Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

Genuine Happiness: An Alternative Perspective

With Dave Smith recorded on July 14, 2019.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

So much of what we hear and learn about within Dharma practice places an arguably unnecessary emphasis on suffering (dukkha). While the acceptance of suffering (dukkha) is an important and essential aspect of the path, it is by no means the end of the story.

In one of the Buddha’s oldest descriptions of what it means to awaken to the Dharma (noble quest: MN 26) he states that awakening is a subtle yet radical shift in perspective. A shift in priority that moves us from being pre-occupied with our “place” in the world, to a perspective of living from a “ground”.

This shift is accomplished by developing the four foundations of mindfulness.

As we progress in our practice this shift becomes more natural and available in the waking moments of our lives. As we learn to find balance and equanimity between the hedonic pleasures of the world and inner cultivation, we experience a more genuine happiness, (eudemonia in Greek) that is not rooted in what we get from the world, but rather how we are in the world. We become less focused on getting what we want, to an appreciation for what we have.

During the practice session Dave offers reflections from both the early Buddhist tradition and contemporary evidence found with happiness research. How can use our practice of the Dharma to create a genuine happiness for ourselves, for others and for this world?

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Joy is Always Available

    On autopilot, our mind often resists opening to joy with: “But right now in my life, there is …” So we explore what stands in our way of the unexpected ordinariness of joy. We’ll discover how the awakening factor of meditative joy (piti) illuminates our capacity to open to delight and rapture, allowing our hearts…

    Read More

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    Luminous Darkness: A Path for Seeing Clearly from the Heart

    One of the gifts of global uncertainty is that it requires us to recognize and release unconscious biases that have been passed down for generations. These include the perception that splits into opposites and values light over dark, speed over slowing down, productivity over attunement, and conclusion over not knowing. Awakening requires that we soften…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    The Unshakeable Heart: Liberation as the Ultimate Resilience

    Is it possible to live and love freely amidst the greed, aggression and dysfunction of the world?⁠⁠Amidst so much suffering, can you nourish joy, lightness and laughter?⁠⁠When it feels as if you’re drowning, might it be that you are floating in an ocean of blessings?⁠⁠In times of political polarisation and dysfunction, broken societal modelling, a…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Milla Gregor – Week of April 22, 2024

    This week’s theme is “Breath, Body, Connection and Reflection”. Breath, body and connection are areas of practice that come up again and again in Buddhist teaching. We’ll explore them in different combinations, and reflect on how they can support your meditation practice and your wider life, with all their opportunities for relationship, engagement and embodied presence.

    Read More

  • Vesak 2568: The Radical Message of Siddhattha Gotama

    On the Theravāda holiday of Vesak, 2568 years after the Buddha’s death, we honor the ancient ascetic named Siddhattha Gotama, whose insights into the nature of suffering and freedom have inspired fierce disciplines, soaring poetry, subtle psychological and philosophical investigations, and social movements for nonviolence, and social justice. We’ll meditate, learn traditional verses celebrating the…

    Read More

  • Jill Satterfield

    The Procurement of Kindness and Sanity

    Jill writes: “We all possess the capacity to be very aware of our internal landscapes of body, heart and mind. And fortunately, with practice, we can tend to what we see, feel and know as it all arises in the moment, rather than days, months or decades later. It sure saves a lot of pain…

    Read More