Ah, the elusive happiness!! It seems we are all chasing it in one way or another, even though we don't quite realise it. In thinking about @ecotrain's question of the week, I have to ask myself whether I'm happy. Thankfully, on the whole I generally am. I see a lot of joy in my life and a lot of things to be grateful for, so I guess that's happiness. So whatever I need to be happy, I guess I got me some of that. How blessed am I!

Here's a few of the things that make me genuinely happy:

• I have a loving relationship with my family and a few close friends who love me unconditionally
• I am married to my best friend
• I have a stable income and a roof over my head
• I live in a safe and stable country with a good health care system
• I feel I've made changes in my life to alter the stresses that caused the majority of my anxiety and depression
• I have a beautiful house and 5 acres of land to grown my own food and garden
• I live in nature and close to my beloved ocean
• I am fit and healthy
• I have the means to travel and do things that temporarily 'boost' my happiness.

Now that's probably the key to this happiness malarky - the knowledge of impermanence. Nothing lasts, ever. Any of those things can change at any moment, god forbid. My father's been ill and I know I might lose this man that's been the central force in my life forever. I know I too might get ill, or suffer an accident. Or Jamie. Being in bed for the last two days with an illness has been challenging to say the least.

Buddhism teaches us that things change, moment to moment. This is both on a cellular level and at a level we percieve more clearly. We only have to look at the natural world for that - the seed is planted, the tree grows, and dies, and returns to the earth. Us humans fool ourselves by thinking we are outside nature, but it's probably wise to understand that we too are subjects to impermance and change. It's the only constant.

So maybe a little bit of this insight has provided me with some happy?

I loved @holisticmom's answer to this question, and she expresses it well as she talks about one of her solutions to the crisis of unhappiness that the world seems to be experiencing:

Shake off the materialism, live simply. Consumerism is the cancer of this planet. When we learn to escape the need for material things and learn to be comfortable with less can really help us to feel happier. When we buy things that are purely serving our wants rather than our needs, we are superficially creating happiness. When we have everything we want, we want more and more and the cycle continues. We often get into debt trying to create this outside world fueled by ego. This world makes us rely on others to validate our happiness because we are showing people 'look what I have'. Social acceptance is considered much easier when we have things in common. So if you like makeup or high fashion, you become part of this club where everyone validates each others' happiness. But we are never really and truly happy within. We are just seeking approval from others. When we discard the fancy clothing, makeup, house decorated to keep up with the Jones's, and find people to connect with that really couldn't give two hoots if you have holes in your sweater or the type of car you drive or even if you hair is a mess. People that care about connection and community. People who care about others. People who are about making this thing called HUMAN EXPERIENCE enjoyable and fun. That is where the happiness is.

She also included this amazing video, which totallly sums up what most of us do without really realising it. As much as I hate to steal from you @holisticmom, I can't believe how well this cartoon sums up what we get sucked into and I absolutely HAVE to share it!

So, basically what we're doing is pinning all our dreams and happiness on things that don't last - that are superficial, and often sold to us like snake oil.

When I sat my Vipassana, the teacher Goenke-ji would say that we're always 'wanting, wanting' and made jokes about this - we are never happy with what we have. This has becoming a running joke with my Dad whenever we lust after something - 'wanting, wanting' we say to each other, reminding ourselves that perhaps this need is driven by a desire for happiness, and reminding each other that we don't need this shit to be happy.

This doesn't mean we detach or remove enjoyment from life completely - we can still love, and feel joy, and delight.

I was watching a video on you tube the other day about a girl who had quit her ten day vippassana retreat because she didn't feel that controlling her mind and her actions in that way was 'enlightening' at all and felt it was important to sing, dance, create, love. I think she missed the point somewhat - such teachings aren't tellings us that we can't do those things at all.

We can dance and sing and laugh and love but we also must do so with the understanding that things don't last.

However, as I'd like to argue with that (and I'm really wanting to say young, arrogant and naive girl but I won't) that's pretty freeing, isn't it? Because if joy doesn't last, then nor does suffering. Suffering just isn't as fun to live through, and seems to last longer. I know this because two days in bed with an infection on holiday feelings like an unhappy eternity. But, like the famous Sufi understanding, 'this too shall pass' - nothing lasts forever. This goes for the happiness we feel on buying the coveted new television or the holiday in Bali. Nothing lasts, but that's okay, because that's the nature of life. It's only when we think it's going to last that we suffer.

That's why Buddhist and some other traditions have these great tricks to help us 'get' this idea of impermance by concentrating on the physical body:

One of the tricks meditators use (and in fact, pretty much every religion in the entire world teaches this idea in one way or another) is the idea of equanimity. An equanimous mind experiences things moment to moment with neither clinging nor aversion, desire nor running away. As Thich Nat Hanh says, 'you climb the mountain to be able to look over the whole situation, not bound by one side or the other'. How they achieve this equanimity is not the aim of this post, and I'm sure most of you reading this understand meditative techniques that allow this to happen as a habit of mind.

Habits of mind are thus also a key to happiness. If we're always focussing on the negative, that's what our life will be, and vice verse. Neuroscience also tells us this. So if we're practicing insight meditations, we're far more likely to be happy because we know that just like happiness, suffering doesn't last, and vice verse. We can also find great joy in these moment to moment experiences.

Think of a time in your past that you were desperately unhappy. Did it last?

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And so happiness in these moments means different things to different people. I find great, divine, incredibly moments of joy in places that might not resonate for others. I'm glad that I don't need a lot of money for the things that make me feel this joy - being completely aware of my body and mind and breathe during yoga, for example, brings me great joy, as does helping others, or watching a sunset next to a volcano (I did try to keep the volcano out of this post, but she's got a way of weaving herself in).

And between those times, maybe life sucks, or maybe it doesn't, but none of it lasts, and that makes me happy.

Of course it's different strokes for different folks. I know it was a lot harder for me when I was in the midst of depression. But I do think this understanding stopped me sinking further and it also gave me a way out.

I also worry about J. too as we don't have a solid community here and he misses his family in the UK. We know that community is important for mental health and thus this feeels like a bit of a barrier to complete happiness. However, we're working on doing something about that, or just accepting it as a kind of hermitage.

I don't pretend to have any answers to the key to happiness. What I do know is that it's not ever going to come from outside the self - it's only by finding happiness within that we'll find happiness outside ourselves.

This is becoming more pertinent to me as I get older too. I've never really been that accepting of my external appearance, and this hasn't change a lot since I hit 40. But then meditation on aging and death is the key to my happiness too - this is part of the law of impermanence and the miracle of life. No decay and death means no life to begin with - there's the paradox of duality again. We're all on this mortal coil to learn these lessons and maybe in the next lifestime that lesson will arrive sooner, if you believe in that kind of thing.

I guess if I died tomorrow, I'd want to die happy. So when I really, really ask myself, am I happy? I'd say yeah, yeah I am. Life is pretty darn good and I'm totally blessed to be here.

May you all find what you need to be happy, good folk of the Steemiverse. xx

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