By Amanda Enayati — 2012
Columnist Amanda Enayati ponders the theme of seeking serenity, the quest for well-being, and life balance in stressful times.
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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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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.
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.
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