We can all agree on one fact –we value and seek happiness. All humans share this universal aspiration. Achieving genuine and lasting happiness can be said to be a central goal of human life. But if we so strongly desire happiness why are our lives so often filled with stress, distress, and overt suffering? Why does sustained happiness seems elusive at best? Is life by its nature a cycle of pleasure and suffering with suffering winning in the end when we arrive at the unavoidable realities of aging, disease and death? If this is hard-wired into human existence then there is little more to say except to learn to bare it as gracefully as possible.
But let’s take a radical view and suggest that happiness is innate to human life and that suffering is a reversible add-on. If this were so the immediate question would be: “Then why is happiness so ephemeral and elusive, and dissatisfaction, discontent, and suffering so ever-present?” If one takes the radical view that happiness is innate to human life and suffering a mere add-on then one is forced to meaningfully and successfully address this question. We must show why this is so and how we can actually and finally attain our goal of happiness freed from recurrent suffering. Failure to do so would render unbelievable the assumption that happiness is innate to human life.
But we are fortunate here. For millennia very wise individuals across diverse cultures and time have explored the issue of happiness. They have carefully examined their own experience and remarkably they’ve arrived at the same conclusion: happiness is innate to human life and suffering can be largely eradicated. Even further, we are now learning from modern scientific research that they are right. Research is confirming that enduring happiness can be cultivated and suffering brought to an end. Through mind training practices we see individual’s growing into happiness and through neuroscience we are increasingly seeing that the same mind training can result in physiological and structural changes in the brain consistent with higher levels of happiness and well being.
So where do we start the journey towards authentic happiness? There can be many starting points, but it is best to begin by removing one the greatest obstacles to happiness. We start by looking at a widely held illusion – a powerful illusion that keeps us from pursuing the happiness we all want. We begin by looking at the mistaken belief that pleasure and happiness are the same. Until we can see that they are profoundly different we will not give up chasing pleasure and turn towards cultivating true happiness.
Pleasure and Happiness are Not the Same
Let’s go directly to the point. Pleasure, which is mistaken for authentic happiness, is the experience of satisfaction and delight that we attribute to an external stimulus. Simply stated we find certain people, objects, and experiences to be satisfying and others unsatisfying. We orient our self towards what is pleasurable and avoid what we consider unpleasant. Pleasure is seen as residing in an outer person, object, or experience.
Happiness is much different. Happiness is the experience of peace, delight, and joy that naturally arises from a healthy and wise mind and a compassionate and loving heart. Its source is internal rather than external. It‘s self cultivated within rather than sought after in the external world. And unlike externally derived moments of pleasure it is enduring and immune to the inevitable shifts and changes in objects, people, and experiences that are innate to an impermanent world.
When we seek pleasure in the external world – mistaking it for authentic happiness – we become like scavengers searching here and there to gather what we can from a seeming scarcity of such experiences. And when we find islands of pleasure we protect them against any threats, real or imagined.
As we come to know authentic happiness we become more like farmers cultivating an endless crop. There is so much we give it away. It oozes out of us and touches everything and everyone.
However, we persist in holding to and acting as if pleasure is the same as happiness. Such a mistaken or false belief is called an illusion. An echo, mirage, or train tracks appearing to meet in the distance are examples of false perceptions. They are illusions. The way they appear is not the way they actually exist. It’s the same with pleasure and happiness. We think pleasure is the same as happiness. At first glance it looks that way and tastes that way, but it isn’t. Failure to see the truth of their profound differences binds us to an endless search for pleasure and keeps us from attaining the real thing. This is the core of the problem. This is why we neither know nor live an authentic happiness. We can’t, as long as we are chasing pleasure and think they are the same.
If we take a closer look we will more clearly see the differences between pleasure and happiness. We will see that pleasure is dependent on outer people, objects and experiences. Happiness comes solely from within. Pleasure is transient and fickle. Happiness is stable. Pleasure focuses on oneself. Happiness focuses on others. Pleasure always leads to suffering. Happiness always leads to more happiness. And finally, pleasure is a momentary state and happiness a permanent trait. Let’s look at these differences one-at-a-time. By correctly understanding these differences we will progressively undermine the illusion that pleasure and happiness are the same and realize the truth, pleasure can never lead to happiness. It is an end, a dead end, in itself.
Pleasure Relies on Outer Experiences – Happiness Comes from Within
From early on in life we are taught to orient our self toward the outer world for “happiness.” What we were taught as children and young adults is further supported and encouraged in adult life. What we learned about in our youth and pursue in adulthood is pleasure, not happiness.
We were taught that certain people, things, and experiences are pleasurable and others are not. As a result, we are drawn towards what is pleasant and push away from what’s unpleasant. External activities become our source of pleasure. As a result, we mistakenly come to believe that pleasure is an innate quality of outer objects, people, or experiences. We seek them more and more expecting to gain further pleasure. But the following examples will show that although pleasure is reliant on outer stimuli they are not a steady or reliable source of pleasure. What is pleasant can easily turn unpleasant when circumstances and conditions change.
Consider the following. In the summer, when we sit in front of a fan we experience the fan to be pleasurable. In the winter, when sitting in front of the same fan we experience it as unpleasant. In the summer we think that pleasure is an innate quality of the fan. We say the fan is pleasurable. In the winter we feel chilled and unpleasant. We say the fan is unpleasant.
Let’s look at this more closely. Was pleasure or displeasure an innate quality of the fan? Or, was our experience of pleasure a composite experience based on the actions of the fan, the outside temperature, the relief of a preceding moment of distress, and a variety of other factors? Upon reflection we would agree that the fan does not contain the quality of pleasant or unpleasant. If it did it would have to be one or the other all of the time.
Let’s look at another example. We would all consider eating a fine meal as quite pleasurable. Again we would ascribe the pleasure to the quality of the food. Yet if we continue to eat the same food until we are overfilled we would no longer consider our meal to be pleasurable. We might even feel ill. If the quality of pleasure was in the food then it would be pleasurable all the time and the more we ate the happier we would be. Common sense tells us this is incorrect. Even a fine meal is neither innately pleasant nor unpleasant.
Pleasure relies on external stimuli – on objects, people, and experiences. Yet the very things we rely on for pleasure do not actually contain pleasure as a steady, trustworthy, and reliable characteristic. What gives pleasure one day may give suffering the next.
Unlike pleasure, authentic happiness comes solely from within. It’s not reliant on external objects, people, or experiences. Its source is a healthy mind and heart. That’s what it’s dependent on. As a result it’s stable, unchanging, reliable, and trustworthy. In this way pleasure is very different from happiness.
Pleasure is Transitory – Happiness is Permanent
All outer things – people, objects, and experiences – are impermanent in their nature and are always undergoing change. As circumstances and conditions change the feeling of the pleasure we derive from them similarly changes. This is easy to see in our own life. Lovers can become enemies and enemies can become friends. Objects we once admired no longer hold interest. Tastes change. Needs change. Life changes. As a result, pleasure in its dependence on external stimuli is always in flux. It is fickle and ever changing. It’s like a moving target. That’s why we are always chasing it and can never quite hold it in place.
This constant chasing after a moving target is like having to run faster and faster on an out-of-control treadmill. That’s why the search for pleasure in the outer world – mistaken as a search for happiness – is relentless, exhausting, disillusioning, and in the end unsatisfying. And yet we are pushed further and further by the never-ending innovations of our advertising and marketing industries. They keep us on the treadmill and flourish on the fickleness of pleasure and the false conception that pleasure equals happiness.
Authentic happiness is permanent. It does not rely on outer people, objects, or experiences. It relies on a healthy mind and open heart. When we discover how to live in this natural state of being and presence happiness is found at its core. Even though we may neither see nor be in touch when we’re chasing after pleasure it’s always there. It’s simply clouded over by our obsession with the outer world. Once we see our natural happiness, know it, and begin to abide in it we will discover its unchanging nature.. We will discover that happiness, unlike pleasure, once embraced is permanent and unchanging.
Pleasure Focuses on Self – Happiness Focuses on Others
Pleasure is a self-centered drive. Its only concern is obtaining personal comfort and security from the external world. It is about meeting one’s own needs even when this means causing harm to others including those we claim to love the most.
We do great harm both individually and collectively when we act from a selfish motivation and in the end selfishness blocks the path to happiness. Further, we’re separated from others because we selfishly use them as objects of pleasure and we systemically rape our environment in order to distil bits of personal pleasure. This self-centered search for pleasure harms our life and disconnects us from authentic happiness. And why do we take such a self-destructive course? It’s because we mistake pleasure as being happiness. If we don’t know the real source of happiness we end up obsessively chasing pleasure, leaving a wake of suffering behind us.
Happiness is selfless. It’s about others. It naturally opens to and seeks to connect with others rather than seeking to extract pleasure from them. And when we are authentically happy we want the same happiness for others. Why not? Don’t others deserve and want happiness the same as our self? Even further, we rejoice in the happiness of others. The happiness of others adds to our own.
Pleasure is self-centered. Happiness is other-centered. This is the third way in which pleasure differs from happiness.
Pleasure Leads to Suffering – Happiness Leads to More Happiness
Because pleasure is reliant on external stimuli we are always grasping at what we find pleasurable. Whether it’s a person, object, or experience we want more and more. So our grasping turns into clinging, then to attachment, and finally to addiction. There are some pleasures that don’t take us through this entire cycle, but those external circumstances that have become major sources of pleasure in time become our obsessions, addictions, and greatest sources of mental distress.
There are several problems here. Because external experiences are in a state of constant change we cannot control them. As much as we may try to fix them and possess their “pleasure” we cannot succeed. The effort to attach to outer circumstances as a source of unending pleasure is exhausting. We try harder and harder to possess and defend our sources of pleasure. It’s like chasing a moving target. With time we become disillusioned, experience loss, and can even become angry and resentful. But our learned response is to continue to play out the same dead-end pattern, trying the same thing with more and more effort – reaching out, reaching out. I can just feel the exhaustion. Can you?
In this way the cycle of craving, clinging, attachment, and addiction always leads to dissatisfaction, anxiety, disillusionment, and suffering. This is the major problem we face with chasing pleasure. We cannot catch and hold it. It becomes a lifelong chase. It’s like we’re on a treadmill going faster and faster but never reaching our goal. And because we persist in our belief that pleasure is the same as happiness we cannot re-direct our efforts in the right direction.
Unlike pleasure happiness is stable. It is innately and permanently present in the healthy mind and open heart. It does not need to be sought after as it is always there. We cannot lose it. We can only forget it. Authentic happiness only leads to more happiness and never to the suffering and afflictions that are a constant companion of the outer search for pleasure. This is the fourth way in which happiness differs from pleasure. To understand this is to further undermine the illusion that they are the same.
Pleasure is a Momentary State – Happiness is a Permanent Trait
A state is an impermanent feeling. A trait is a permanent and stable part of our life. Pleasure is a temporary state of being that alternates with, indifference, and dislike. We go back-and-forth from one to the other as the person, object, or experience changes according to changing circumstances and conditions. We have a good, a bad day, and a blah day. That’s how it is with external sources of pleasure. They appear, they change, disappear, and reappear. Pleasure is never constant as its source is ever-changing.
Unlike pleasure we are discovering that authentic happiness is a trait. Once cultivated and revealed it’s internal, permanent, and unchanging. You can count on it. Because it’s a trait it’s stable and conveys a progressively immunity to life’s adversities including aging, disease, and death.
There is recent research by Richard Davidson and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin that may be of interest here. Their research focused on the most recently developed part of our brain – the prefrontal cortex. The left prefrontal cortex appears to be the brain center for the experience of happiness and well being and the right side the opposite. It’s as if the left side stands for the glass half full and the right for the glass half empty.
Through their research they discovered that each of us has a basic disposition that contains a certain ratio of left to right activity. Some of us are more left-sided – the optimism and well being of a glass half filled. Some of us are more right sided – the pessimism and dissatisfaction of a glass half empty. In actuality we are each a mixture – a bit of each side. However, whatever our basic disposition it is stable over time. That’s why it is called a trait.
If we have a pleasurable experience related to external pleasure the shift of activation will be to the left pre-frontal cortex and if we have an unpleasant experience the activation shifts to the right side. But this is only temporary – a state change. We soon revert back to our basic disposition that is a stable trait – our default. I’m sure we can all see this in our personal experience. We have a certain basic disposition. Life’s shifts and changes can move us in either direction – pleasure or discontent – but in time we more or less return to our “old” self.
What is important about this research was the discovery that well trained meditators (50,000 – 70,000 hours in a lifetime) could alter their basic disposition and shift their baseline for well being and happiness way over to the left frontal cortex. They have demonstrated for us that a basic trait can be permanently enhanced or changed by mind training. Happiness and well being can be learned.
Even more important is the discovery that individuals who are just beginners in mind training can show early but definite shifts in the ratio left to right pre-frontal activity. Because pleasure is a state it can never be stabilized and fixed. Fortunately the same can be said of suffering. However, happiness is a stable trait. And the good news is that we can develop and enhance this stable experience throughout our adult life.
In summary, pleasure is associated with external experiences, is by nature unstable and fickle, self-centered, and leads to mental distress and suffering. Happiness comes from within, is permanent, stable and abundant, embraces others and the world, and is accompanied by peace, compassion and wisdom. Pleasure is a momentary state. Happiness is a permanent and learnable trait. Pleasure and happiness, although mistaken as the same from early in life, are not the same. They lead to very different life experiences.
Distinguishing Pleasure and Happiness
Find a comfortable place to sit and close your eyes for this brief reflection. Bring to mind a moment when you felt great pleasure from a person, object, or experience. Take yourself back to this moment as if it was now. Observe it carefully. What does it feel like? Where is this feeling located in your body? How much was it dependent on the external condition? How long did it last? What was it like when it came to an end? Consider this for a few minutes.
Next, take yourself back to a time of inner happiness. This might be when you helped someone in a way that made you happy, or simply the joy of seeing another’s happiness. Recall a time we you focused on another. Take yourself back to this moment as if it was happening now. What is the feeling? Does it feel inner or outer? Does it have duration? Can you still feel it now? What feeling is left when it is over? Consider this for a few minutes.
Can you distinguish the difference between outer pleasure and inner happiness in your own life? Become more aware of these different experiences as you life unfolds.
Learning Happiness
Once we break through the illusion that pleasure and happiness are the same we can turn our attention towards cultivating a true inner happiness, the most precious gift and goal of the human experience. Learning about and cultivating happiness involves several major steps and a number of little ones that are matured over time. Here is an overview of the essential steps. Each of these will be covered in greater detail in the upcoming chapters.
Calming the mind we’re refers to quieting the continuous mental chatter that constitutes most if not all of our day-to-day mental life. This random, automatic, and continuous mental chatter both agitates and disturbs our mind and body and obscures the deeper levels of our mind robbing us of the quiet and clarity that are necessary to attain true happiness freed from suffering.
We each have an intimate relationship with the busy out-of-control mind. It’s our usual mental state. We call it normal. Yet, it’s the main reason why individuals begin mind training. When I go begin a mediation workshop I usually ask each participant why they signed up for the program. The runaway mind is usually on top of the list. “I can’t get to sleep.” “It drives me crazy.” “How can I stop my mind from talking?” However, underlying the overt desire to slow down the mind is the more subtle desire to find peace and happiness. That’s the real reason everyone is there.
I tell them that until we can settle the mind and create a respite from non-stop mental chatter we cannot change our life. That’s where we have to start. Everything depends upon gaining control of our mind. Until then we are like animals leashed to our mental chatter. We go here and there without choice attaching to and unconsciously following one thought, emotion, or image after another. We are in a sense enslaved and intoxicated by our overactive mind and we cannot see or know the happiness that awaits within.
All cultures and traditions that work with the mind recognize the need to settle it as a pre-requisite for a larger life and health. That’s why techniques to calm and settle the mind are found in all religious and spiritual traditions. It’s the beginning point. It’s the foundation of all further efforts to attain the universal human aspiration of happiness freed from suffering. We must begin by taking charge of our mind.
One cannot expect a fish to survive if dropped in a cesspool. Similarly, efforts to tame and train the mind cannot succeed when thrown into the context of an out-of-control life. If we wish to support a life of profound and enduring health and happiness we must know what to cultivate and what to abandon. We cultivate attitudes, speech, and behaviors that support our efforts and abandon those that do not.
This is a two-part process. In the beginning we take a personal inventory and decide what supports us and what gets in our way. As we progress in our work these initial efforts are stabilized further refined. At the onset we may have to exert effort to reorient certain aspects of our life. However, in time we will naturally finding our self moving towards supportive people, activities and environments.
Let’s take a sampling here of what to abandon and what to cultivate – choices that will vary amongst individuals. To begin, we must abandon the view that well-being is merely a biological issue and develop a certainty that health and happiness require a healthy mind and body. This view is an easy one to acknowledge but far more difficult to act on in a culture that only values the physical and material. Time, money, and attention come easy when we are physically challenged. But ask yourself if the same is true when we are mentally challenged, as we are each day.
Next, we must cease reaching out for happiness to people, objects, or experiences. This may offer some momentary pleasure but it is not the source of an enduring and true happiness.
Finally, we must abandon actions and speech that cause suffering to our self or others. Before we speak or act we must ask our self, “Are these words or actions skillful, or not. Do they promote further suffering, takes us on a detour from the real source of happiness, or promote inner development?”
In summary we must abandon the false view that health and well being can be attained solely through biological advances. We must abandon the view that true happiness can be found outside of our self. And finally, we must abandon speech and actions that are harmful to our self our others.
What do we cultivate? First, we cultivate a quieter life. We gravitate toward environments, people, and experiences that support inner stillness and mental stability. Take an inventory of the people and experiences in your life. Which people and experiences agitate your mind and which support stillness? Which should you cultivate and which should you abandon?
We next cultivate the attitude and actions of loving-kindness. Opening the heart naturally stills the mind, and maintains supportive and healthy relationships. Through specific practices we affirm in mind and heart the intention that others find happiness freed from suffering. We wish for others the same that we wish for our self. As we become more settled in this attitude we take up outer actions, actions such as patience, kindness, gentle and healing speech, and generosity. This is how we cultivate loving-kindness.
Finally we cultivate a sense of contentment and gratitude for what we are given. We are given a health mind and body, the ability to gain true and enduring happiness freed from suffering, teachers and teachings to show us the way, and leisure time to move forward. What greater gift could there be? What other gift could act as a wishing fulfilling gem that grants each of us the great riches of human life? Sometime we forget what we really have and get caught up in our lack of this or that. Focus on the real riches in life, the real sources of happiness and be thankful that you have all that you need to create a precious and beautiful life.
In summary, we cultivate inner stillness, an open heart, and contentment and gratitude for what has been given to us.
To open the heart is to go directly into the divine center of life – the very seat of permanent and true happiness. Some of us are more adept at opening our heart and some less so. Opening the heart is about otherness in contrast to selfness.
So much of the grief in the world comes from self-centeredness. Such an attitude can never lead to happiness freed of suffering. That can only arrive when by shifting towards otherness.
Consider the following. All people want happiness and no one wants suffering. In this way all individuals are just like me. Why is it that my happiness is more important or significant than that of others? Certainly my quest to gain happiness free from suffering is equal to that of all others. Why should I not value that desire in others, all others, as I do in myself? Of course I should. It’s only logical. We are all the same. We’re all in the same “boat.” Why not?
If we can get beyond the step of seeing how my desire is equal to that of others perhaps we can take the next step and see how my happiness is actually dependent on desiring happiness freed of suffering for all others. Only when I take this attitude do I sufficiently undermine my self-centeredness and experience a genuine and heartfelt connection with others – a connection that rapidly upgrades inner happiness. When I keep happiness for my self I will suffer. When I give it away I will gain more in return.
To be fully present is to be free of enslavement to mental chatter.. Specifically, this means to be free of bondage to the intellectual mind. Presence requires inner stillness As we gain the capacity to calm the mind we simultaneously gain the capacity to be present in the moment, the only moment, the timeless and immortal moment. Here is the source, the only source of peace and true happiness.
To be present in the moment is to live life as it is with all its vividness and aliveness. We do so from an inner spaciousness. We do not chase our mental commentary, elaborate on what we experience, judge it as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant. We are simply there with what is as is. And that is full health, happiness, and wholeness freed from suffering.
Happiness can be learned. Working with each of these steps places us directly on the path. Gradually – beginning early on – we can experience moments in which we glimpse our natural state of peace and happiness. Initially we get brief glimpses. But in time these islands of experience will gather together providing a progressively more sustained sense of true happiness.
There are three types of faith that come to bear here. The first is called certain faith. This is our intellectual understanding that pleasure is not happiness. The second type of faith is called clear faith. This faith arises when you have a definite and clear personal experience that confirms your intellectual understanding. These are “aha” meditative experiences that show you directly the truth of what you are learning. Now you know not because of what you have been told or read, but from your own experience. Finally, there is longing faith. Once you see the truth, once you see the path to a better life, once you know what is possible you then long for it with all of your heart and soul. The progressive movement through these three types of faith will carry you towards the precious gift of happiness
Dr. Dacher,
Thank you so much for this blog and your latest posting. It was like a clear resounding gong going off in my head and heart as I read your words. Yes... I get it. I'm working towards bringing mind/body healing into my teaching and my own life and I am inspired by you and your book on PNI. Thank you so much for your valuable contribution to this field.
Warmest regards,
Jan Holt
Posted by: Jan | November 28, 2008 at 05:15 PM
Dear Jan;
Thanks for your thoughts ... best to you.
Elliott
Posted by: Elliott Dacher | November 28, 2008 at 05:37 PM