About happiness
What is necessary to be happy?
"The sage looks on what is deemed necessary therefore is not at war in himself.
The mass of men deem what is unnecessary to be necessary
and therefore they are often at war in themselves.
Necessary is a solid ground under your feet."
Tswang Tse
The Earth is a solid and necessary ground under our feet.
Taoists have always followed what is natural.
Tswang Tse reminds us to stay 'rooted in the Earth'.
We need a solid ground otherwise our life-tree will not grow well.
Tai Chi Chuan:
"Stay rooted in the Earth".
"Reach up as high as you can to see the interconnectedness of all things".
All things are interconnected.
Every child needs a pet.
Or, is it every pet needs a child ?
"All things are interconnected".
This statement has made a lot of people very angry
and has been widely regarded as a bad idea.
Love is truly necessary.
(Harmony is truly necessary).
'Love' is perhaps the closest equivalent for the Taoistic term 'Harmony'.
Love is the interconnection process of all things.
(I-Kuan Tao: Unifying and nurturing love).
To live in love is to live in life. To live in life is to live in love.
(To live in harmony is to live in life. To live in life is to live in harmony).
Next necessity?
It's necessary to be happy with the person we really are.
It's so lonely when we don't even know ourselves
In other words:
It' s necessary 'to love ourselves', or 'to live in harmony with ourselves'.
Loneliness creates many illusions.
Loneliness creates many unnecessary conflicts.
Loneliness simply means to see our 'self' as separate from other 'selves'.
To see our self as something very special (un cas a part).
Happiness means to see our 'self' as not separate from other 'selves'.
Unrealistic expectations create loneliness.
Expectations:
There is a difference between aspirations and expectations. We create expectations almost
non-stop in our day to day lives, and every expectation we make is made in the hope that
it will somehow bring us happiness. Some expectations are realistic; we expect the sun will
come up tomorrow, if the sun doesn't rise tomorrow then It will be the end of our Earth.
Most expectations are unrealistic; Can you bring me sunrise? Can you bring me the sun in my life?
Ah no, the sun doesn't shine to live up to our expectations; because we want something doesn't
mean we will expect it to come.
A friend of Tao has few expectations, all expectations are created by our own ego. Expectations
are limitless, they just lead to disappointments.
Joseph Campbell: "We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the
life that is waiting for us". In other words, we must learn to approach life as a banquet,
and not as a buffet.
Loneliness:
Having unrealistic expectations leads to loneliness. Loneliness is a negative state marked by
isolation, lonely people feel no contact with anyone or anything. The friend of Tao would say:
How can you tell me you're lonely, In the same way that water surrounds a fish, Tao surrounds us.
One who is with Tao is never lonely, but is an integral part of the natural circle. Simplify
your life, everything is connected to everything else, there are no them, only we. Ultimately
"I" and "US" are one. That way loneliness can be an opportunity that reminds us that we are
dwelling on our own egoistic identity.
Solitude:
Taoism is concerned with living from one's true center, and so long as man lives in harmony with
Tao they will be free from conflict. "Language has created the word 'loneliness' to express the
pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone"
(Paul Tillich). The pain of being alone depletes body and mind, while solitude restores them.
Embrace solitude, it is something we choose and need. Enjoy it as a conscious choice, a peaceful
gateway to all understanding, there is always something left to love. "That way solitude becomes
your sacred place of purification where you can find yourself again and again" (Joseph Campbell).
While you can do the Tai Chi form alone (solo form), it is almost impossible to reach through
your Tai Chi training alone.
Do you like a Taoistic Koan?
"In order to stop ourselves from seeing ourselves as separate from others,
we must see ourselves as separate from others".
If you are hurting and unhappy, a Taoistic advice will help you:
Why are some people happy and others not?
Read to learn more:
We all want to be happy
even when volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.
Taoists believe that nobody is perfect happy.
In Taoism happiness is the norm, unhappiness means sick chi.
Unhappiness can be a key to happiness.
Well then:
Be nobody.
Be unimportant.
All the world says I am important.
I am separate from all the world.
I am important because I am separate,
where I the same I could never be important.
Yet here are three treasures; the first is compassion,
the second is restraint,
the third is unimportance.
Lao Tse.
All great thinkers have left the definition of happiness in the vague
so that each of us could define our own happiness in our own terms.
Lao Tse thought that man would reach a relative state of happiness
by living in accordance with the Way of nature.
When man contradicts this Way, the consequence is suffering and pain
We are the world.
Every time a man changes his mind he changes himself
Every time a man changes himself he changes the world.
We are the world.
Happiness starts with our state of mind.
A man changes the world every time he changes his mind
In a Taoistic sense happiness is a skill
that can be developed not an emotion.
Happiness is not a situation we arrive at but a manner of travelling.
Fame is food that dead men eat.
At the end we all end up with nothing (Chinese proverb).
There is a Chinese tale about a man who loved tea so much that he decided to live in a tea pot...
The deeper meaning is to do what you enjoy in life.
What about feelings?
Our feelings -negative or positive- follow us. They manipulate us.
They grow and transform. They guide us trough life.
There is a law of relativity that states that if we apply a force to
an object it will continue until it meets an equal or an opposite.
This is how chi(energy)works. This is how feelings -negative or positive- work.
Our feelings are energy(chi).
In a Taoistic sense pleasure is a by-product
of happiness than as an end itself.
Pleasure relies on bigger and bigger demands.
Happiness on smaller and smaller demands.
"There are two kinds of happiness - the temporary pleasure derived primarily from material comfort alone, -
and another more enduring comfort that results from the thorough transformation and development of the mind.
We can see in our own lives that the latter form of happiness is superior because when our mental state is
calm and happy, we can easily put up with minor pains and physical discomforts. On the other hand, when our
mind is restless and upset, the most comfortable physical facilities do not make us happy".
Dalai Lama
It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves
but it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
We can't feel happiness unless we feel connected
to something greater than ourselves.
All things are one.
Tai Chi Chuan is the art to feel connected
to something greater than ourselves.
A perfect Taoist would say:
"I am not Mister Perfect.
No, I'm not perfect, that means that I must decide to look beyond the imperfections.
I'm absolutely worthless to society, my life has no purpose,
no direction, no aim, no meaning and yet I'm happy.
I'm happy by nature,
because I' ill seldom have the chance to be happy by circumstance.
It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves but it not possible to find it elsewhere. I'm OK.
What am I doing right?"
Taoistic classics: about happiness and harmony