Pick up an object, such as a pen, coffee mug, or iPhone. Pull back your arm and prepare to throw - now stop! Before the object leaves your hand, can you predict where it will land? Thanks to good ol’ Mr. Newton (of apple fame), we can predict where the object will come to rest.
OK, how about a coin toss? Surely a coin toss is too random to know the outcome. Again, thanks to the wonders of mathematics, once we know all the initial conditions before the toss, we can predict heads or tails (coin tossing machines can generate a predictable toss 100% of the time).
OK, you say, maybe we can predict the outcome of some simple physical objects in motion, but surely my happiness is beyond prediction. Or is it?
In our life, we also experience causality (aka Karma). Every action results in an outcome. My reaction to an event will lead to a particular outcome, resulting in another reaction and another outcome and the cycle continues. Just as we can predict that releasing an object will result in it dropping to the floor, we are capable of recognizing that clenching our teeth all day results in a headache. Tracing the causality back further, we recognize that replaying an argument over and over again in our mind results in clenching our teeth. So perhaps we are capable of catching the causality that drives our suffering or happiness.
The key to enacting this predictive capacity relies upon awareness. On auto-pilot, we miss the conditions and only recognize the negative outcome breaking through to awareness, making us feel as though we have little control of our current state. Mindfulness invites an expanded awareness, to catch the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) initial conditions that drive us to suffering or happiness. In noticing the tense jaw and the replay in my mind, I can shift my awareness from the thoughts to the experience of breathing, allowing the thoughts to rise and fade, rise and fade, rise and fade, and become nothing more than an event to be observed rather than reacted to.
Within this field of expanded awareness dwells a choice. I can choose the old and familiar (such as jaw tensing) that drive the suffering. Or I can run the experiment, practice a new choice (shift focus to breathing), and see if happiness may be found in this moment, after all.
In other words, perhaps happiness is not some random or elusive event, but predictable!
A couple of fun vidoes about randomness and predictability:
http://www.realclearscience.com/video/2014/07/17/what_is_random.html
http://www.realclearscience.com/video/2014/07/17/what_is_not_random.html
Tags:
happiness, suffering
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Greetings! Please watch this fascinating TED talk on studying happiness. More stuff does not make us happier (OK, no surprise there!). Does wandering mind make us happy? Apparently not. Even during a current unpleasant experience, taking a trip in our minds does not provide a break or escape, just more unhappiness. This dovetails well with the mindfulness approach: to be in full contact with whatever is unfolding, whether I like it or not, I am more likely to experience the transient nature of reality. This increased experience of non-permeance leads to acceptance, patience and freedom from habitual mind states that drive our emotions and behaviors. Want to be happier? Stay in the moment
Peace!
Paul
Tags:
happiness, mindfulness, ted
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