This week as part of the Happiness Course by Robert Holden, PhD; you are invited to pause and reflect on the meaning of happiness for you. What is the word happiness mean?
Take a 10 minute break now and on a fresh piece of paper write the heading,' My Definition of Happiness'. It is for you to write, doodle, scribble and draw what happiness really means to you.
Come back to this paper after the Happiness Workshop is over and go back to revisit it. Notice if there is a newer addition or deletion to your definition.
You will find that your definition of happiness influences every other significant decision in your life.
The purpose of meditating on the question "what is happiness?" is to go beyond learned ideas and concepts so as to enjoy a direct experience-with your whole being-of what the word happiness means. This is a powerful journey as it means sometimes honouring everything you have ever learned or at other times letting go of everything you think you know.
The Happiness Circle
This is a powerful exercise for discovering what you really mean by happiness. It is a sentence completion exercise which means you complete the sentence you are given. This is even more amazing when you do this with a few friends seated in a circle. Each person completes the sentence once before the next person begins. Each round must last about 6-7 minutes.
So part one, complete the following sentence, " Happiness is.." Give yourself 30 seconds.
The second part begins with, " True happiness is.." 45 seconds
Then after a minutes silence, complete the last part of the exercise with the following sentence, " My favourite definition of happiness is.." 15-25 seconds.
In part one, you may find your answers only skim the surface, part two there is greater honesty, intimacy and sharing. And in the third part, you might experience greater clarity, inner wisdom and a profound revelation that is beyond words.
Types of Happiness
After the above exercise you might become aware of the different "types" of happiness and its awareness will no doubt be very helpful in understanding the nature of true, lasting happiness.
a)Pleasure: Sensory Happiness
This is the happiness that we experience through our physical senses; it is what makes us have a good time. Healthy pleasures are natural, innocent, and life-affirming. The benefits can be summed up with three words:
1. Aliveness: We come to life through our senses
2. Connection: We connect and join with others through our senses
3. Presence: The enjoyment of simple pleasures helps you to enter into everyday experiences with greater awareness and appreciation.
A wonderful way to spend an hour this week would be to compose a list of your most life-enhancing pleasures. Then make sure you really let yourself enjoy these pleasures.
Pleasure (sensory happiness) also has some serious shortfalls:
1. It is wholly reliant on a stimulus and response action. No stimulus, no response.
2. It is a transient experience that vanishes once the effects of the pleasure chemicals wears off.
3. It is a personal experience, not a universal one; we don't all receive sensory impressions the same way.
4. Pleasure exists in duality with a twin called pain. For example, you might enjoy one cup of coffee a day; occasionally two. The third would probably make you tensed, emotionally irritable, mentally tired amongst others.
b) Satisfaction: Circumstantial Happiness
This is the type of happiness that comes from getting what you want. Other words used to describe this type of happiness include "contentment," "fulfilment".
Satisfaction arises when you enjoy circumstances and conditions that are deemed favourable. Satisfaction is the result of the thought, I am happy because..
It could be getting things, finding meaning in certain activities, in having a purpose, in loving relationships, and in values and ethics.
Another wonderful way to spend an hour of your life, then, is to create a list of all the most meaningful moments, events, and relationships in your life. You will feel like your whole life just got better if you do this..guaranteed! :)
But like Pleasure, Satisfaction has some shortfalls too:
1. It is a by-product of a "cause and effect" dance. No cause, no effect.
2. It is notoriously short-lived because you adapt so quickly to favourable circumstances.
3. Satisfaction exists in duality with dissatisfaction. Things that used to satisfy you in the past may no longer satisfy you now. For example, the ipod that only has enough memory for 40,000 songs and 200 hours of video is not enough when the next version is unveiled.
4. The problem with satisfaction is that it is entirely dependent upon the external world and your mind-neither of which are particularly safe places to live. When you are not in your right mind, for instance, you may overlook everything you could appreciate.
c) Joy: Unreasonable Happiness
Like pleasure, it can express itself through the body but it is not of the body. Like satisfaction, it can be felt emotionally and appreciated mentally, but it is so much more than just an emotion or a state of mind. Other words used to describe this type of happiness include "bliss" and "felicity" and also "ecstasy".
Although describing joy is very difficult it is also very worthwhile as the more you tune in to joy and let yourself feel it, the more you learn about what true happiness is.
You are encouraged to describe joy by meditating on joy, by painting joy, by singing joy, by crafting a poem in joy, or by finding a symbol, in nature, for instance, that represents joy.
You will find the following qualities of joy emerging:
1. Constancy: Joy does not come and go, what comes and goes is our awareness of joy.
2. Creativity: " From joy springs all creation, by joy it is sustained, towards joy it proceeds, and to joy it returns" (From the Upanishads; classic sacred texts of Indian literature)
3. Unreasonable: It does not seem to need a reason. This is why we can be surprised by joy even in the most ordinary moments.
4. Untroubled: Unlike pleasure and satisfaction, joy has no opposite. Is is as if nothing in the world can tarnish or diminish the essence of joy.
5. Enough:Joy does not induce a craving for more, because joy is enough. If ever we feel joy is missing, it is because we are absent-minded-caught up, probably, in some grief over a passing pleasure or preoccupied with a new object of desire.
One does not have to choose between pleasure, satisfaction and joy,
unless you cultivate an awareness of joy, no amount of pleasure or satisfaction can make you happy.
Blessings for a wonderful week!
Stay Blissful.
