How to be happy? Easy. Do the right thing. How to tell what
the right thing to do is? Now, that’s a bit harder.
Doing the right thing makes you happy. That’s the definition
of happiness – it’s the result of having done the right thing.
And I don’t just mean a fleeting, superficial kind of
happiness. But proper happiness – fulfilment, contentment, peace and joy.
Doing the wrong thing makes you feel unhappy – tight,
disturbed and regretful.
Sometimes it might feel as if doing the wrong thing can make
you happy, like saying something cutting to get your own back on someone. But
that’s not happiness. That just hurts them, demeans you and fuels the quarrel.
No, what I’m talking about is deep, lasting, pure happiness
and peace. And that only ever comes from doing the right thing. But how do you
tell what that is?
Well, one answer is moral discipline.
Yuk. That was my first reaction, one which lasted for the
first 45 years of my life. I didn’t want anything to do with morality or
discipline!
Morality was just people telling you what was right and
wrong – and who were they to tell me what I could or couldn’t do?
Discipline was just people telling me not to do the things I
wanted to do, things I was pretty sure would make me happy.
Combined, they were a recipe for how to be miserable.
But recently someone very wise pointed out that actually
moral discipline is a guide to how to have a happy, peaceful life. That turned
the whole thing around for me.
Simply by avoiding doing the wrong thing, I could remove all
sources of pain, regret, guilt, doubt and uneasiness from my mind.
By choosing to do the right thing instead, I could ensure a
constant source of satisfaction, fulfilment, ease and happiness.
Suddenly I saw through the deceptive nature of negative
actions which appear to offer happiness and saw instead their true nature as
causes of misery.
So what is wrong?
Well, here is the Buddhist list of negative actions.
Killing or harming any living being. So far so good. I wasn’t
going to do either of them. But if I was going to do this properly I would have
to avoid treading on snails on the path, and I might have to become vegetarian…
Stealing or taking anything that doesn’t belong to me. As
long as shopkeepers didn’t give me change for £20 when I’d only given them a
tenner...
Sexual misconduct. Sleeping with someone else’s partner
might seem like fun, but it brings a lot of pain and grief, believe me. And I’d
better watch where my day dreams take me…
Telling lies. I don’t tell out-and-out lies these days, but
being scrupulously honest about everything is quite hard.
Saying things which hurt people. That is
going to be fairly hard too… I might easily get a bit hot under the collar if I
feel attacked or criticised. I’m going to have to work at that.
Saying anything which sets people against each other or wasting
time in idle gossip. Should be alright on that.
Wanting something which someone else has, or wanting to do
harm to someone. Or holding wrong views, like denying there’s anything wrong
with the above. Ditto.
All of these (what shall we call them? Sins? Non-virtuous
actions?) stem from one underlying, catastrophic mistake: cherishing myself.
Self cherishing is when we think “I am important just because
I am me”. It causes us to perform all sorts of negative actions in pursuit of
self-gratification. And because they are negative, they make us unhappy.
The antidote is – guess what? – cherishing others. Thinking:
“I want you to be happy” and then performing virtuous actions to try to achieve
that. Because these actions are virtuous, they make us happy.
Life presents innumerable opportunities to do the right or
the wrong thing. Many are tiny. They flit across the mind and before you even
know it you’ve thought, said or done something (right or wrong).
Training in alertness and mindfulness through meditation
helps enormously. You learn to become aware of what you are thinking as soon as
you start thinking it, so that you can spot any negative thoughts and nip them
in the bud before they are expressed in words or actions.
Bigger decisions crop up less often but have huge potential
to make you happy – or not.
The Life Editor offers some free decision making aids to
help you tell how right or wrong a potential course of action might be for you.
A couple of them are based on the
Buddhist view of life; others draw on different spiritual traditions. They are
free to use at www.thelifeeditor.com
