Buddhism will try to help us to be “at peace” with our situation at all time. Happiness automatically arises when we have that wholesome inner peace. Buddhists believe external conditions don’t cause happiness or unhappiness.
It’s going to be impossible to get one clear description or interpretation of what Buddhism and Buddhists say about happiness. It seems like there would be relatively universal agreement that being happy all the time is not the point, but from there what is the point could be debated, even within the same tradition, informed by the same set of core teachings. And of course there are multiple traditions, and multiple sets of core references.
I’ll pass on my own take, without delaying that with any sort of Buddhism resume (I’ve had some exposure, as academic study, personal introspection, and religious practice). Buddhism is more generally accepted as claiming that Buddhist practices can resolve some forms of suffering, but even that’s not good enough, not clear enough. The ultimate state of complete enlightenment is often not described in positive—in the sense of clearly descriptive—terms, more related to errors or negative aspects of perspective and experience dropping out.
It makes it tricky, embracing a Buddhist path, since getting to the reason for taking it up in the first place isn’t one of the clearer parts. If you don’t take up Buddhism to become happy, then for what? An alternative answer could be to experience more positive states after rebirth, but of course that’s even more problematic. Who knows if that’s even accurate? Better answers should be grounded in experience within this lifetime.
If the answer is to remove a lot of the suffering involved with life—with that interpretation of one core concept quite flawed, as I see it—that kind of works. Not suffering, being happy, and having a positive experience of meaning (fulfillment) are three different things, but all seemingly good goals. Buddhism would naturally emphasize the first, which would later lead to and support the other two.
Continual happiness, like the experience a child has at a parade, probably isn’t a part of it. Removing a lot of negative life experience really could open someone up to a novel depth and range of joy though. It’s just not the kind of thing Buddhist teachings tend to focus on, since the path to a more balanced, positive, functional state is the main thing being described, not describing that state.
As I see it Buddhism is a functional methodology more than a description of reality (not a model). Even the negative parts being avoided never really get a full treatment, because there are a myriad of ways people could experience unproductive attachment, ego, poorly directed goals, excessive focus on the past and future versus the present, anxiety over issues that aren’t within present control, and so on. Buddhism gives people tools to recognize the errors and issues within their own worldview and momentary inner life experience, and to help resolve those.
Per one take contentment is an end result, instead of happiness. It’s probably as well to not go too far with that as a final end-state model or expectation. Building up a complete, detailed model of how your life experience or momentary mental state should be later on could easily become a hinderance, one more random, abstract, imaginary thing to focus on, versus the present moment’s experience. Living in some sort of blanked-out, detached state isn’t the point either, obviously; Buddhist practice isn’t training to become a psychopath. All attachments aren’t rejected; one needs to sort through and see what is and isn’t being reconsidered or set aside.
In the end it’s not completely different than psychotherapy, or even popular-form self-help, to a lesser degree. Some prior assumptions and internal directions and patterns turn out to be less helpful than others, or to cause even more problems than external circumstances. It’s the two taken together that are the real problem, how internal mental forms interact with external reality. In the end range that had been subconscious should become conscious. Moving off to live in a cave for a long period of time resolves part of the external input problem, but the root of what Buddhism describes as worldview and perspective errors are really more internal. At best isolation tied to Buddhist practice would provide space to examine all of it.
I’m not some sort of Buddhism teacher, so I can’t even guess, but it may be the case that ongoing daily life inputs help with identifying patterns in normal experience, versus it being more promising to drop out that stimulus and try to sort it all out without that. Reframed to match the question, identifying sources of unhappiness may be helpful, to then identify what internal starting points or processing sequences give what causes the power to initiate that response (unhappiness). Resolve enough of such scope and maybe someone would be happy all the time, just perhaps in a limited sense, as in comfortable and fulfilled, versus excited by temporarily experiencing satisfied desires.
Like all wisdom traditions, they have arguments for this.
There are two basic arguments:
The first is that misery is caused by a negative evaluation of the facts.
I worked in homeless shelters for years.
Some guests said staying in a shelter is the worst thing that ever happened to them.
And some said it’s the best thing they’ve ever experienced.
They all received food, shelter, support, and medical care.
But some had lost jobs and apartments, while others had escaped partner violence or human trafficking.
“Sure,” you might say, “They have a different basis for comparison.”
But that’s exactly the point:
The shelter itself wasn’t the cause of misery.
What caused misery was the judgment that it represents a negative reality.
The second argument is that well-being can exist despite recognized adversity.
A young woman once went to the Buddha for counsel.
She’d lost her husband and was distressed and disheartened.
She wondered how such a tragedy could have happened to her.
The Buddha advised her to get a handful of rice from someone who has never experienced tragedy.
She imagined the rice would have magical properties, allowing her to take on their good karma.
But after months of searching, she was unable to find anyone who hadn’t experienced tragedy.
Most people had experienced a tragedy that was as bad as hers.
The rest had experienced a combination of downturns that rivaled her situation.
Some were happy, some weren’t.
She realized tragedy doesn’t cause unhappiness all by itself.
Our negative evaluation causes unhappiness, and we can reassess our evaluation.
Or we can simply keep our attention in the present moment.
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Nice
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