By Emiliana Simon-Thomas — 2018
Research reveals the steps you can take toward greater well-being, health, and productivity at work.
Read on greatergood.berkeley.edu
CLEAR ALL
Question: Buddhist teachers, including the Dalai Lama, often speak of happiness as a goal (if not the goal) of Buddhist practice. I don’t begrudge anyone happiness, but making it so central to spiritual life feels self-serving. Am I misunderstanding what’s meant by “happiness”?
It’s surprisingly easy to achieve lasting happiness — we just have to understand our own basic nature. The hard part, says Mingyur Rinpoche, is getting over our bad habit of seeking happiness in transient experiences.
1
Sneezing, coughing, blowing her nose—Natalie Goldberg was awfully sick yet she was happy. Happiness is available to everyone, she realized, but we can find it only when we’re still.
Productivity is more about what you don’t do than what you do. Focused effort on your most important tasks is a skill that can be practiced and perfected.
Many equate self-discipline with living a good, moral life, which ends up creating a lot of shame when we fail. There’s a better way to build lasting, solid self-discipline in your life.
2