Money Makes You Happy? Really?
Posted: Wednesday, February 22, 2012
by e
Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation
Can you recall the happiest moment of your life? What did it have to do with money? Nothing, right? Am I right? If I am wrong about that, I’m afraid that you have lived a very, very shallow life.
I mean, you will of course be happy when you win the lottery, but what is the source of that happiness? The source can be none other than perceived freedom to do as you please. It doesn’t last long however, ask anyone who has won the lottery. This kind of temporary freedom only tortures you.
So what is it with happiness? We all experience happiness every day, for example when we relieve ourselves. Isn’t that bliss? But isn’t it the rare individual who can maintain the bliss? (The bladder fills up again!) Who can be free at all times regardless of what happens to them?
Since happiness is something we feel from within, is it possible to have happiness without an outside source of some kind? If that is possible, and if we can bypass the middleman of physical or mental sensation and just experience the happiness, wouldn’t that be not only efficient, but very liberating?
An outside source of our happiness is anything that we can physically experience with our bodies. We might build a body from the elements of the earth. T, that Big Mac for example - which was once a cow, which was once a blade of grass that the cow ate, which was once elements of the earth that the blade of grass used - turns into great abs. But our bodies are not us. So we cannot rely upon something that is not us to provide ever-lasting happiness. Let’s face it, when the time comes, that great body must return to mother earth as she calls it home.
Another outside source of our happiness is anything that we can experience with our minds. We build a mind from the billions of impressions one is exposed to in a lifetime, from the sights, the smells, the tastes, the sounds, the feelings and the thoughts that we retain, but this content of our minds, which we think is us, is again only the body, and will return to mother earth as she calls it home.
We identify with the body and mind to the point of calling them “us.” But they are not us, if they were, they would not return to the earth without our permission. We know this down deep, but we fool ourselves into thinking that we can find lasting happiness within this six foot tall body and mind made up of constantly changing atoms and molecules.
It’s not possible to find lasting happiness here because we know that in time, it will be gone. We can imagine that it won’t be gone for good and imagine it turning into a spirit of some kind and continuing, but that kind of imaginary happiness always has a little niggle of uncertainty to it that precludes us from living a truly ecstatic life. We end up wishing for the best, but constantly submerging ourselves in the worst, identifying with our physical discomforts and all our emotional and mental problems.
This is not happiness, this is a few happy moments surrounded by discontent. This is how most of us live our lives.
What if suddenly our bodies and minds were . . . you know, kind of like the old company truck that you could drive without worrying about the insurance or the depreciation. You just drove it, without worrying about anything.
We can do this with this body and mind, that we have mistakenly taken ownership of, if we simply decide to understand what this life is all about. It’s not difficult; it only requires a shift in awareness. The Buddha called this “No self.”
Happiness will result. Not temporary happiness, but total, complete, unending happiness. Everything in the world will be seen in a different light as the world and everything in it becomes a part of you because you are now available to it, instead of trapping your immeasurable awareness in a six foot tall body. It now becomes free to experience not only all of reality, but all that is beyond this material reality.
This dimension of unlimited awareness is the quintessential human potential, and its fruition is the true meaning of life.
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Interesting article e, thanks for sharing your wisdom with us.Hi David. I wish it was my wisdom, I'm just borrowing it, like the company truck!!
Very wise !!Thank you, It's only simple Buddhist training.
So you don't feel as though our physical being is a gift of creation? If this is so then how could one ever experience a satisfaction of being alive, of being mortal. Wouldn't that make our physical existence a form of torture in and of itself? Was the physical universe created to make us all pay for perceived or known indiscretions of a non-physical existence, and if that's where we all originated how did we obtain the awareness or lack of self to be in that realm to begin with? Mustn't there be a ying to have a yang, and is there no way for ying and yang to peacefully co-exist, even as a mortal? My inquiring mind wonders.Great questions David, my friend! Okay, I’ll try to answer your questions from a Theravada Buddhist perspective. Please let me know if you have further questions, or disagree!
Q. “So you don't feel as though our physical being is a gift of creation?"
A. Buddhists believe that you level of consciousness at death dictates the form that will be sought by that level of consciousness in the next existence.
Q. “If this is so . . ."
A. According to Buddhism, it is not that way.
Q. “how could one ever experience a satisfaction of being alive, of being mortal."
A. Being alive in human form is neither a gift nor a curse, it is the results of a certain level of consciousness seeking the adequate form to express that consciousness.
Q. “Wouldn't that make our physical existence a form of torture in and of itself?"
A. Existence in the human physical realm includes both pleasure and pain. If there happens to be much pleasure and little pain, then the consciousness is satisfied to be reborn again and again in similar circumstances. If the pain is greater than the pleasure, then the mind seeks a way out of physical existence.
Q. “Was the physical universe created . . ."
A. The physical universe is a result of cause and effect, no different than your own existence, and not created by any being.
Q. “To make us all pay for perceived or known indiscretions of a non-physical existence."
A. We are the results of our actions (kamma), heir to our actions, dependent upon our actions. Our actions are the obvious scorecard of our level of consciousness. Any actions we do we will either pay for or reap the benefits.
Q. “And if that's where we all originated how did we obtain the awareness or lack of self to be in that realm to begin with?"
A. Originating from a non-physical existence is common in Buddhist thought. The consciousness, when reborn in a heavenly realm, has no pain to push it further, as the original good kamma eventually burns out the consciousness degrades into a lower realm, usually physical. It’s a kind of huge swinging door where beings at different states are constantly coming and going. The consciousness of a rock is lower than a plant, which has some awareness. An animal a little more, human more, deva more, and so on through all 32 realms.
Q. Then Mustn't there be a ying to have a yang, and is there no way for ying and yang to peacefully co-exist, even as a mortal?
A. Yin and Yang relates to the physical world which is conflicted when ignorance creates a self. It is the understanding of no self that is the doorway to enlightenment, or the doorway past the 32 realms of existence, and by the way, is a concept exclusive to Buddhism. Other religions are quite dualistic.
Okay, now, were those questions asked with tears in your eyes? If they were, I would answer them quite differently. If they were asked intellectually, then I will now tell you a story. Once upon a time, God was sitting around with nothing to do and he decided to throw a rock up in the air, and it became the earth. Then he threw a bigger rock into the air and it became the sun - should I continue with this story? You see, when an intellectual question is asked, a question not from the depths of your being but from a standpoint of wanting knowledge, all you can ever understand is a story, because you will not experience the answer yourself. In order to experience the answer yourself you have to die to everything you presently know. Scary huh? You see, all knowledge is dead, just like cold computer files. So, what story will you believe? I could tell you a more complicated story, one of many thousands of words and truths with a holy book, priests and the whole nine yards. Would you believe that one? Maybe. But to know for yourself through a shift in consciousness, . . . ahh, that is the freedom I write about.
One more story (LOL), there were two Buddhist monk friends who died. When the one monk got to heaven, he looked around and couldn’t find his friend! What happened to my friend? So the monk travelled to all the 32 Buddhist realms of existence looking for his friend, and after a long search, found him in a pile of manure! He was reborn as a worm. “Come out of there and join me in heaven, said the monk." “NO," said his friend. “Why should I? I am happy in all this $hit." His friend said, “But it’s so smelly and awful, please come out and join me in heaven." “No chance," said his friend, “I am happy here, this is my comfort level, and I can’t imagine anything better." “But you’re suffering and don’t even know it," said the monk, as he tried to pull his friend out of the manure pile. But his friend fought and fought, and finally slipped from the monk’s grasp as he tunneled back into the $hit. Moral of the story? Sometimes we don’t realize our situation.
Thank you sir. I neither agree nor disagree I simply like to get your perspective on this and many other issues and always learn something new so I'll keep you talking as long as I can. I had somewhat elaborately expounded on my view from my perspective on this issue but as always near the end of my sermon my computer crashed and I have no intention of doing so again. So you sir and our other dear readers have been saved by the bell, or as some may conclude were saved by divine intervention. You have a wonderful day and until later we meet. Peace.ctrl-s (save), ctrl-s, ctrl-s!
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