I have been wondering about happiness these days. Maybe, truth is, I have never not wondered about it. However, the results of this election, not to mention the epic, unsettling drama that led up to it, have prompted me to review the subject anew. The question arises: ‘Is it possible to find peace and happiness when you feel like the world is falling apart around you?’ (Or when a sociopath is about to occupy the most powerful office in the world?)
Last week, Dyan and I drove down Sunset Boulevard, enjoying the panoramic, ever-changing Technicolor spectacle of people, signs, palm trees, traffic, and buildings, all against warm sunshine and blue sky. We stopped at a red light, and across the street was a homeless guy in rags doing crazy-style Kung Fu against some imaginary opponent. You got the feeling he was protecting the cart that held all his worldly possessions. It was an amazing performance and totally convincing. His movements were punctuated with incomprehensible shouts. But all he was doing was trying to find happiness, right? Trying with all his might to adjust the universe with his power so things would make some kind of sense to him. And then, guess what? Right next to us at the stoplight, Sally Field, the actress, pulled up in a gleaming, chocolate-colored Bentley convertible. I'm sure that she too, in her own way, was trying, with all her might, to find hapiness. I wonder how happy she'd be if she had to switch places with the homeless guy, though. Or would the homeless guy suddenly find peace if he found himself, shazam, driving around in a shiny, chocolate-colored Bentley convertible? I doubt he would, not for long anyway.
It seems to me, despite all our efforts to attain peace and happiness, we discover, if we are willing to take a close look, that real, lasting happiness is not dependent on success, money, power, good sex, a fancy car, positive thinking, organized religion, mystical experiences, good self-esteem or an ever-present blue sky.
This morning, I sat still for a while, inwardly and outwardly listening to the neighborhood parrots chatter and the distant thrum of traffic. A very noisy helicopter approached overhead and hovered directly above for a while. There was also, in that somatic listening, an irritation in reaction to the loud whacking of the helicopter and then relief as it eventually departed. Attending gently to the sensations in the body and the slowing down of thoughts/feelings, one becomes aware of a deepening sense of mental and physical spaciousness.
It is important to understand that presence is not a process. Spacious presence is not brought about by anything other than presence itself being allowed to take its rightful, natural place at the head of consciousness.
There is a deeper question behind the act of simple attention: who, exactly, is seeking happiness or enlightenment or fulfillment? I wonder about this question, ‘Who’, because, right now, listening and looking within, I can find no such ‘Who’. There is just listening, thinking, feeling, sensing, all going on without a ‘me’ in the middle. But wait, what is that? Is that a little happiness there, rising out of nowhere…a little spontaneous joy lying in wait all the time, hiding beneath the noise of the body/mind? Staying in contact with this bit of happiness, abiding in it, and we find that, amazingly, it tends to amplify upon itself, no doer or ‘practice’ required!
The late, great Chinese Zen master Huang Po said in the 10th century, ‘I wish to assure you that you have been free of bondage from the beginning of time.’
I take this to mean that, despite the world's immense suffering, there is available to us anytime, anywhere, a sense of deep peace and effortless joy that heals all ills. The ultimately simple act of allowing ‘what is’ to be, the breathing, the sound of traffic, and irritation with the helicopter, without trying to manipulate anything, turns out to be the most potent personal/political act we can offer to ourselves and the world. The art of conscious presence is, after all, the art of the end of conflict. It seems to me to be self-evident that the conflict in the world will not end until it comes to an end for each of us.
Wishing you happiness, love and peace.
Happy Now Year!
Mike
Wonderful dialog, fellas!
Mike
Your beautiful and insightful reflection prompted the following questions, which don’t require answers – except from our own internal inquiries to arrive at answers that resonate for each of us individually:
1. “[Y]have been free of bondage from the beginning of time.” Does this matter to people who do not realize/feel it? Does it matter to those who do?
2. If we experience “a sense of deep peace and effortless joy that heals all ills” and “conscious presence,” why depart from it to regret and worry about conflict elsewhere in the world or at other times for us?
3. Is seeking “the end of conflict” as illusory as seeking happiness?
4. If there is no “who” or “doer,” who/what is experiencing or causing conflict?
5. Doesn’t “[t]he ultimately simple act of allowing ‘what is’ to be” include conflict? And, who is doing the allowing?
6. Ultimately, isn’t there just a flow of thoughts, feelings, sensations, sights, sounds, and other unnamable aspects that become “experience” via the perspectives and POV that our minds take? Don’t those perspectives/POV “produce” experiences of conflict, peace, happiness, and everything else in the range of experience? (And, what are perspectives/POV really?)
7. What is to be gained by “trying” to manipulate our perspectives/POV to “create” different experiences? Isn’t the nature of awareness/conscious presence to be unperturbed by its contents, e.g., conflict? What if we simply accept/not resist the conflict we and others experience?
8. Do any of us ever reach the stage of Bodhisattva, where we have the insight and compassion to alleviate the suffering and conflict experienced by others? Can we ever remove the plank in our eye in order to remove the mote in another’s? Do the lessons of the Chinese farmer parable mean that we can never know if our helping or other actions will yield beneficial effects? How do we know that a sociopath’s actions will not ultimately prove beneficial for current or future generations? Does contemplating his actions or the end of conflict in the world accomplish anything more than changing our perspective/POV on the Now to one absent of peace, happiness, and acceptance of what is?
Apologies for the long list. Your reflection challenged and stimulated my thinking. Just as it is natural for Mike to express, it is natural for Noel to inquire.
Happy NOW Year indeed!
Noel