HOW TO BE HAPPY

"I would be completely happy if I had more money. I would be so happy if my partner wasn't such a pain. I would be totally happy if I had a better job. I will be happy when I retire, when I get my new car, in the summer, next year… in the hereafter !"

How often do we explain our present lack of happiness in these or similar terms ?

Buddhism teaches that human life is the most precious of all treasures and that each individual life has a unique purpose or mission. Because our lives are totally at one with all other lives and indeed with the entire universe, it follows that all of our thoughts, words and deeds affect absolutely everything in some way or another. The great thing is that we alone have total responsibility for our thoughts words and deeds. We can choose just to drift along at the mercy of our environment and make no effort to control those thoughts words and deeds, or we can decide to do the opposite and start to take responsibility for our own happiness. Each of us has within our lives a potential for absolute happiness, our Buddha nature.

Nichiren Daishonin taught us how to make this happiness a real part of our lives no matter what our circumstances may be. If we chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo we tap into our own Buddha nature, our own unlimited source of happiness.

True happiness does not depend on any of the transient things mentioned in the first paragraph. Satisfaction of desires can indeed bring about a state of intense rapture but this state is strictly temporary and cannot be said to represent true happiness. That wonderful new car we so desire will bring great pleasure once we get it but after the excitement has worn off it becomes just another car with all its attendant problems. If we crash it, that wonderful source of "happiness" is immediately transformed into a source of suffering.

Knowledge of our oneness with everybody and everything (an important part of the Mystic Law) gives us the key to true happiness. If we work on making our "environment" happy, we will be happy. A very quick proof of this may be obtained by carrying out a simple experiment. If, despite your sincere practice and prayer, you are still not happy then do something positive to make someone else happy. Do this all the time and you will discover that you have become happy yourself. There is ultimately no difference between making others happy and making ourselves happy. Never feel guilty about striving for happiness.