Happiness: Buddha style

Happiness is not about maximizing and accumulating pleasurable experiences. As the Buddha pointed out, impermanence is the order of the day. Pleasures are inherently fleeting and don’t provide a solid foundation for enduring satisfaction.

When you take care of meaning, positivity has a way of taking care of itself. In other words, you don’t have to strive to be happy and collect all those extroverted types of “happy” experiences. Instead, when you engage with meaningful projects in the present moment, particularly ones that benefit others, positive emotions naturally follow.
The Buddha’s version of happiness might be most aptly captured by the term that often gets translated as equanimity. Equanimity refers to being there in the middle of things, without needing things to be different than they are. Equanimity brings acceptance and interest to what is happening at the moment.

From this perspective, it is possible to be “happy” even when things are not going well. There is great freedom found in the capacity to be equanimous. Perhaps this is why the Buddha always has that contended little half-smile on his face.

The Buddha didn’t need excitement, thrills, and “good times” to be happy. His happiness was quiet contentment that abided in every moment, regardless of what was happening. Introverts, like the Buddha, have access to a rich interior experience. We need to learn to keep that inner intensity from becoming an obsession, rumination, and worry.

We can embrace this aspect of our Buddha-nature when we expand our definition of happiness to move beyond high arousal, extrovert-dominated one to include low-arousal introverted-based feelings.

Happiness resides in contentment, peacefulness, and appreciation of everything that is happening around us in every moment. This version of happiness is more robust, available, and enduring. Happiness is always ever a breath away.

To read the full article, click on this link:   Psychology Today: The Buddha was introvert