Being Happy
The essence of mindfulness, the point of life
I’ve recently been visiting primary schools where I live, to talk about living as a Buddhist and what the Buddha taught, for interfaith week. I loved sitting or standing in front of all these young faces, mostly smiling or else curious.
This was a week after the US elections which left me devastated for the environment and women’s and minority human rights, with many US friends utterly afraid for their own survival. It left me in a low mood and struggling to find my way up to the surface once more — to reach my own deep well of joyfulness, to finding light in my life again. I have so much beauty and love in my life and I wish all could share that sense of joyfulness and beauty. Then perhaps the destruction might stop.
So what did I tell these eager interested children about the Buddha? That he was a man, not a God. That he was a prince who gave up all his wealth, status, and privilege for his search to find the meaning of life and the point of living. And his answer, in a nutshell, was to be happy, to enjoy life. Nothing more or less than that.
The purpose of life is to be happy, nothing more or less that this.
It sounds so simple doesn’t it. But what does that mean? How do we achieve it?
