“I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place’. This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.”
-Albert Einstein-
I am sitting here on my table. Doing nothing. I feel I’m getting better and better at it.
It’s amazing how much our minds goes to the future so easily. It could just easily figure out what we have to do, what we want to eat, how we should do some other things. Everything else, but the present. We aren’t teach to enjoy the present at all.
In my meditation experience and through some reflection, I always realize that we will face a time when we would realize that happiness really is a choice we choose. It’s not something which falls or happen upon us.
We normally assume that when we find true love, make a huge amount of money, having a lot of materials or lose weight; then we will be happy. We are so used to such things. We are used to finding happiness within the external world. We look for the comfort and security from things outside of us, without realizing the true nature of things.
The true nature of things is that they are ephemeral. They are ever changing. They are impermanent.
All those things like your material stuffs, your reputation, other people’s perception about you and your achievement; none of them are actually of any substantial value. Those are all external representation of things.
We all use these things to find value in ourselves. We are not used to seeking ourselves for value, in things that we couldn’t see; so we end up using things external of us to give ourselves value. That is why so many people end up spending their entire life accumulating so many things. Cars, houses, money, reputation, power.
All these just give them some value. Some temporary value.
In actual fact, we don’t own anything. People hearing this might think that I’m negative, but they fail to be truly objective.
Ask yourself if any of those things you could bring along to your grave.
We can’t bring anything, but yet we attach so much value into such things. It is this attachments to things outside of us that cause us to suffer so much. When I say things outside of us, I don’t just mean cars and houses and those material wealth. What I’m saying is also the reputation, the opinions people have about us, the body we have.
Finding happiness from all these isn’t lasting.
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It comes back to the question: What is the fundamental decision you have to make to be happy?
As I said, meditation will let you unfold the answers. Those who have practice meditation would understand very clearly what I mean. There will be a point where you actually see how our minds works. If we were to go deeper, we would come to a “junction-point” where we really just have to answer this question of to whether we want to be happy or not.
Happiness is really a choice.
If we were to tell ourselves that we can only be happy when things go our way. When we have people act in certain way. When we have all our desires coming out in a way which we want. When we just expect people to behave in a certain way for us to be happy. We are not finding for happiness then.
We are looking for pleasure in things outside of us. We are looking for things to happen outside of us to be happy. We are not really gaining happiness from within ourselves. And as I said, things outside of us are ephemeral. They are ever-changing.
Through my meditation experience when I could see how fast my thoughts changes, I felt even a greater need to let go. I remember once when I had a bad thought about the meditation teacher and how I just hated how he talked to me. After meditating some time, I can notice that my thoughts about him changed and I see him as a kind and gentle person.
We all change faster than we can realize. Have you experience a time where one time you perceive something or someone as good or bad, and then after some time your perception changes?
Things, people and our thoughts change in that similar pattern. What meditation does is that it helps us see at a even deeper level on how these things change.
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We have to radically change the way we look at things in order to find happiness which is deeper and more permanent. We have to start to refer to our own self. It’s called self-referral.
When we constantly seek for things outside of us for happiness, we are looking for nothing but just temporary pleasure. That is called object-referral.
The battle is here, to summarize: Self-Referral vs Object-Referral.
Which side would you want to be? It’s your call.
