Feeling Happy, Staying Happy

I'm often considering the topic of happiness, and recently I've found my way back to meditation. For years I practiced Seido Karate and a key component of this style is Zazen meditation. I remember my teacher chastising an angry Karate student by growling 'More Zazen!'. I've found that since I've reclaimed my meditation - which I simply do in bed when I wake up, during the day while I'm breast feeding my wee boy, and just before I return to sleep at night - my life has become more peaceful. I've calmed down, I feel happier, and I'm relaxed enough to be able to sleep during the day if I need a rest. Some days I find it easier to relax and meditate than others, but in general I notice it making a positive difference to my state of mind.



I found a great article, written for the Winter edition of YES! Magazine - Sustainable Happiness, titled This is Your Brain On Bliss. The author Matthieu Ricard, who quit his career as a cellular geneticist nearly forty years ago to study Buddhism, had this to say about happiness:



"Authentic happiness is a way of being and a skill to be cultivated. When we first begin, the mind is vulnerable and untamed, like that of a monkey or a restless child. It takes practice to gain inner peace, inner strength, altruistic love, forbearance, and other qualities that lead to authentic happiness."



This reminded me of the fact that our brains are muscles, and with a little perseverance they can be trained in all manner of ways. Ricard goes onto say:



"The most important time to meditate or do other types of spiritual practices is early in the morning. You set the tone for the day and the “fragrance” of the meditation will remain and give a particular perfume to the whole day. Another important time is before falling asleep. If you clearly generate a positive state of mind, filled with compassion or altruism, this will give a different quality to the whole night.


"When people experience “moments of grace”, or “magical moments” in daily life, while walking in the snow under the stars or spending a beautiful moment with dear friends by the seaside, what is really happening? All of a sudden, they have left their burden of inner conflicts behind. They feel in harmony with others, with themselves, with the world. It is wonderful to fully enjoy such magical moments, but it is also revealing to understand why they feel so good: pacification of inner conflicts; a better sense of interdependence with everything rather than fragmenting reality; and a respite from the mental toxins of aggression and obsession. All these qualities can be cultivated through developing wisdom and inner freedom. This will lead not just to a few moments of grace but to a lasting state of well-being that we may call genuine happiness.


In this state, feelings of insecurity gradually give way to a deep confidence that you can deal with life’s ups and downs. Your equanimity will spare you from being swayed like mountain grass in the wind by every possible praise and blame, gain and loss, comfort and discomfort. You can always draw on deep inner peace, and the waves at the surface will not appear as threatening."



Check out YES! Magazine and this article, if you're open to the discipline of meditation - whether you practice for five minutes or five hours a day, the results equate to one path towards increased, and sustained happiness.