A Quote by Matthieu Ricard
By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.
Related Quotes
While it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.
In Buddhism, what is known as beginner's mind is a way to look at the world as if for the first time: with interest, enthusiasm, and engagement. This may be the optimal state of mind for a healthy brain.
If happiness is a state of the inward life, we have to look for its chief obstructions not in outward conditions but in deeper places. Happiness depends in the last issue, as we saw, on the essential view of life. It is not a matter of distractions, nor even of mere pleasurable sensations. There may be an appearance of great prosperity with incurable sadness hidden at the heart, as there is an outward peace which is only a well-masked despair. The way to happiness is indeed harder than the way to success; for its chief enemies entrench themselves within the soul.
I cannot tell if what the world considers ‘happiness’ is happiness or not. All I know is that when I consider the way they go about attaining it, I see them carried away headlong, grim and obsessed, in the general onrush of the human herd, unable to stop themselves or to change their direction. All the while they claim to be just on the point of attaining happiness.
We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.
Therefore, philosophy does not give sense in mind happiness. It keeps in mind the only truth. However, it is very possible that the truth may be painful, may be distressing, may be destructive of happiness or makes it impossible. Religion, unlike philosophy, is under the category of the useful one. It promises happiness and says what it is necessary to do and what it is necessary to be to deserve or to obtain it. Consequently, illusion is more important than truth if it gets happiness.
You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way... people look at reality, then you can change it.
It is a basic human need that everyone wants to
live a happy life. For this, one has to experience
real happiness. The so-called happiness that one
experiences by having money, power, and
indulging in sensual pleasures is not real
happiness. It is very fragile, unstable and fleeting.
For real happiness, for lasting stable happiness,
one has to make a journey deep within oneself and
get rid of all the unhappiness stored in the deeper
levels of the mind. As long as there is misery at
the depth of the mind all attempts to feel happy
at the surface level of the mind prove futile.
But what is after all the happiness of mere power? There is a greater happiness possible than to be lord of heaven and earth; that is the happiness of being truly loved.
The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mode of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change; happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.
Enjoy your life and be happy.
Being happy is of the utmost importance.
Success in anything is through happiness.
More support of nature comes from being happy.
Under all circumstances be happy, even if you have to force it a bit to change some long standing habits.
Just think of any negativity that comes to you as a raindrop falling into the ocean of your bliss.
You may not always have an ocean of bliss, but think that way anyway and it will help it come.
Doubting is not blissful and does not create happiness.
Be happy, healthy, and let all that love flow through your heart.
We women, we're always being invited to change our hairstyle, change our clothes, change our wardrobes. It's also important for us to remember as we age to keep changing the way we think of the world. I'm not saying to be flaky at all; but rather than being rigid about something, stay open and available.
Happiness. We're tearing our hair out to try to find a definition of it, for heaven's sake. Is it joy? People will tell you that it isn't, that joy is a fleeting emotion, a moment of happiness, which is always welcome, mind you. And then what about pleasure, huh? Oh, yes, that's easy, everybody knows what that is, but there again it doesn't last. But is happiness not the sum total of lots of small joys and pleasures, huh?
Prayer is not a way to get what we want to happen, like the remote control that comes with the television set. I think that prayer may be less about asking for the things we are attached to than it is about relinquishing our attachments in some way. It can take us beyond fear, which is an attachment, and beyond hope, which is another form of attachment. It can help us remember the nature of the world and the nature of life, not on an intellectual level but in a deep and experiential way. When we pray, we don't change the world, we change ourselves. We change our consciousness.
Homesickness is not always a vague, nostalgic, almost beautiful emotion, although that is somehow the way we always seem to picture it in our mind. It can be a terribly keen blade, not just a sickness in metaphor but in fact as well. It can change the way one looks at the world; the faces one sees in the street look not just indifferent but ugly... perhaps even malignant. Homesickness is a real sickness--the ache of the uprooted plant.
Even though your emotions aren't wrong, that doesn't mean you have to stay stuck in a particular mood. You can certainly choose to make changes that will influence the way you feel. If you want to change the way you feel, change the way you think and behave.
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