Happiness- is it found, made or an inner creation?

This Wednesday’s dialogue is about happiness and I will be outlining some thinking from the Buddhist realm about happiness as well as some thoughts from Psychoanalysis and from Psychosynthesis.

A lot of money is spent in the pursuit of happiness through materialism –the advertising industry happily cultivates our sense of inferiority, of envy, of something missing in order to encourage us to spend our way to personal fulfillment. The personal growth industry which includes therapy, books, retreats etc also encourages us to spend in the name of self-improvement as if happiness could be a spiritual goal. Yet how realistic can it be to be happy all of the time or even most of the time? I suppose it depends on how we define happiness and also how we look at suffering.

Barry Magid a zen Buddhist and psychoanalyst, in his book Ending the Pursuit of Happiness invites us to consider that our "pursuit of happiness" may actually be a source of our suffering. He takes an unusual look at our "secret practices"—what we're really doing when we say we're meditating-like trying to feel calmer, or more compassionate, or even "enlightened" (whatever we imagine that means!). He also uncovers our "curative fantasies" about spiritual practice-those ideas that we can somehow fix all the messy human things about ourselves that we imagine are bad or wrong or unacceptable.

Freud said, "Happiness is the deferred fulfillment of a prehistoric wish. That is why wealth brings so little happiness: money is not an infantile wish." Throughout life we are driven by the desires and fears established in early childhood. I suspect he would agree that happiness is a transitory state, that it signals to us that a need we experience is fulfilled.

In Civilization and Its Discontents Freud says “What we call happiness in the strict sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree, and it is from its nature only possible as a periodic phenomenon. When any situation that is desired by the pleasure principle is prolonged it only produces a feeling of mild contentment. We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from a state of things.”

Although at first glance this presents a rather pessimistic picture I am coming to an understanding that the flux of emotion, that the pitching of fortune, is in fact what gives happiness it’s bounty. In a blog, Cold house Journal one American citizen writes of his year trying to live without air-conditioning and his appreciation of warmth when it comes, of the seasons change, because of this. Is happiness then found through embracing our experience as it is rather than fighting to change or overcome it? This is the path of immanence and I think there is some truth in this. Of course a culture dominated by this worldview would not be good at striving for material improvement. Our dissatisfactions with the way things are having lead to some pretty nifty inventions. However perhaps as a civilization we are getting towards the end of the satisfaction that ipod, iphone, dishwasher, flat screen can offer. Technology offers individual comfort but often undermines the simple pleasure that comes connection with others and with the environment which also give us great happiness.

Other spiritual paths suggest that the way to happiness or spiritual fulfillment is through transcendence, put crudely getting over us. A therapist in Auckland Anna Cowan says she thinks about this as inviting a client to step up out of their experience (transcendence) in contrast to stepping down further into their experience (immanence). I like her model, it suggest two ways to shift our consciousness and to open to deeper or wider experiences of self.

Many psychological frames and spiritual ones encourage us to, in the words of Ram Dass “Be here, now.” Anxiety in an attempt to defend us from suffering represses or displaces suffering but this suffering continues as physical symptoms, inexplicable moods, repetition compulsion. If we can step down into the feelings and or memories isolated from consciousness by anxiety we become more resilient, more whole and more capable of enjoying the ordinary happiness of a good conversation, a walk in the park and a meal with friends.

We might also become less self obsessed and more open to others and to the joy that is found in opening to generosity to others and care for the environment.

Two quotes on happiness from the Dali Lama, someone who faces suffering but chooses happiness:

“I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace.” “We can live without religion and meditation but we can’t live without human affection.”