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I needed an emotional boost this morning, and I thought you guys could use one, too.
What is happiness, and how do we get it?
I have posted a 2004 TedTalk from Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard.
From TED: Ideas worth spreading...
Why you should listen to him:
After training in biochemistry at the Institute Pasteur, Matthieu Ricard left science behind to move to the Himalayas and become a Buddhist monk -- and to pursue happiness, both at a basic human level and as a subject of inquiry. Achieving happiness, he has come to believe, requires the same kind of effort and mind training that any other serious pursuit involves.
I believe in training our brains to think happy thoughts as M. Ricard advises. The bottom line is that thinking happy thoughts makes for a better life, period.
What's the alternative?
Always thinking the worst? Raking onerself or others over the coals for any variety of damaging reasons? The hate that's being spread through our media from the likes of Glenn Beck and the women who make up Maureen Dowd's Mean Girls and cascading into our cultural consciousness--not to mention our own individual self-destructiveness?
What are younger generations learning from this malicious inundation? For example, bullying behavior to gay teenagers.
I'm talking about learning or creating personal and deep happiness. I'll use the word spiritual here.
From my Apple Dictionary:
spiritual |ˈspiri ch oōəl|
adjective
1 of, relating to, or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things : I'm responsible for his spiritual welfare | the spiritual values of life.
• (of a person) not concerned with material values or pursuits.
I'm saying not on the surface--not a shallow life or part of one--but a meaning and connection that goes underneath the skin to something inside us that's much richer and fills us with gratitude and love.
In this world filled with rage, especially in the USA these days, a mission to encourage compassion--and happiness--is not a bad idea.
--Beth Arnold in Paris
