Turn the Switch On and Off

Turn the Switch On/Off?
Our attitude is like a switch. We turn it on to be a certain way or we turn it off to be a certain way. Either way we have full control of what we dish out and what we take in. That is about the only thing we have control over is that switch. I tell this to people that come to me to help them with their problems.

Problems. I have people come to me with their problems and I tell them the same thing. I cannot give you the answer to your problems but I can give you guidance on how to control the perception you have of everything you take in. We all have a choice and have control over that attitude we have towards everything in life. We can either be traumatized by life or take each experience and value it as that, an experience to learn and grow from.

I try and show people that the thought process in our minds is so important to the healing from all situations. We have to acknowledge that we have to go through the pain and then control the results of that, either we are appreciative of the process or we reject that notion and feel self pity. Our hurt can turn into long lasting effects or we can grow from it and teach others that we are all experiencing the same thing and we have the knowledge within us to move on.

We are all born with joy and lose it as we grow. WE lose it through environmental influence. We at some point take into consideration all the input we receive whether it is good or bad and apply internally. We find out the lazy way to live. We find it easy to be miserable and sad during tough patches and reject the notion to work through it and reap the benefits of being happy and appreciative. We struggle with the idea of staying positive as being too hard, and we find all sorts of excuses to accept the contrary.

To me it is easier to just turn the switch on for happiness and turn the switch off for fear. I would rather reject fear and be brave and experience life. Fear is the reason we are all in a world of shit. We fear everything. We fear love and acceptance. We fear tolerance with love. We fear LOVE. We fear Loving one another. We associate love with the wrong things and we use fear as a crutch. Fear is addictive. Love is a struggle. We feel so insecure when we address that in our lives. yet everywhere people are looking for love. We are intimidated by people who smile at us in public thinking the worse of them for doing so. We would rather receive a dirty look than a smile. At least we are used to and accustom to the frown rather than the frown upside down.

We have to train ourselves to reach out to people and just say hi, that’s all! We have to look at our fellow human beings as our brothers and sisters. because in essence whether we believe in “something” or not we are all human beings and the universe is a sandbox and we are a grain of that sand.

Struggling to be Happy

“The ‘decision to be happy’ is actually the decision to stop being happy”-Barry Neil Kaufman
We are born and we crave nurturing. We leave the womb of protection and realize we are in a very hostile environment. We conform and adapt to the environment. But at our essence we want and crave the security of love and the mothers womb. The warmth of that blanket. Cuddling and holding. Joy is what we crave. it is the same sensation. Happiness is what we search for. It is the same stimuli. As we mature in life we look for that or a close replacement. A replacement can mean a stimuli that can mimic the feeling. Drugs, sex, alcohol, anger, violence, addictions…..anything to feel at peace to quiet the voices. We are so reliant on a pacifier. We need that support. Instead of looking within we look outside. We have all the tools to cure this need and craving. It is a choice.

You can tell me how hard it is and describe all your problems and worries. At its core it is a choice. Change the perception you were taught to have of your life. trying to not feel the pain is not a way to be happy. Facing the pain, dealing with it and accepting it as a part of our journey. Making a choice to continue on being appreciative and happy. We have a decision daily that is given. We make the decision for ourselves. To be or not. To feel or not.

I personally struggle with this decision everyday. Everyday I have to focus and dig deep with myself to overcome years of anxiety, depression and worry. I was always very insecure about who I was and how others perceive me. I struggled as a young person looking at life as a good thing. I looked at life as a horrible joke being played on us and why do we have to go through these rituals. grow up, go to school, work, make money, lose money, get married, get divorced……it goes on. Disappointment. Heartache. Everyday we have to fight for what we are. It is work. The end result is always worth the struggle. Happiness.

Happiness

Once a group of 50 people was attending a seminar. Suddenly the speaker stopped and decided to do a group activity. He started giving each one a balloon. Each one was asked to write his/her name on it using a marker pen. Then all the balloons were collected and put in another room.

Now these delegates were let in that room and asked to find the balloon which had their name written, within 5 minutes. Everyone was frantically searching for their name, colliding with each other, pushing around others and there was utter chaos.

At the end of 5 minutes no one could find their own balloon.
Now each one was asked to randomly collect a balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it. Within minutes everyone had their own balloon.

The speaker began— exactly this is happening in our lives. Everyone is frantically looking for happiness all around, not knowing where it is.

Our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness; you will get your own happiness.

And this is the purpose of human life.

Happiness advice from the Dalai Lama

happiness tips from the dalai lama

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness.” — The Dalai Lama

Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people.  As is illustrated by the quote above, the Dalai Lama believes that the very purpose of our existence is to seek happiness.

“The Art of Happiness – A Handbook for Life” is a book written by psychiatrist Howard C. Cutler based on a series of interviews which he held with the Dalai Lama, and augmented by some of the Dalai Lama’s public talks. It contains tips and advice from the Dalai Lama on how to be happy.

Here are three of the ways recommended by the Dalai Lama for cultivating happiness:

  • Train Your Mind For Happiness
  • Shift Your Perspective
  • Cultivate Compassion and Altruism

You’ll find a detailed explanation of each below.

Happiness Can Be Achieved Through Training the Mind

The Dalai Lama’s approach to happiness relies heavily on learning, reasoning, and training the mind. He explains that through inner discipline we can undergo a transformation of our attitude, our outlook, and our approach to living.

In Buddhism causality is accepted as natural law. Therefore, if there are certain types of events that you do not desire, then the best way of safeguarding against those events taking place is to make sure that the causal conditions that normally give rise to those events don’t arise. Similarly, if there’s an event that you would like to take place, then you should seek the causes and conditions that give rise to that event.

This same principle of causality can be applied to your mental states. If you desire happiness, you should identify those factors which lead to happiness and those factors which lead to suffering. Having done this, you can gradually do the following:

  • Eliminate those factors which lead to suffering from your life.
  • Cultivate those factors which lead to happiness.

That is, one achieves happiness through learning which mental states to cultivate and which to eliminate, and then making a sustained effort to implement this knowledge.

The Dalai Lama explains that education—focused specifically on understanding and implementing the factors that lead to lasting happiness–is crucial because the more sophisticated your knowledge is about what truly leads to happiness and what doesn’t, the more effective you will be in achieving happiness.

As Cutler explains in “The Art of Happiness”, the most distinguishing feature of the Dalai Lama´s method of training the mind involves the idea that positive states of mind can act as direct antidotes to negative states of mind. Positive mental states which lead to happiness include the following:

  • Love
  • Compassion
  • Patience
  • Generosity

Negative mental states which lead to suffering include the following:

  • Hatred
  • Greed
  • Envy
  • Frustration

Deliberately selecting and focusing on positive mental states which lead to happiness, and challenging negative mental states which lead to suffering, requires a systematic training of the mind.

The Dalai Lama also emphasizes that working on our mental outlook is a more effective means of achieving happiness than seeking it through external sources, such as wealth or position. As an illustration that external events are not the source of happiness, Cutler refers in his book to people who win the lottery or experience some other windfall. These pe0ple are elated for a while, and then they go right back to the same level of happiness which they experienced before their sudden rise in wealth.

The approach of focusing on your mental outlook also places the secret to happiness within your own hands, instead of leaving it at the mercy of external factors, most of which are not within your control.

The Dalai Lama summarizes his point as follows:

“As long as there is a lack of the inner discipline that brings calmness of mind, no matter what external facilities or conditions you have, they will never give you the feeling of joy and happiness that you are seeking. On the other hand, if you possess this inner quality, a calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if you lack various external facilities that you would normally consider necessary for happiness, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life.”

Happiness Can Be Achieved By Shifting Your Perspective

The Dalai Lama goes on to explain that the ability to shift perspective is one of the most powerful and effective tools we have to help us cope with life’s problems. He adds that when problems arise, our outlook often becomes very narrow: we focus all of our attention on worrying about the problem. However, what we should do is shift our perspective by doing the following:

  • Looking for opportunities which could arise from the situation.
  • Taking a wider perspective.
  • Thinking of how things could be worse.

Shifting our perspective can make the problem seem smaller and more manageable.

Difficult situations are often opportunities for growth. Cutler interjects that he worked at a facility in which he had a number of run-ins with the facility’s administrator. These run-ins were instrumental in Cutler’s decision to quit working at that facility. Although at first this appeared to be a negative situation, it ultimately led to Cutler finding more satisfying work.

The Dalai Lama uses the approach of taking a wider perspective when dealing with the situation in Tibet. He explains that if he were to look at the situation in Tibet from a narrow perspective, then the situation looks almost hopeless. However, if he looks at it from a wider worldwide perspective, then he sees an international situation in which communist and totalitarian regimes are collapsing, and even in China there’s a move toward democracy. So he doesn’t give up.

In addition, researchers have conducted a number of experiments which demonstrate that one’s level of life satisfaction can be enhanced simply by shifting one’s perspective and contemplating how things could be worse. How we feel at any given moment has little to do with the conditions themselves, but is rather a function of how we perceive the situation and how satisfied we are with what we have.

When a situation is causing negative emotions, spend some time seriously searching for a different perspective on the situation. A key component to happiness is adopting a flexible, malleable approach to life.

Compassion and Altruism Lead to Happiness

Compassion, the Dalai Lama explains, is a mental attitude based on the rationale that all human beings have an innate desire to be happy and to overcome suffering, coupled with a desire for others to achieve this as well. It’s associated with a sense of commitment, responsibility, and respect toward the other.

In developing compassion one should begin with the wish that oneself be happy and free of suffering, and then take that natural feeling toward oneself and extend it out to include and embrace others.

In generating compassion the Dalai Lama suggests that you think of someone who is actually suffering and allow your natural response to arise: a natural feeling of compassion toward that person. Now think of how strongly you wish for that person to be free from that suffering, and resolve that you will help that person to be relieved from their suffering.

The altruism that arises from compassion is a key component of happiness. Several studies have shown that helping others can induce a calmer mind and a feeling of happiness. In a survey by Allan Luks conducted with several thousand people who were regularly involved in volunteer activities, over 90% of the volunteers reported the following:

  • A kind of “high” associated with the activity, characterized by a feeling of warmth, more energy, and a kind of euphoria.
  • After participating in the volunteer activity they had a distinct feeling of calmness and enhanced self-worth.

Conclusion

Despite all the loss he has experienced, nearly every time you see the Dalai Lama he’s either laughing or smiling. If you ask him whether he’s happy he answers “Yes” without hesitation. He emphasizes that happiness is built on the foundation of a calm, stable mind. The tips explained above are three of the ways he recommends to achieve ultimate happiness.

1 3,850 3,851 3,852 3,853 3,854 3,856