The Nature Of Happiness (Talk 7)

What makes people happy? How should we seek it? Knowledge from different traditions and modern research. Suggested Reading: Walden (Henry David Thoreau); Man's Search for Meaning; Musonius Rufus; Film: Wished

The cost of each talk is one good deed, to be completed within 1 year.* The deed must be sincere to count, such that the doer feels something inside when the deed is complete. Healthcare Workers who served during the pandemic are exempt from the cost of all talks.

Transcript

The nature of happiness.

So what makes people happy?

What gives people happiness?

I like to tell people that this is something that everyone should really investigate in their lives as to what will really make them happy.

Because the idea is if there's anything worth seeking in life,

It's probably happiness.

And if what we're seeking does not bring us happiness,

Should we be seeking it in another way?

Should we be seeking something else?

Does happiness come from getting what you want?

There's an interesting Chinese film called Wished,

W-I-S-H-E-D,

And it's a comedy,

But I really played on this idea and I thought it was done really well.

So this young man,

He did a very good deed when he was younger,

And now that he's older,

He's kind of not doing so great in life.

And so this goddess comes and rewards him for the good deed he did when he was younger.

And so she grants him,

I think it's 19 wishes.

So 19 wishes that he made are all going to be granted to him.

And of course,

It's a comedy,

So everything kind of goes wrong.

So the wishes she grants him are not wishes he makes now,

But wishes that he made in the past.

So there's one where when he was young,

He didn't want to have to take a shower,

So he made a wish that I don't want to ever have to shower again.

So now in his adult life,

Water bounces off of him and he cannot shower.

Another time later in his youth,

His parents wanted him to stop playing and wanted him to go to bed.

So he made a wish that I wish I never have to go to bed again.

And of course,

Now that he's older,

He's given insomnia.

The wishes keep escalating and escalating,

And they kind of always turn out in a way in which he consistently regrets that he wished for this when he was younger.

And he gets,

You know,

He can play basketball,

He starts to grow the claws of Wolverine,

He starts to become attractive to all women.

And what winds up happening in the end is he gets these external goods,

But he starts to lose other things in his life,

Like his girlfriend and respect of others.

And there were other things that were lost while these wishes were kind of attained.

And at the end of the film,

He has a choice of whether he can keep his wishes,

Because they've given him great riches and other kinds of things that he wished for at the end,

Or to give them up.

And he immediately says,

I would rather not have all these wishes.

I would actually rather go back to the life I had before I was given these wishes.

And so what winds up happening is he winds up appreciating the life he has.

There's an interesting moment in the movie Out of Africa where the character Meryl Streep,

The man actually proposed to get together,

Robert Redford,

And Meryl Streep says something like,

When the gods want to curse you,

They give you actually exactly what you want.

So what is life's commercial?

Every commercial that you see on TV goes the same way.

Obtain this external thing,

Whatever we're selling,

And it will not just bring you this external good,

But it will bring you happiness.

Meaning these jeans don't just cover your legs,

They bring you happiness.

If you smoke this cigarette,

You not only get a cigarette,

But you look cool.

Looking cool will bring you happiness.

So the idea is obtain XYZ and you will have happiness.

And this goes along with the goal-based life that you are taught from the beginning of when since you were born.

Achieve a goal and this is a marker of happiness.

So graduate,

Get a job,

Get a wife or husband,

Have kids,

Have grandkids,

Get promoted higher and higher,

Get power,

Get status,

Get all these things.

And as soon as you get these things,

You will have happiness.

And once you have happiness from reaching your goal,

It is only natural to set out new goals and so you can continue your streak of happiness.

What's wrong with that is there's a falseness in that this is all conditional happiness.

You are setting conditions for your happiness.

I will not be happy until I have XYZ.

Sometimes that's having enough money or having retirement or getting a material good.

But the problem is from now until then,

How is life in between that?

Meaning all of you who have been living a condition-based life of conditional happiness,

How happy are you right now?

Have you achieved an ultimate happiness or are you waiting for some other goal to be met before you say you can do that?

There's a Hindu guru who said something like,

When you finally reach your goal or you obtain some external good and you are suddenly happy,

It is not the fact that you obtained that good that has brought you happiness.

It is actually that your desire has gone away.

And so the idea is your absence of desire is what caused your happiness,

Not the satisfaction of it.

And so the absence of desire leaves a sort of peace in you.

The Soics had a similar comment about that in that they said happiness was like having not requiring anything else,

That all thirst and hunger were sort of sated,

That you didn't seek anything else.

And so the paradigm of how to achieve happiness is if you are at A,

Get to B.

And at B,

You will experience happiness.

B may signify power,

Riches,

Or a goal that you are needing to meet,

Or material goods,

Or anything.

And so the idea is if you only could get to B,

You would experience happiness.

Mindfulness or philosophy,

These things teach you that happiness is not at B,

But happiness is to be experienced at A.

Don't go anywhere,

Don't get anything,

Don't achieve anything.

Be happy exactly as you are without wishing anything in life were different.

There's a shift in mindset when you are no longer trying to achieve B,

Meaning you're not trying to get what you want,

But you're already happy at A.

And the idea is you sort of remove your ego as you remove your desires,

And you become a citizen of the world.

You become a cog in a machine.

Instead of saying,

How do I get to B,

Which will bring me happiness,

You step back and say,

I am here at A.

What is my purpose in life?

What am I supposed to be doing?

There's an idea that your purpose or your work brings great meaning to your life.

And sometimes this is a core piece of what makes people happy.

Eckhart Tolle said something very similar when he talked about inner versus outer purpose.

Everyone has an inner purpose and everyone has an outer purpose.

Your inner purpose,

What you are supposed to do first,

Is basically to awaken,

To awaken and find your consciousness.

And so the idea is to realize the thinking mind,

The ego is not you,

And that you are something deeper within.

You are the soul.

You are something beyond your thinking mind and your wishes.

And so the idea is once you kind of awaken to your inner purpose,

Which is to become conscious,

Then your outer purpose reveals itself to you.

Whatever role you are supposed to play in this world reveals itself to you once you become conscious.

And this is sort of like what I said before,

When you are no longer seeking to arrive at B and you are happy at A,

Then you come to realize you pull back and your paradigm shifts instead of how do I make myself happy,

What am I supposed to be doing?

Your purpose may not just be one thing,

Just to clarify,

It may be many things.

It may be any of the roles which you have been given in life.

Your work,

But not just your work,

But your relationships,

Meaning being a grandmother or uncle or aunt or a volunteer or a teacher or a pastor or a musician.

The idea is all of these may be part of your purpose in life.

It may not just be one thing.

In the film Man of Steel,

This is a Superman film,

There is an interesting plot device.

So in this film,

Krypton,

Which is Superman's ancestral home,

Is being destroyed.

And for many,

Many years now,

Krypton's population has been declining.

And long ago,

Artificial reproduction overtook natural reproduction,

So that people were birthed in this sort of a machine and they had preordained lifelines and preordained roles,

Meaning they had these bloodlines of people and they were just cranked out over and over again.

And these bloodlines had the same roles each time,

Meaning you had people who were workers and people who were soldiers,

People who were governors and things like that.

And this was kind of how Krypton was.

Superman on the other hand was a natural birth,

A natural birth between his father and mother and then Sabu-Sukali sent to Earth.

And so you have this interesting plot device of people who were born with a very specific purpose and that sole purpose,

They were not supposed to do anything else.

And then you had Superman who was a natural birth,

Whose kind of fate was not yet decided.

Because it is an American film,

It tends to lean towards choice is the better option and that we should all have a choice in kind of what we do and the freedom to choose.

But if you actually analyze the movie closely,

You would see that the way the characters are actually belies that notion.

So there are two main kind of people who are fighting against each other.

One is General Zod,

Who is the general of the old forces of Krypton and there's Superman.

And so General Zod,

His sole purpose in life is to protect his people.

And he says something along the lines of,

No matter what cruel or terrible or horrific deeds,

Whatever I do,

It is for one purpose and one purpose only and to protect my people.

And General Zod is an interesting character because he never suffers from doubt.

He never suffers from hesitation.

He has one purpose and one purpose only and everything he does is kind of confidently done to kind of secure this purpose because that is why he was born.

Superman,

On the other hand,

Has choice.

So he has a choice of,

Do I want to be a superhero or do I want to hide and be an ordinary man?

And this whole movie,

Superman struggles with his choice.

What am I supposed to do?

What should I be doing?

Am I supposed to be doing this or am I supposed to be doing that?

And there's a great struggle with inside him,

Which actually makes him quite unhappy.

And I would say that this is actually emblematic of lies.

So there are people who have figured out what they are supposed to be doing.

And there are people who are like Superman.

They don't know what they're here for.

They don't know what they're supposed to be doing.

And the question that kind of lies,

Ties to happiness is,

Is it better to just kind of know what your purpose is and serve it or is it better to sort of not know and to sort of have to choose what you should be doing and oh,

I think I should be doing this.

The question is,

How many of you know what you're supposed to be doing?

How many of you know your purpose?

Wouldn't it be easier if someone just told you your purpose,

Meaning you are born for this and just do it.

But how many of you went to college knowing this is what I should be doing?

How many of you,

After you got a job,

Said this is what I should be doing?

How many of you know what you are supposed to be doing in life?

Because if you knew what role you were supposed to serve,

You could serve it and be content and just have peace with that.

How many people seek fortune tellers or mediums to try to define the future of what they are supposed to be doing?

And so this is something everyone has to sort of figure out for themselves.

In that same way,

People have the same dichotomy in the West of,

Say,

Arranged marriages versus kind of chosen marriages.

So in a lot of Eastern cultures,

Even today,

There are still arranged marriages.

They're not like before where kind of people are forced to never meet and things like that,

But they're more like arranged matchmaking between families.

And you have some very limited meeting,

But basically you just kind of get married without knowing the other person too well.

And then in the Western side,

You have choice.

Everyone chooses who they want to marry.

And the idea is often that doesn't seem to go well because there's a very high divorce rate.

And yet on the other side,

On arranged marriages,

Some people are wound up quite happy with kind of what they've received.

And so which one leads to better happiness?

That's an interesting question.

The question is,

If you choose,

How do you know you've chosen correctly?

If someone's appointed for you,

It rules out,

It leaves you without any sort of,

Oh,

I should have chosen this person over that person.

But when you choose,

Do you have that same amount of certainty?

There's an idea and sort of stoic philosophy that you are supposed to serve in whatever role is allotted to you.

So if you are allowed at a role as a rich person,

You take that role.

If you are suddenly become poor,

You are,

Have the role of a poor person and you take that role and you play it as best as you can.

So whatever job,

Whatever task,

Whatever life circumstances are set before you,

That is the role you should take up and you should perform it to the best of your circumstances.

The idea is you should take your ego and what you desire out of the equation and sort of serve and fulfill your task kind of as best as you can.

In Taoism,

There's a similar idea of moving your ego so that you can master the Tao.

The Tao is sort of a good Western equivalent is sort of like the force in the Star Wars series.

But the idea is of connecting to your inner muse or your inner self.

So you remove thoughts of desire and aversion,

You remove thoughts of praise and blame,

You remove any thoughts of gain and loss.

All these things you try to get rid of and you kind of become a blank slate.

And the idea is when you connect to the Tao by doing all these things,

It's sort of like connecting to a muse.

And if you're a writer,

Suddenly you can write or if you're a craftsman,

Suddenly you can do master craftsman.

And so there are stories in Taoism of someone who kind of forgets everything,

Forgets what they're there to do,

Forgets everything they want.

And they fast and they meditate and they connect with the Tao.

And the idea is once they do this,

Whatever it is they are meant to do comes out and they do it to perfection.

Meaning they can rule the world or there are stories of a butcher who has mastered the Tao and he says,

You know,

Other people have to sharpen their blades or get a new life every few weeks or every few months.

I have not sharpened my blade or changed it into 14 years.

And so someone goes and asks him to cut meat and he basically slices it and it melts off the bone as if he weren't doing anything.

He never has to struggle.

And they asked them,

How is it that you do this?

He says,

I just know where to stick the knife.

I slip it in between the space between and the meat and it just falls off.

And the idea is if you connect to the Tao,

If by ridding yourself of your ego and ridding yourself of your desires,

Suddenly you master whatever craft and whatever purpose you're here to serve.

Just as in the case of suffering,

The question arises whether happiness comes from external sources or internal sources.

Does it come from without or does it come from within?

And this is something that,

Like I said,

Everyone should kind of investigate because it would change everything that you do.

Meaning if happiness didn't come from an external source,

Would you keep seeking doing what you are doing?

Meaning you think I'm going to be happy when I have all this money.

But if that weren't the case,

That your external source was not the source of happiness,

Whether it be material goods,

Fame,

Power,

Some sort of achievement,

If that external thing did not bring happiness,

Would you still try to seek it?

And if not,

Would you change everything in your life so that you could seek happiness?

In the same way,

Does happiness come if you understand that if an external thing did not bring happiness,

Would it change what you wanted to do for the world?

Meaning there are people who always try to campaign for the world and we want to make the world a better place by fixing this,

By making equal pay or racial equality or ending poverty or fixing healthcare or any of these kind of things.

But do these things bring happiness to people?

If it didn't bring happiness to people,

What does?

Meaning can you bring happiness to someone without changing their external circumstances?

Meaning if you knew what the source of happiness was and it didn't involve changing someone s external circumstances,

Could you give them happiness without it by changing their internal circumstances?

There's a great interplay between the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus and Epictetus,

Which I felt really illustrated this.

So as I mentioned,

Epictetus was a slave.

He was crippled,

They say,

Actually when his master beat him.

And his master was a wealthy Roman who took him to Rome because his master served Nero the emperor.

And Musonius Rufus was a philosopher and Epictetus's master would often take Epictetus to hear Musonius Rufus talk.

And there was an exchange in Epictetus's discourses which kind of really illustrated this.

And Epictetus said that Musonius Rufus would sometimes come up to him and sort of tease him and test him.

And the test was Musonius Rufus would say to him,

You know,

Your master is going to do such and such to you when you get home.

He's going to do this or he's going to do that.

And it was to test Epictetus as to what he learned from philosophy and how he would respond.

So Epictetus responded correctly.

And he said,

Well,

Such is the way of life.

As if,

You know,

It won't bother me if he does this,

These kinds of things,

Because this is part of life.

And he said that when he said,

And Epictetus said that once he said that to Musonius Rufus,

Musonius Rufus started laughing.

And he said,

You know,

I could have tried to intervene with your master,

But why bother?

I got the same result by intervening through you.

Meaning I did not have to change your external circumstances to get you to stop suffering.

I was able to do that by going through you and teaching you philosophy.

Meaning extend instead of changing the external circumstances of other people,

Liberating them by teaching them philosophy.

Part of this is having to know what is good,

What is just and what is free.

What does it mean to be free?

And so most people are under the impression that the good lies in external goods.

So money is a good thing.

If money is a good thing,

Let's give everyone money.

If you know,

Having land or other things or security is a good thing,

Let's give everyone these things because we want to help other people reach happiness.

And if money is a good thing,

Let's give everyone money and we'll give them happiness.

And so Socrates,

There's a discourse where he really is illustrated in what is good and what is bad.

And he first started by saying we should really define what is good and what is bad.

And he said,

Let us say that a good is only a good if it brings you benefit.

And something is bad,

Is only bad if it brings you kind of something bad.

And so it started with things like money.

Is money a good?

Well,

If it brings you benefit,

It's a good.

But Socrates asks,

Aren't there cases where money brings you something that's bad?

Meaning if you suddenly fall into money and you spend it on drugs or gambling or things like that,

And you lose sight of your family or you start doing all sorts of bad things,

Then it really hasn't done you any good,

Has it?

And likewise,

If something bad happened to you,

But it wound up doing you benefit,

Meaning you lost your job or you were demoted or you had to toy with something,

But it improved you in a different way,

Wasn't that really a good and not something that was bad?

This subsequently led to the conclusion that what was good and what was bad was not inherent in the material or external good itself.

It was only inherent in how it was used.

Therefore,

What was truly good and what was truly bad was knowledge and ignorance because you needed knowledge to make a good a good.

And without that knowledge,

A good might be bad.

So ignorance of how to use a good was not beneficial and it was harmful to you.

Knowledge of how to use a good helped you.

So even something like money,

If you did not know how to use money or if someone did not know how to use money and you gave them money,

They might blow it all on cigarettes and alcohol or drugs and they might actually do themselves quite bad.

But if someone knew how to use money and they used it properly,

Then giving them money,

If they had that knowledge,

Helped them greatly.

So what was most important to give people was not material goods,

It was actually knowledge.

There are interesting studies on whether money makes people happy.

There is some study out there on lottery winners and it basically said that one year after winning the lottery,

Their happiness went back to their baseline.

So whatever baseline happiness they had before they won their lottery,

A year after they went right back to it.

Meaning material goods do not inherently bring happiness.

And you can really examine your own life to see whether that's true.

Think about something you really wanted,

Something you really longed for when you were younger,

Some sort of car or gift or something like that.

Remember how you felt once you got it and now where is that object?

It's stuffed in the back of your closet or broken in your basement or something like that.

Is it still bringing you happiness now?

Are you in a state of constant happiness?

And the answer is no.

Whatever you had,

You were happy for a little while and then you went back to your baseline of what kind of happiness you had.

There was an interesting study where they did a survey on who is the most happiest people in the world,

Who are the most happiest kind of people in the world.

And they actually found that monks are the most happy.

So monks who practice mindfulness and don't want anything other than what they have,

Even though they have no possessions and they have no food in their stomach,

They have a bowl to beg with,

Sometimes they don't know where they're sleeping that night.

These are the most happiest people because they're grateful for what they have and they're trying to remove desire so they don't seek anything else.

You contrast that with another study which I saw in The Economist which said that when you looked at poor people who were living in a poor country,

Basically they were generally happy when the whole country was poor and they were also poor.

They didn't suffer because of that.

They didn't suffer any diminished happiness because of being poor in a poor country.

On the other hand,

When you went to a rich country and you were poor inside a rich country,

Your self-esteem and your happiness took a big hit,

Meaning poor in a poor country you were okay,

But poor in a rich country you were unhappy.

So you have to take these two things and put them side by side.

So if you were a monk and you were poor and had no possessions,

You were really happy.

If you were poor in a poor country,

You were also okay to be happy.

If you were poor in a rich country,

You were unhappy.

And so what is the missing ingredient here?

And you basically characterize this as,

Is this involuntary poverty or is this voluntary poverty?

Meaning monks were happy despite having poverty because it was voluntary poverty.

If you were poor in a poor country,

It was not necessarily voluntary poverty,

But you didn't mind.

But in a poor person in a rich country,

Your poverty was involuntary.

And so if voluntary poverty you could be happy at,

But involuntary poverty made you miserable,

What is the thing to do to make one person happy?

To take one person from one category into the other?

And the answer is changing the will.

Make them desire what they have and they will be happy.

To desire nothing but what they have.

Change the will from involuntary to voluntary and you will understand that they will suddenly be happy.

And so the idea is you don't need to change the external world to make people happy.

That is not the necessary ingredient of happiness.

Meaning all the things that people strive for,

Equal rights,

Equal pay,

Racial harmony,

Racial justice,

And all these kind of different things.

And the idea is if you go back in time when these things did not exist in any way,

Shape,

Or form,

Were there happy people that existed?

Meaning wherever there are throughout human history,

Even during a time of injustice,

Have happy people ever existed?

And the idea is if there's never been a happy person in the history of mankind before you know XYZ happened,

Then yes,

Your point is correct that you need this as an unnecessary ingredient for happiness.

But if happiness existed without these social changes being made,

Then those social changes were not a necessary ingredient of happiness.

And in other words,

If you want to make other people happy,

It's not necessary to try to exchange their external circumstances.

This goes back to M is sort of a very interesting kind of adjunct to this.

So the cynics,

Which was founded by Diogenes,

They were sort of like stoics in that they embraced a similar sort of philosophy,

But what they added to it was asceticism,

Meaning they were homeless and they were kind of didn't have a place to live and they were wanderers.

And so they wandered around with a stick and they begged and they taught philosophy and the idea is they had very minimal possessions.

And the key of the cynic was they were happy in spite of all these things.

Like the monks,

They had a sort of involuntary poverty,

But did they not seek anything else other than what they had,

Even though they had very little at all.

So there's an idea and sort of financial theory,

Financial literature that,

You know,

The idea is to try to have an F U amount of money,

Meaning amount of money where you're so financially independent you can say F U to your boss at any time and walk away.

And the idea is that for the cynic it was zero.

At zero dollars,

Having no money at all,

They could say F U to their boss anytime they wanted because they were used to hardship.

They could do endure anything.

And because of that,

They did not kind of require anything or rely on anybody.

In Henry David Thoreau's Walden,

He also comes up with a similar idea.

So Henry David Thoreau,

If you haven't heard,

He's an American philosopher who,

Prior to the Civil War,

This was I think 1840s and 50s,

He basically went into the woods and built a cabin and lived there for about two and a half years.

A very,

Very simple kind of barren,

Not a barren,

But very simple life.

And he said that all he needed was to work six or eight weeks of hard labor a year and he had enough money to last him for the rest of the year.

Meaning he could do whatever he want once he made enough money to last him a year.

He could go fishing every day,

He could read philosophy,

He farmed in the morning,

He could go hiking,

He could go canoeing,

He could spend time with friends.

But the idea is he didn't see money as something to kind of amass and something that would bring him happiness.

And the idea was he achieved happiness even though he didn't have many things.

And there was something important he said about looking at purchasing something.

He said,

Don't look at it what it costs in terms of money,

Look at it at what it costs in terms of life.

And so he talked about people who lived in town with all sorts of fancy things and they were always in debt.

They borrowed in order to get the place they had.

They were always trying to pay off this person and pay off that person.

They had mortgages,

They had all these things,

Luxury goods that they kind of sought.

And this was 200 years ago when your luxury goods were having some sort of washbasin or things like that.

And he said compare that to the Native American who lives with a teepee that costs one dollar.

The abode in town and the teepee both provide shelter but one,

The abode in town,

Will cost you 30 or 40 years of life.

A teepee on the other hand costs you maybe three days of work but one allows you freedom and the other will keep tying you down for a very long time.

In the same way,

Musonius Rufus,

The Stoic philosopher,

They all kind of disparaged luxury.

And so the idea was one of the virtues was moderation.

Moderation meant you avoided luxury.

So here in America we see the opposite.

We think luxury is a sign of happiness and to achieve luxury is to have made it to be greatly happy.

But Musonius Rufus said something like,

I would prefer sickness to luxury.

I would prefer sickness to luxury because sickness is a disease of the body whereas luxury destroys the body and the soul.

So the idea is if you were sick,

Your body was sick but it got better.

But luxury did both.

Meaning it made your body sick because you became idle.

Because you were idle and you never toiled,

You didn't necessarily have exercise and you didn't have good health.

If you indulge in sort of luxury delicacies and all that kind of thing,

Your diet was poor and also this contributed to your poor health.

And if you were luxury and you had luxurious desires,

You ate whatever you wanted,

You kind of slept whenever you wanted.

And he remarked that people who live these kind of luxury lives,

They all suffer from poor health.

And you compare that to the farmer who toiled in the field all day and ate kind of more coarse food,

The farmer had good health in spite of all that.

The idea was luxury destroyed your body.

It destroyed your soul as well because increased covetous in yourself,

Increased your desires.

And so because it increased a lot of your desires,

It made you a greedy person.

It made you a coward because the luxurious lifestyle made you soft.

And if you were soft and you had attachment to all these kind of desires,

It made you a coward.

And the last thing it did was made you unjust,

Meaning if you were greedy and you had all these desires and you were soft at the same time,

You would be willing to use injustice to sort of get the things that you wanted.

And so the philosophers,

Particularly the stoic philosophers,

They felt that the key to happiness was not an external good.

The key to happiness was virtue,

That virtue was sufficient to ensure happiness.

The virtues they modeled back then were moderation,

Courage,

Wisdom,

And justice.

And the idea is if you develop these in yourself,

You would be happy.

And so Socrates,

As I mentioned in the previous talk,

Thought that the soul was divided in three.

The rational mind,

The spirit,

Which kind of seeks honor and gets angry and gets riled up.

And the third one was the bodily appetites.

And so when the philosopher was sort of,

When there was a philosopher style of living,

The rational mind and the spirit ruled over the bodily desires and that this was the happiest mode of living.

So the person who ruled by his mind was rational and would subsequently possess virtue.

And because he possessed virtue,

You would be happy in all circumstances.

So wealth,

Poverty,

Even in the example of Diogenes,

The cynic,

Even in slavery,

He could still maintain happiness.

And so the most important ingredient was not to obtain an external good.

It was to develop virtue in yourself because this ensured happiness in all circumstances.

In Confucian philosophy,

There is a very similar example where Confucius in the great learning,

He talks about the whole purpose of the great learning is to become virtuous.

And the idea is as you became virtuous,

You developed this light that you could shine inside of yourself.

And only those who are virtuous could help the ignite the virtue of other people.

And so igniting the virtue of other people,

You could help them become shining bright.

And so the idea is do not think that making someone happy is done by changing their external circumstances.

It is done by teaching them virtue.

And if you figure that out,

Then you kind of learn philosophy and then you become a philosophy teacher.

In the second talk I gave about mindfulness,

I talked about how there were good and bad things in the past and good and bad things in the future which prevented you from experiencing happiness in the present moment.

I did talk in detail about the bad things in the past and also the bad things in the future which kind of prevented you from living happily.

I didn't talk about the thing that helped prevent the good things in the past and the good things in the future from making you happy.

So we talked about how if you always compared what you had now to what you had in the past,

It would kind of make you less happy.

And if you were always waiting for conditional happiness,

That would also make you unhappy.

And as I mentioned in a talk of anger,

Forgiveness was the antidote to anger.

And so in this case,

Gratitude is the antidote to both envy and nostalgia,

Meaning gratitude helped you appreciate what you had in the present moment instead of comparing to the past and what you were wishing for in the future.

There's a saying that comparison is a thief of joy.

And I would add to that that gratitude will return that what was lost.

So to kind of summarize,

If happiness is not found in external goods,

Then don't seek it in external goods.

There was an interesting article I read recently on what brought happiness.

And they said it was through their studies,

A certain set of traits and certain set of practices which were most likely to bring happiness.

One of them was gratitude.

So practicing gratitude often helped.

Expressing empathy,

Kindness,

Generosity.

So there are many studies on generosity where people who give regularly are just much more happy.

And then of course the other things I would add are probably having a sense of purpose,

A sense of belonging or community,

So having good friendships and things like that,

And a kind of a connection to the world.

I would note that none of these require any sort of external good.

And so the idea is if you are seeking happiness,

Don't seek it in some external good.

Find these things and see if they make you happy.

And if you don't believe me,

You can spend the rest of your life looking for happiness in the way you are and see and come back and tell me if you have found it.

That will conclude my talk.

Suggested reading.

One is Walden from Henry David Thoreau.

Another is Man's Search for Meaning.

This is an interesting book about finding purpose in life.

And the film Wished,

It's a Chinese film so you'll have to use subtitles unless you can understand Chinese.

If you receive benefit from my talk,

I ask that you perform one good deed in return.

One good deed.

The deed is not bound by size,

Merely by sincerity.

Thank you for listening.