By Eric Jaffe — 2007
What will make you happy? A social scientist explains why it’s so hard to predict
Read on www.smithsonianmag.com
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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.
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The ultimate goal of Buddhist practice isn’t about achieving mental health.
Mindfulness experts Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter show, by way of the Buddhist parable of the second arrow, how the mind’s response to crisis is a choice we can control.
In this essay, I discuss what enduring happiness means according to the Buddhist perspective and the ways in which the Dalai Lama embodies this enduring happiness.