Mind training matters. This is something that is going to determine the quality of every instant of our lives.
What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Buddhist monk, photographer and author Matthieu Ricard has devoted his life to these questions, and his answer is influenced by his faith as well as by his scientific turn of mind: We can train our minds in habits of happiness.
The Habits of Happiness Ted Talk
Matthieu Ricard
Key Takeaways
Happiness well-being is not just a mere pleasurable sensation. It is a deep sense of serenity and fulfillment. A state that actually pervades and underlies all emotional states and all the joy’s and sorrows that can come one’s way.
How do we proceed on our quest for happiness?
Outer Conditions if we could have everything to be happy” is a sentence that already reveals the doom, destruction of happiness. To have everything, if we miss something it collapses. When things go wrong we try to fix the outside so much, but our control of the outer world is limited, temporary and often illusory.
Inner Conditions the mind translates the outer conditions into happiness and suffering. We can be in a place of paradise and be completely unhappy within. On the opposite end, there are people in very difficult circumstances that manage to keep serenity, inner strength, inner freedom, confidence. The experience that translates everything is within the mind.
How do we nurture the conditions for happiness?
There are certain states of mind that are conducive for happiness and others that are adverse.
- Anger, hatred, jealousy, arrogance, obsessive desire, strong grasping— they don’t leave us in a good state after we experienced it and also detrimental to other’s happiness.
- The more these thoughts invade the mind, the more we feel miserable or tormented.
- On the other end, everyone knows that within, an act of selfless generosity without anyone knowing about it, makes someone happy.
Nature of Mind primary quality of consciousness, being aware. It’s like a mirror that allows all images to rise on it. You can have ugly faces, beautiful faces and the mirror allow it without being tainted or altered by those images.
- Behind every thought is the mere consciousness which leads to training the mind.
- Mind training is the idea that two opposite mental factors cannot happen at the same time. You can go from love to hate, but you cannot at the same time. You can’t shake a hand and throw a punch.
- So there are natural antidotes to emotions that are destructive to our inner well-being.
Mind training matters. This is something that is going to determine the quality of every instant of our lives. The way our mind functions is the ultimate thing the determines the quality of our experience.