If we’re going to create a more relaxed and harmonious civilization, we have to investigate this thing called happiness. What is it, and how do we all get some?
“Happiness is a fatality,” wrote the poet Rimbaud. I remember being puzzled when I first read that line, and then suddenly feeling a sense of ease and liberation wash over me. Turning happiness on its head made me happy.
I’d guess that happiness has ruined many a life since it was invented, which may not have been so long ago. I doubt that our pre-historic human ancestors had any idea of “happiness,” beyond satisfying basic needs. With no lion at the door and enough food around for a few days, Mr. and Mrs. Homo Habilis were probably quite happy. Being happy wasn’t an issue. It wasn’t on anybody’s to-do list.
Now, we all want happiness. The American Declaration of Independence even proclaims that all humans have the right to pursue it, which implies, of course, that happiness is out there somewhere, and, for some reason is running away from us. But as the Taoist master Chuang Tzu says, “My opinion is that you will never find happiness until you stop chasing it.”
Maybe we aren’t supposed to be happy. Scientists have done experiments on the mammalian brain and found that it’s not built for happiness. It functions so that, as neurologist Melvin Konner explains, “the organism’s chronic internal state will be a vague mixture of anxiety and desire — best described by the phrase ‘I want,’ spoken with or without an object for the verb.”
Maybe happiness in mammals isn’t useful for survival. If you’re feeling happy then you won’t be on the alert for trouble. However, if you feel anxious a lot you could consider yourself well adapted and likely to live a long but unhappy life. On the other hand, if you’re feeling happy you should start worrying as soon as possible.
My definition of happiness has changed over the years. But I’ve often confused pleasure with happiness, especially when I was younger. Pleasant sensations can accompany happiness, but what we call pleasure is a particular experience of the senses, which usually includes some kind of intensity. Pleasure is the feeling you get when you step into a shower or a hot bath, or when you first bite into something that tastes good. If you ask yourself, you may not be particularly happy at that moment, even though you are having pleasant sensations.
The act of sex is one of the most pleasurable experiences we can have, no doubt designed that way by evolution to keep us reproducing. When we have sex, the nerve endings in our skin, the pleasure centers in the brain, the psyche, and maybe even our genes themselves — are all standing up and shouting, “Yes, go baby go, this is what you are alive to do! Go forth and multiply!” But as many know, even people who are sad can enjoy sex.
How do you know when you are happy? What exactly does it feel like? That question is similar to the one asked by the cartoon character Zippy the Pinhead, “Are we having fun yet?” What does happiness feel like as a physical sensation? What is in your mind when you are happy? The better question may be to ask what is not in your mind.
Meditation altered my definition of happiness. Strange as it now seems to me, I was 26 years old before I first experienced the inner contentment that I would now call happiness. Before meditation, I had never experienced such moments and therefore had no way to measure them against pleasure or other degrees of happiness. Oh sure, there had been some post-coital, post-meal or post-work moments, when I felt a kind of self-satisfaction, but that usually did not last very long. In meditation, for the first time I felt the happiness of being at ease; I was released from the compulsions of the most primal of instincts, hope and fear, as well as my individually conditioned demands on the world.
The Buddha says, “True happiness can only be found by eliminating the false idea of `I’ or self.” He tried to tell us that the deepest ease and contentment only comes when we have stepped out of our personal drama, and to some degree let go of the instinctual self which is perpetually twitching with “I want,” and “I don’t want.” Only when we are free of that primal push and pull can we feel the “true happiness” that the Buddha describes. Of course, if you are no longer identified with yourself when you are happy, then there is no one there to enjoy the condition. Damn, it’s always something!
Another feeling that I’d distinguish from happiness, or add to it, the experience of awe and wonder: what comes from seeing towering mountains, great art or natural beauty or sometimes from walking into a cathedral or mosque. Such moments bring a sense of presence, an openness and lightness, an awareness of being part of a great mysterious unfolding free of fear and desire in the mind.
Life is a grand display of shapes and energies, and dropping any concept or belief about it, and just sitting with this pulsing body and enigmatic power of awareness can be both a calming and thrilling experience. Now, there’s a worthy type of happiness to pursue. Be sure to put it on your list.
Wes ‘Scoop’ Nisker is a radio personality, performer, Buddhist meditation teacher, and author of Essential Crazy Wisdom (Ten Speed Press), and The Big Bang, the Buddha, and the Baby Boom (Harper) www.wnisker.com