19 Jan Causes of happiness – a Buddhist perspective
What makes us happy? Nicolas Kristof recently wrote a thought-provoking piece in the New York Times on what makes us happy: “Our Basic Human Pleasures: Food, Sex and Giving.”
Since we are reading and writing a buddhist blog here, we probably are fairly familiar with the idea that whatever makes us happy is as impermanent as happiness is, or as we are. Nevertheless, that doesn’t make an investigation of happiness worthless.
There is a Tibetan Buddhist meditation that goes as follows:
“May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness;
May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering;
May all beings never be parted from freedom’s true joy;
May all beings dwell in equanimity, free from attachment and aversion.”
So what exactly are we asking when we ask that all beings have the causes of happiness?
Read more of this Buddhist approach to happiness at beliefnet – just click here