The purpose of our existence is to seek happiness.
When you get angry/sad, imagine how you would respond to a loved one if it was their anger/sadness.
Happy people are more willing to help and empathise.
Don’t live as if you’re going to live forever. You aren’t!!! If you want to do something, go and do it!
Happiness is more a state of mind than the process of having material goods.
Happiness and sadness from external factors are relatively temporary. All things pass!!
Moment-to-moment happiness is determined by one’s outlook on life.
Perception is everything!!!! Good state of mind = good day
The more we compare ourselves with peers, the worse we feel. Learn to compare with the old you. You just need to be as good as or better than him/her.
Levels of satisfaction are relative to who we compare ourselves to. Set your bar too high and you are destined to fail.
“I am glad I am not……” fill in the blanks and repeat aloud 5 times.
Buddhists 4 factors of happiness; Wealth, Worldly (daily) satisfaction, Spirituality and Enlightenment.
Do I really need that? (whatever the item is)
The demarcation of a positive or negative desire is whether it results in a positive or negative consequence.
Greed – arrives by the desire to obtain something, but is not satisfied by the obtaining. So it becomes an endless pursuit.
The true antidote for greed is contentment.
A sense of self-worth helps dictate levels of happiness.
The highest happiness is when one reaches a state of liberation (freedom from possession/thoughts etc).
Happiness and pleasure are separate things, often confused with each other.
The first step in seeking happiness is learning!
The process of causality says that if you want to get rid of the event then you need to eliminate all the causes that bring about that event.
Similarly, if you want an event or experience to occur more often, then you need to seek and accumulate the causes and conditions that give rise to it.
By harbouring feelings of hatred or negative emotions towards something, you start to become consumed by these emotions. This in turn makes you appear as hostile. These feelings/perceptions of hostility bring a greater sense of insecurity, fear and hesitation, which, over time build steam/increase and we begin to feel alone in this world of perceived hostility. This is all the effect of that initial feeling of hatred.
If you maintain a feeling of compassion, then something automatically opens your inner door. Through that, you can communicate much more easily with other people. And that kind of warmth creates a kind of openness. You’ll find that all human beings are just like you, so you’ll be able of relate to them more easily.
When training the mind, it is like observing small waves on the ocean. We still notice the effects on the surface but deep down its relatively still and calm.