When I was a young professor some years ago, I was teaching a course called "The Pursuit of Happiness" for a Freshman Humanities course to a group of extremely bright, young men and women.
Although the title of the course garnered much derision (this was before someone made a similar course the most popular class at Harvard), what myself and the students quickly learned was the question of "What is Happiness?" is one of the most difficult and long-standing questions ever asked.
Indeed, what then does make one "Happy?"
The origin of the word in the western world is eu-daimonia, which means "good spirit," and you can readily see the stem of the word daimon, which later takes a sinister turn in the 16th Century or so, becoming demon. The "eu," unlike the unhappiness caused by those two letters in Europe currently, means "good" then.
Is Happiness, however, a state? a journey? a destination? a fiction of our imagination?
My own tendency is that like the story of Croesus, we cannot know at any given Time in our lives if we are "Happy," but rather, what is the sum total of our lives, unfortunately, only to be counted after our deaths. In other words, the darkest part of one's life is merely a portion of that person's life, but in order to concede that, one must then be willing to go with the fact that the best moment of Life is also just that, fleeting and ephemeral. A part of the larger whole.
In the tradition (or lack thereof) of Zen, there is the concept of contemplating a mountain. In deep contemplation, one first sees a mountain, then not a mountain, then a mountain again. What happens in that middle stage, when the observer has dis-entangled himself from the object, is the Quality of our inner be-ing. Who are you, when there is no mountain? Who are You when there is neither happiness, nor pain? When it is just You, without sensation, without the judgment of others bearing down on your shoulders, where do You go?
I don't really have much truck with the concept of "Happiness" and I usually try to avoid saying whether I am "Happy" for the most part.
Rather, I have learned to focus on that Quality of what is within, what makes me "Me" and not "You"? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, when we die, we'll become part of that mountain again. But, during the interim, when you learn to live true to yourself, Happiness becomes a thing of the past, as do all other temporary sensations, and then, you begin to Live.
One of my students from that class, who suffered from some serious personal struggles in life, introduced me to this song when we were discussing Zen in that course. In that course, I chose the philosophical tenets that I knew that I wanted to live my life by, but it has only been in the past couple of years that I can say that I now truly live them. Sometimes, that mountain is not a mountain for a very, very long Time.
Thank you, Josh, for introducing me to this song.
Although the title of the course garnered much derision (this was before someone made a similar course the most popular class at Harvard), what myself and the students quickly learned was the question of "What is Happiness?" is one of the most difficult and long-standing questions ever asked.
Indeed, what then does make one "Happy?"
The origin of the word in the western world is eu-daimonia, which means "good spirit," and you can readily see the stem of the word daimon, which later takes a sinister turn in the 16th Century or so, becoming demon. The "eu," unlike the unhappiness caused by those two letters in Europe currently, means "good" then.
Is Happiness, however, a state? a journey? a destination? a fiction of our imagination?
My own tendency is that like the story of Croesus, we cannot know at any given Time in our lives if we are "Happy," but rather, what is the sum total of our lives, unfortunately, only to be counted after our deaths. In other words, the darkest part of one's life is merely a portion of that person's life, but in order to concede that, one must then be willing to go with the fact that the best moment of Life is also just that, fleeting and ephemeral. A part of the larger whole.
In the tradition (or lack thereof) of Zen, there is the concept of contemplating a mountain. In deep contemplation, one first sees a mountain, then not a mountain, then a mountain again. What happens in that middle stage, when the observer has dis-entangled himself from the object, is the Quality of our inner be-ing. Who are you, when there is no mountain? Who are You when there is neither happiness, nor pain? When it is just You, without sensation, without the judgment of others bearing down on your shoulders, where do You go?
I don't really have much truck with the concept of "Happiness" and I usually try to avoid saying whether I am "Happy" for the most part.
Rather, I have learned to focus on that Quality of what is within, what makes me "Me" and not "You"? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, when we die, we'll become part of that mountain again. But, during the interim, when you learn to live true to yourself, Happiness becomes a thing of the past, as do all other temporary sensations, and then, you begin to Live.
One of my students from that class, who suffered from some serious personal struggles in life, introduced me to this song when we were discussing Zen in that course. In that course, I chose the philosophical tenets that I knew that I wanted to live my life by, but it has only been in the past couple of years that I can say that I now truly live them. Sometimes, that mountain is not a mountain for a very, very long Time.
Thank you, Josh, for introducing me to this song.
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