The end of another summer approaches and with it my autumnal migration back into academe after the hiatus. For me New Year’s is the change from August to September, and with the iteration of another cycle I give some thought to broader issues of living.
If somebody were to accost me in the street and demand to know if I am happy, I would be able to answer, without hesitation, resoundingly in the affirmative. I haven’t the slightest doubts in that direction. That isn’t to say that all is perfect, Pollyanna-ish and peachy. Life has its turmoils, its concerns, its periods of dullness and dissatisfaction and distress. But any definition of happiness that required the utter absence of such elements would be so abstract as to be meaningless. We’ll accept the wrinkles, the kinks, the scratches and dents, as givens and move on.
But what makes me so sure that I am, indeed, a happy person? My situation:
- I am pursuing the activities I love
- I do not worry about money, but have enough for my needs (modest but far from ascetic)
- I am not hindered overly by governmental, familial, or societal agencies
If that isn’t a description of a happy life, I don’t know what one is. I note that it does not include riches or fame or beauty or power or the music of love in an eternal spring; those aren’t necessary, although none need be obstructions, either.
If I transpose the above from the key of my personal tonality to a more general-purpose mode, I come up with a simple list of principles:
- Do what you love
- Live within your means
- Situate yourself appropriately
Taking the broadest possible view, I see in these a modernized version of Buddhism’s "Noble Truths", that ancient four-step program to better living. The Buddhist philosophy-in-a-nutshell consists of a two-stage diagnosis and a corresponding two-stage cure, which I put in a breezy vernacular as follows:
- Dissatisfactions are integral to life: we can’t do much, if anything, about death or loss or the inevitable decay and change of all things.
- The ones that cause us the real trouble are self-inflicted: we’re almost hardwired, it seems, to frustrate ourselves trying to find the sleeves on the vest.
- We can eliminate, or at least minimalize, self-inflicted problems: item #2 is fixable
- We fix it by a process of self-cultivation: mental, ethical, and emotional
I note the absence of the quick solution; this is the high road, the blue-chip-stock slow-growth long-term investment rather than the junk bond, wildcat stock gamble. Nothing about looking younger and more fit, owning expensive real estate or vacationing in Cap d’Antibes, getting your kids into Princeton, or having kids at all for that matter.
At first glance it looks like a congeries of adolescent platitudes. In fact as often promulgated it comes off as the impractical fulminations of frustrated sourpusses. Owning fine things is no more an ipso facto cause for misery than is a successful career, parenthood, lots of sex, or the riches of Midas. But to hear some folks talk, you’d think that buying so much as a new toothpick represented a veer onto the shoulder of the highway to enlightenment.
The problem with the "truths" isn’t their content, but the intemperate fanatics (i.e., monks) who have traditionally interpreted and passed the information along. Monks, by definition, exaggerate to the last extreme, blow everything disgracefully out of proportion, and in their obsessive zeal detach themselves so thoroughly from humanity’s everyday living that they are just about the last people one should ever consult about anything, save perhaps the occasional tip on living as a community parasite.
No. The baby must not be thrown out with the bathwater, despite the energetic strivings of the orange-robed faction to do just that. The point here is moderation, not extremism; temperance, not asceticism. We are not required to live entirely on the mooch in order to free ourselves of craving, any more than we must deny ourselves all sexual satisfaction or all enjoyment of food and drink or everyday physical comfort. In fact, the likelihood of such strategies making things worse is pretty high, as one perusal of the "Vinaya", or monastic code of conduct, makes clear. The 200-plus precepts taken on by a Theravada Buddhist monk were mostly promulgated after the fact, and quite a few give eloquent witness to an enthusiastic cottage industry of seeking out loopholes. The harder those boys struggled, the tighter the noose became. The resultant code is a tragic relic of obsessive compulsion, fanaticism, and denial.
The medieval Japanese seem to have recognized the nonsensical shortcomings of the old-time monastic code, and in the reforms of folks like Saicho they brought a much-needed breath of common sense to the proceedings. The modern Vipassana movement here in America, which attempts to bring ancient Theravada principles to a congregation drawn largely from the upper-middle-class professional elite, faces a similar challenge. Trying to convince an affluent Marin County householder that possessions = misery is an exercise in absurdity if not futility—and why should it be otherwise? To the credit of the teaching councils, nobody tries—as it should be. The physical accouterments of life in Marin are among the most gracious imaginable, regardless of the level of one’s mental, ethical, or emotional cultivation, and they didn’t get that way by scorning comfort.
In fact, a stay at Spirit Rock—the western headquarters of Vipassana—exemplifies an environment conducive to the pursuit of happiness. Beautiful, comfortable, accomodating, Spirit Rock points to the happy life as a distinctly obtainable ideal. It has no lack of physical comforts: excellent food, comfortable beds, mostly private rooms, radiant floor heating, an air-conditioned meditation hall, lushly inviting hills with marked trails for strolling, and most importantly a careful cultivation of freedom, even on the most meticulously scheduled of residential retreats. One may roam the hills or sleep in as one likes. Oh, respect for others is absolutely required: silence, staying out of other folks’s way, refraining from disrupting scheduled activities. But that’s all part of cultivating a fine ethical sense: if we want to be let alone to follow our own passions, then we must let others alone to follow theirs.
So if I look at the impact Buddhism has had on my life—and it’s quite an impact, indeed—I realize that much of it has come from the example of places like Spirit Rock, and very little from the admonishments of Buddhist clergy, who are at any rate in very short supply hereabouts. It isn’t that Spirit Rock must be as physically alluring as it is, or characterized by such elegant graciousness. But it is in many ways the physical embodiment of my little recipe for happiness: people doing what they love, within their means, in a suitable environment.
Spirit Rock and my house: creating environments that encourage happiness