Happiness Read online

  Suffering is part of life, we know. But it is religion that tells us how to think about suffering. If a religion sees suffering as good for us, does that mean that religion glorifies it? If the religion sees suffering as bad for us, does that mean that religion will reject it?

  The questions are momentous because the way religion treats suffering will have something to do with the way we treat suffering — either our own or someone else’s.

  More to the point, it’s important to know if suffering is actually the end and goal of religion so that we might be purged of whatever it is that has corrupted us.

  On the other hand, if pleasure is either an acceptable part of religion or no part at all, life as we know it will somehow be shaped by that. If pleasure is either right or wrong, what happens to us as a result of it will mark our own life choices forever.

  The fact is that religion shapes attitudes. It directs us to elements of life that we should be developing, or it closes some of them off to us. It can set out to develop us as moral agents and spiritual adults, or it can suppress the religious imagination to the point of religious servitude.

  Cultivating within ourselves the ability to distinguish one response from another has something do with becoming both psychologically whole and philosophically astute.

  What religion teaches us about happiness and how we achieve it will, in the end, shape our very notions of life and growth. More than that, perhaps, it has the capacity to lead us through the darkness of pain and enable us to recognize pleasures that offer more than dulling boredom or inadequate and immature spiritual development.

  The role and place of religion in life have both a personal and a social impact. Religion’s definition of happiness and the way to achieve it is no small concern for the world. It tells us a great deal about ourselves and even more about the God we all believe in but cannot see except, perhaps, in the shadows we cast for one another because of the religions we say we follow.

  chapter 35

  Hinduism:

  The One Thing Necessary

  Hinduism is the world’s first great religious tradition, sometimes called the world’s oldest living religion. Called “the eternal law” by its adherents, texts dating back over 5,000 years record the teachings of Hindu holy men and gurus across the ages.

  Four major texts in particular — the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Baghavad Gita, and the Mahabarata — form the basis of Hinduism’s ancient insights and are still authoritative today for each of its six distinct schools of spirituality. The texts deal with theology, philosophy, and mythology, giving Hinduism a history of thought unparalleled in any other of the major traditions.

  Discernible themes are constants, however. They form a worldview that has dominated in India before the dawn of recorded time, but they are, in some ways, more relevant now than ever.

  In a world struggling with questions of ecological philosophy in an industrial age, Hinduism consistently reasserts the sacredness of creation. It is a position that has shaped the lifestyle of Hindus for generations.

  Faced with the decline of agriculture due to the killing of cows and the eating of meat 1,000 years ago, Brahman priests pointed out the relationship between animals and people and forbade the killing of cows in order to save an agricultural society that was in fast decline. The awareness of this ecological relationship has, over time, become a way of life and a mark of our human responsibility to creation and the animals’ contribution to it as well. It is a living model of interdependence of humans and all other living things in a world that is fast destroying the thread of life between human beings and nature.

  India’s “sacred cow,” for instance, is an icon of the generosity and caring love of God for humankind. The cow is the answer to all human needs. It provides transportation, agricultural livelihood, and food for humanity and, even in death, supplies leather goods and shelter for humans, as well.

  To the Hindu the world is an extension of the body of God and therefore sacred in every dimension. It is a lesson to be taken seriously at this moment in history, one that could well affect the happiness, the good life, of people everywhere today.

  The Hindu challenges this nuclear world’s tendency to resolve contemporary problems at the end of a cruise missile by maintaining as one of its major religious principles a commitment to ahimsa or non-violence.

  The Hindu’s commitment to creation as an emanation of the very substance of a Creator God makes us all one. To do violence to the other, therefore, is to do violence to the very God who created us.

  Finally, the Hindu sees God in everything everywhere. Thought by Westerners to be pagans because they claim 330,000,000 gods and goddesses, the truth is that the Hindus are essentially monotheistic. There is one God, the Hindu knows, but there is no single form or name or definition that can possibly encompass the goodness or manifestation of that God. All the Hindu gods are simply reminders of the limitless forms in which the attributes of Brahman, the one God, may be discerned.

  Consider this story in the Upanishads, for instance:

  A seeker asks a sage, “How many gods are there?”

  And the sage answers, “3,306.”

  “Yes,” the seeker goes on, “but how many gods are there?”

  And the sage answers, “33.”

  “But how many gods are there?” the seeker presses on.

  And the sage answers, “6.”

  “But how many gods are there?” the seeker continues.

  And the sage answers, “3.”

  “But how many gods are there?” the seeker insists.

  And the sage answers, “2.”

  “But how many gods are there?” the seeker demands.

  And the sage answers, “One and a half.”

  And finally, “How many gods are there?” the seeker pleads.

  “One,” the sage answers.

  The point is that there is multiplicity of forms and names in the Divine, but at the same time there is only and always the oneness of the Divine.

  The apparently diverse images, Professor Diane Eck says, are really foundationally one in the same way that clay is one but takes on many names and forms — pot, brick, vase, plate, bowl — or in the same way the sun is reflected equally in 1,000 water dishes but is the same sun. It simply refracts in every earthen vessel differently.

  And it is to this one God that every Hindu life, worshiped often under its many single attributes, is pointed and attuned.

  Moksha — liberation from an unending cycle of rebirths designed to make us worthy of liberation from the human life to life with the Divine — is the ultimate happiness for which the Hindu strives.

  In its respect for diversity and its ability to see God everywhere in everyone, Hinduism lays the basis for a happiness grounded in a world that is integrated, accepting of otherness, and non-violent.

  What all of that says about the lives of individual Hindus, of course, depends on the implications of these elements for how personal happiness is defined. Then, the personal pursuit of the good life is either enabled or limited by the religious prescriptions under which the religious person lives.

  chapter 36

  Hinduism: The Measure

  of the Happy Life

  If, as Aristotle says, happiness is more than, beyond, any external conditions of life — wealth, power, good looks, or status — then the Hindu shares that same passion for what Aristotle calls “the life well lived.”

  Hinduism recognizes that suffering is a natural part of life but is determined to enjoy the goods of this life as well as to bear its pains.

  Hinduism teaches that there is more to life than things, but that does not mean ignoring the goods of this world. In fact, all dimensions of life are meant to be used well. We should appreciate the good things of the human condition and to balance them, to see to it that nothing in life captures us or tricks us into giving ou
rselves to life’s lesser goals. All of life is to be sought or used or enjoyed, but only for the sake of achieving life’s greatest goal, the full development of the human soul.

  Hinduism recognizes four aims or objectives — purusharthas — of human life. Each of these dimensions has something to do with Aristotle’s concern for living well and living fully.

  Each of the purusharthas has lessons to teach as well as joys to give. Each of them is meant to grow us to the point where the search for liberation from this life becomes our total and deepest project, the crown of our development here and for all time.

  The way each of these goals is met, the attitudes we take toward them, the sincerity that we bring to them, is meant to be another step beyond the allurements of life that make real happiness impossible. These are life goals, not spiritual competitions that mathematically qualify a person for liberation. Instead, they prepare the soul to seek liberation with all its might so that when liberation comes the person is ready for it.

  Hinduism’s first overriding life goal is to embrace dharma, the great law of life.

  As close, perhaps, as a Westerner can come to understanding what dharma really means is to recognize that, though it implies righteousness — right living — it is not simple adherence to a checklist of religious rules or pious devotions. It means both, of course, but it means much more, as well. It means the cultivation of faith, sacred law, justice, ethics, and duty in accordance with the duties of the devotee’s particular caste.

  Dharma is the sum total of the giving of the mind and heart to the things of God. It is the foundation of the life well lived in the shadow of the Vedas, the Hindu Scriptures, and under the guidance of the great spiritual figures who have preceded our own generation.

  Dharma is the force that holds everything in this early life in place, in order, with justice for all.

  Artha has to do with wealth and security. Hinduism never doubts the value of material possessions to a person’s well-being. But the serious Hindu does not seek wealth for the sake of wealth. Wealth is meant to secure the happiness of others as well as the needs of the self.

  Getting wealth honestly and using wealth well are important dimensions of artha. Generosity and compassion are the soulmates of artha. Some of us must be prepared to take care of those who cannot do that for themselves. We are all here to be savior to the other.

  Artha implies simplicity and detachment as well as security, but it is not a commitment to asceticism or even to voluntary poverty. To be able to take care of oneself is itself a contribution to society. Wealth is a form of divine energy and a sign of the God of abundance.

  Kama is the recognition of the proper role of desire in human life and the commitment to keep it within boundaries. Desire — in particular, sexual desires — Hinduism recognizes as both great gift and a great danger. To the Hindu mind, sex is not unclean, but it is a desire powerful enough to make the person a prisoner of desire, a slave to pleasure, a betrayer of its real purpose.

  On the one hand, sex is about co-creation but it is also about more than co-creation. It is about family bonds and social stability. On the other hand, if love becomes lust, it threatens to overwhelm the very society it creates. It becomes one of life’s greatest struggles and deepest enemies.

  Hinduism sees sex as a sacred duty meant to be carried out within the boundaries of our moral and personal lives. To deal with sex correctly is the way to fulfill our desires by desiring and yet maintaining the social order at the same time. It is a holy duty, an act of praise, a commitment to both creation and society, a final outpouring of bliss from a loving God.

  Finally, having been schooled by the dharma, disciplined by artha, sustained and supported by kama, the Hindu has a new knowledge of the self and of the world. Having learned lessons in the struggle with desire, the lures of greed in the search for security and wealth, and the pitfalls of love, the soul is now ready to devote itself to the pursuit of moksha, the absence of delusion, the ability to see life as it really is and to leave lesser things behind for the sake of immersion in the Divine. When Hindus achieve moksha, they ascend above things and desires, beyond laws and legalisms, into the real meaning and purpose of life.

  Then they are freed from the bonds of this world and awash in the things that matter. Then, Hindus come to realize, all the preparation has been worthwhile. This has been a happy life.

  chapter 37

  Buddhism:

  The Call to End Suffering

  When the Buddha, after years of living within the protected walls of his father’s palace estate, finally drove beyond those gates to the outside world, he confronted the reality of life — suffering — for the first time. So shocked was he to see the sick, the poor, and the dying that he devoted the rest of his life to trying to make sense of it all.

  First, he put himself under the tutelage of gurus and the communities of disciples that followed them. But he came away from that experience no wiser about the meaning of life than when he first began his journey.

  Next, he turned to the ascetics who dealt with life by fleeing it and began a regime of rigid restrictions. Months went by until, emaciated and tense, he began to realize there that he was spending more time thinking about the rigors of his fasts than he was about the meaning of life.

  Finally, he simply retired to the forest alone to meditate on that question of suffering and work through the problem himself.

  It was there, he said later, sitting in meditation day and night under the bohdi tree, that he finally rose from his spiritual labor enlightened, certain that he understood both the source of suffering and the end of suffering.

  In the state of nirvana, a state of emptiness from the things of the world, all his desires burned out, and, free of the clinging to things that enslave us, he set out to enable others to become enlightened, too. He said, “I teach suffering and the way out of suffering.”

  Disciples gathered around him, monastic communities formed, and he began to teach anyone who cared to listen to him what it was that plunged a person into suffering and sorrow as well as how the individual could avoid it.

  When they asked him, “Who are you?” he answered, “I am awake.”

  The Buddha’s fundamental teaching dealt with the elimination of suffering. Dukka — suffering — he taught, is simply the experience of something being out of joint. If we are suffering, something in our life is wrong. Life is misery, anxiety, and pain because we live in the world as if it were permanent when, in fact, it is constantly, continually changing. Yet we live as if we were trying to stake out a piece of a river and call it our own. It is that very clinging to impermanence that is the cause of our suffering.

  While Western philosophers argued across the ages that happiness depended on a person’s being able to construct life in such a way that pleasure and pain would be balanced more toward pleasure than pain, the Buddha’s dharma on suffering was simply that we have to live in such a way that suffering has no hold on us.

  When asked the usual philosophical, cosmological questions put to teachers of his time — Who is God? Where did we come from? What is beyond us? — the Buddha said, “These questions tend not to edification. When the house is on fire, you don’t speculate about who set it, you get out of the house. When you are hit by an arrow, you don’t speculate about who shot it, or what kind it is, you pull it out. In the same way, you don’t ask if the world is eternal or not eternal. You will die before you answer those questions. Instead you must gain insight into how to deal with life and with suffering.”

  And it is that which the Buddha gave the world.

  The Buddha’s fundamental teaching, the Four Noble Truths about life, about dukka, are these:

  The first noble truth is that life is suffering.

  The second noble truth is suffering comes from desires.

  The third noble truth is that suffering can be eliminated.

 
The fourth noble truth is that the eightfold path leads to the cessation of suffering.

  It is in his teaching on the eightfold path that the Buddha leads the world away from suffering and to freedom from pain.

  The fascinating dimension of the Buddha’s teaching is that the Buddha does not talk about “pleasure” in the Western sense. He simply does not talk about pleasure at all. He doesn’t bother to slice and dice the kinds of pleasure; he simply ignores it and deals with what happens to us if desire itself consumes us for anything at all.

  The question is whether or not the elimination of suffering, the elimination of desire, is itself pleasure enough to lead to what we call “happiness” in this culture and in this day and age. What the Buddha teaches shines a whole new kind of light onto our own definition of what makes for “the good life.”

  Suffering, the Buddha taught, is caused by selfishness. We forget that we are all part of the web of being and clutch and grasp and try to hoard and hold what was not made for us alone. We destroy the lives of others in order to enhance our own. The misery of forever wanting and never achieving everything we desire, however much we finally achieve, makes real happiness, genuine contentment, impossible.

  Only nirvana, selflessness, the letting go of the fuel of desire can end that kind of misery. Then, we learn that simply being willing to be part of the universe rather than its center can lift us above ourselves to the point of ultimate existence and the delight of having everything because we need nothing.

  The hardest truth of all, however, is that this kind of enlightenment may take many lives to learn. Ten thousand, perhaps. Some will despair at the thought. Others will rejoice that it will take so few.