questions" like the following. Even though it seems like fewer people come to Buddhism these days seeking such answers (I wonder what a survey would reveal), I do feel that Zen Practice really does provide answers to such questions, and that such is still a (the?) central point of Practice. In fact, it is much of what I look at in Talks by me on Master Dogen, Koans and the like.

These answers, by the way, are not always complete answers that our small human thoughts can grasp, and sometimes the "answer" is more like a sense (like a child trying to grasp the adult world). But they are solid answers nonetheless. I also feel that they are "reasonable" (although not always according to our "common sense" ordinary reason that only experiences a world of separate, individual things), and that most of the answers offered seem to be perfectly in keeping (i.e., free of apparent conflicts, and with much similarity in perspectives) with modern perspectives of physics, brain science and the rest of modern science about how the universe and mind are structured:


- Who are we in the universe?

- Where do we come from when born, and where do we go when we seem to die?

- What is the purpose and best way to live in between that birth and death?

I used to agonize over questions like this, and it did make me unhappy. Given how much science has eroded metaphysics in today’s world, and how people won’t except answers to questions that cannot be verified without repeated experiments, I believe Buddhism does the best job at answering these questions in a satisfactory method. For me, at least, but I would also say for multitudes of others. And it is interesting to see the various connections between Buddhism and modern physics… the behavior of elemental particles, for example, flitting in and out of existence, sounds a lot like the doctrine of shunyata. And through ecology we have learned about the endless relationship between all things (which interestingly enough, for me at least, makes watching documentaries on ecology or astronomy a sort of spiritual experience). I am largely released from the agony I once felt over such questions. Now I take a “we shall see, and won’t it be wonderful!” approach to them, especially the one about death.

In that way, Buddhism has made me a happier person.

I'm glad Jundo used the word "contentment." I haven't achieved lasting happiness through zen, or really even increased happiness. But I have greatly increased my ability to be content. When things go wrong, it's okay to not be okay, and still realize that not being okay is okay. That's being content.

Shinshou
Sat today

Contentment is a far better word, yes. A lot of misunderstanding can be created by using the word “happiness” too freely.

This hits home for me.
Thank you to Matthew for the original post and thank you to Jundo for his insightful commentary.

When I first came to Zen it was to attain enlightenment which I had conflated with happiness.
I think a lot of Westerners do this because we're taught that being unhappy is bad and we should never be unhappy and if we're every unhappy for any reason it's clearly someone else's fault and we need to sue them into giving us money so we can buy more stuff which will, of course, make us happy...

Well it didn't pan out for me (neither did alcoholism or anti-depressants, btw) so I put it in the "tried it" pile and moved on.
I went off and played around with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and made a deep exploration of Martin Seligman's research on happiness.
Again, no dice.
Dukkha, but no dice...

But I came back to Zen when I read a little more about "attainment mindset" and realized that Zen wasn't about achieving whiz-bang all the time happiness.
In fact, the idea that you're supposed to be happy all the time or that by achieving some temporary peak experience (kensho?) you'll never be unhappy again is actually pretty naive.

Suddenly Zen was very practical and applicable (it always was, I just couldn't see it) and not some esoteric process focused on acquiring an inachievable state of bliss.
Jundo has mentioned that Philip Kapleau's Three Pillars of Zen and other books from that time painted a misleading picture that many Western minds seeking escape latched on to. I agree with his assessment as that was one of my first introductions to Zen and I made the exact same assumptions.

In actual fact, I was hindering my own "progress" (there is nowhere to progress to) by trying to get "there" (no here, no there...).
In life, as in shikantaza, dropping the metaphorical hammer you're hitting yourself with (reference to Jundo's video!) you get out of your own way.

I read somewhere that it's kind of like two mirrors facing each other and in your efforts to see infinity your own stupid head gets in the way and blocks the view! Lol

Creating some separation between my self and the steady stream of preferences between my ears is a nutshell explanation of how Zen practice has benefited my existence.
Nichi nichi kore kōnichi as someone very wise once said: "every day is a good day".
When happy, chop wood, carry water. When sad chop wood, carry water.

Just sit.

Gassho,
Hoko
#SatToday/LAH

A great post Hoko, thank you for taking the time to write. I am very similar. I initially came to Zen throught the Three Pillars of Zen book you mentioned, excited to go to battle with my mind and win a great victory. The unenthusiasm I met with here for that sort of thing was offputting, and I went elsewhere, instead of sticking around and seeing what this place had to offer. I was looking for happiness, conceived as a sort of “permanent peak experience.” Life doesn’t work that way, and I am learning that giving up on the search and allowing myself to be sad on sad days and happy on happy day is indeed a much richer way to live. Either way, I will continue chopping wood and carrying water.

Hi all,

In our western way of thinking we assume that happiness is to live without discomfort, surrounded by love and have a solid bank account that covers for all our needs. I think many new schools of Buddhism capitalize on this in order to bring in new people.

Yes, and that it a shame because Buddhism offers so much more than that kind of artificial happiness. Such a happiness is impossible to attain in a world of impermanence, that is the first of the Noble Truths.

Now to get to this point we need to make zazen part of our lives and maybe after some years of practice, we would slowly live in equanimity. I think that's why Zen practice is not so popular :P

Gassho,

Kyonin
Sat/LAH

At least not shikantaza. Over a ready-made solution like koan meditation that promises a quick solution to life’s problems (I believe roshis who use koan meditations tell practioners that they can attain enlightenment that very sitting if they concentrate hard enough, though from the kensho accounts in Pillars of Zen it appears to take a lot longer than that).

Thanks to everyone for all your replies, I'm still new hear and learning, and it is a joy to learn so much about Zen and the way from you all. My gratitude and gashho,

Matthew
SAT

[Amelia]

Not to be too triggered, but the desire to cross dress isn't necessarily due to being gay, straight, bisexual or transexual. There are transvestites in all "categories". Just wanted to put that out there. I am very close to some complicated people, lol.

Jishin, I love you, but when someone starts ticking off a list of all the gay (or black, or Jewish, or Muslim, or (insert label), etc.) people they know just so that they can justify something that others may find rude, is kind of... you know. It's like when someone starts a sentence by saying, "I'm not racist, but..." I think the key with joking around is to know your audience. I am right with you, trust me. I share a pretty messed up sense of humor. Half of my friends are gay, and you're right, the humor is there. However, I can't joke the same way around my grandmother, or even Jundo (who has a pretty good sense of humor), as I might joke in private with my in-the-closet transvestite best friend, who was born male, identifies as male, happens to be bi-curious, and at the same time hetero-monogamous and married. Yep. People are very complicated! If I joked with him in public about wearing his wife's clothing, he would be absolutely mortified. In private, we are laughing our asses off.

I guess my point is this, no matter how many gay or transvestite people you know, you still don't know what it feels like to be them. And by this I don't mean that you've never questioned your sexuality or anything like that. What I mean is, nobody knows what it feels like to be anybody else. I think humor is key to healing a lot of divisions. I am pretty easy going, but your jokes about wearing drag for fun hurt my feelings when I realized that you weren't telling the truth. Not me, personally, but my feelings were hurt for a friend who can't do that. If you had been completely serious, not only would it have worked for the thread, but I would be quite happy with the amount of honesty going on around here!

Gassho, sat today, lah