The Innate Joy of Mind

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Introduction

This weekend we are going to be talking about happiness and its role in sutra and tantra practice. There are of course many different ways to approach the topic, but what I propose to do first this evening, as a way of introduction, is to talk about where happiness and working on happiness fit into the Buddhist path. After all, we are approaching this from a Buddhist point of view, so I think it is quite important to see how exactly it fits into the framework of the entire teachings. Then tomorrow we shall go specifically into the discussion of the nature of happiness and the various ways that we can strengthen and use it as a pathway mind leading to liberation and enlightenment.

I propose to speak about this on a fairly sophisticated level, because I think that the topic warrants this type of treatment out of respect for the Buddhist teachings. We don’t really want to trivialize the issue of happiness and make it into a “Don’t worry; be happy” type of seminar. So although some people might find the level of sophistication a little bit complicated, don’t let that ruin your happiness! I think it can give us a lot of encouragement to see, on the one hand, how serious this topic of happiness is and, on the other, to have a realistic attitude about the topic. In this way, we won’t have some sort of vague idea about happiness and where it comes from. It’s not that happiness comes from being lucky, for instance, as if the gods smile on someone and that gives the person happiness. We sometimes have that idea unconsciously as an inheritance from ancient Roman thinking. In other words, if the goddess Fortuna smiles on us, then, as a result, we will have the good fortune – which comes from the word Fortuna – to be happy. That’s not the way it works.

So, let’s take a look now at the place that happiness and working to strengthen happiness has in Buddhism.

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