It happens to all of us…we find ourselves caught up in the woes of life. We have a bad day, bad experience, someone says something mean to us, or we make a stupid decision. We begin to experience suffering, and realize the fragility of our own circumstance.
If you are anything like me, when these moments set in, you begin to question life… question existence… and attempt to answer the age old question…
“Why am I here?”
I wish for all of our sakes that I could figure this one out. In fact, I spend a lot of time trying to get to the root of questions like this on a regular basis. With so much suffering in the world, why is it that we keep going? Why do we still want to move towards happiness, and away from pain? Is this journey just about overcoming suffering, and finding lasting happiness? Isn’t that what we all really want?
Suffering
The Dalai Lama states:
“Suffering and pain are inalienable facts of life.”
In order to better understand lasting happiness, we must first explore the depths of suffering. In the Dalai Lama’s book, Ethics for the New Millennium, he describes two forms of suffering: avoidable forms, and unavoidable forms.
- Avoidable Forms – Cause and effect scenarios that are avoidable such as: war, fighting, our economic situation, mental and emotional states, level of education, health, and how we take care of ourselves.
- Unavoidable Forms – Situations or conditions that we do not influence or create such as: natural disasters, aging, death, and general uncertainty of life.
In our lives, we tend to react equally to both. Either form comes up in our lives and seems surprising to us. Even the events that we brought on ourselves seem shocking. Our job is to realize when we are doing this, and to change our behavior. We may not be able to avoid all suffering, but at least we can stop the cycles that are coming from avoidable forms of suffering.
Our Struggle with Suffering
Because we cannot predict when we will be met with adversity, we feel confused. We are further confounded by thinking the following ways:
If I was doing this “right”, I would not be suffering.
If I am being a good person, being virtuous, and helping others, I should not suffer.
Additionally, we think that if we do the right things, we will experience contentment. However, “…undermining everything we do, there is the suffering lack of contentment which arises even when we achieve all that we have striven for.”
Maybe you have experienced this in your life?
“And if this were not enough… the very experiences which ordinarily [should bring us pleasure] turn out themselves to be a source of suffering.”
So, my conclusion… No matter how hard we try, or what we do, there will always be some form of unavoidable suffering that will surface. We cannot actually Do Anything to stop suffering, but, “the degree to which suffering affects us is largely up to us.”
Changing Your Mindset Around Happiness
Just as there are two kinds of suffering, I believe that there are two kinds of happiness: conditional happiness, and unconditional happiness. Much like the two forms of suffering, we set up rules and structures about how we feel based on What Happens To Us. Read about the two types of happiness, and see what rules you are playing by.
Conditional Happiness
Conditional happiness is based on false hopes, imaginary expectations and situations or people outside of our control. Here is the mindset, or recurring thought process…
I can be happy when…
- I’ve got it all figured out
- I buy this next…
- I have my new…
- I accomplish…
I would be happy if…
- my relationship was…
- my boss was…
- my family acted…
- people would treat me…
I can feel safe and secure when…
- I have X money in the bank
- I make X dollars a month
- my retirement fund is X
- My mortgage is paid down to X
Unconditional Happiness
Unconditional happiness is based on accepting reality, realizing and appreciating where we are, focusing on controlling our behaviors, emotions, and life experience that we create.
We can achieve this by practicing the following steps…
STEP 1: Realize happiness is a choice, NOT a circumstance.
You cannot create a world insulated from suffering but you can create an attitude devoid of suffering.
STEP 2: Realize when you are creating suffering that IS AVOIDABLE, and Stop It!
Try to catch yourself and change your behaviors when you are…Participating in Negative Thoughts, Creating Drama and Gossip, Being Emotionally Reactive, Creating Conflict, or Choosing behaviors with a Negative Consequence to your Health and Well Being.
STEP 3: Understand the conditional happiness rules you have set up and how limiting those constraints are for ourselves and others.
If you can only be happy when…and if someone acts…and if you have… You are going to spend the majority of your life VERY unhappy!!
STEP 4: Work every day on being happy No Matter What.
No matter what comes at you, what breaks, what people say or do (or Don’t say or Do)… focus on being happy. Try to build yourself to the point of Unshakable Happiness.
STEP 5: Repeat steps 1 – 4 until you die.
This is something that we must work on Every Day. It is a challenge to build unconditional happiness, but in order to be happy, we must do it! Do it for yourself, do it for others, but everyday, get up and just do it.
If we can train ourselves to be happy…not Because of what is happening, but rather, DESPITE what is happening, we have truly achieved greatness.
*all quotes taken from His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s book, Ethics for the New Millennium
*photo source: http://www.writespirit.net/authors/dalai_lama/pictures
