Cultivating a Happy State of Mind

by His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, Jigme Pema Wangchen

The Buddha said that wisdom and compassion are like the two wings of a bird; it is only when you have both, working in union together, that you can fly. In modern terms, we can also think of wisdom and compassion as understanding and action. At the heart of all the teachings is the aim to develop the union between our thoughts, our words and our actions. Everything begins and is created first in the mind, but if we don’t put our understanding into action, then we forget to walk our path. The chapters in this part of the book – the essence of which is summed up below – provide the tools that help us to connect with ourselves, our world and our happiness.

CHOOSE HAPPINESS

There are things in this life that we can’t change or that we can’t control, but whether we want to experience happiness or not is up to us. If we don’t wish to be happier than we are now, that is our choice, but if we wish to deepen our sense of happiness, to become a more joyful person to be around, then the first step is to set our intention and choose happiness over suffering. It sounds like a simple choice, but it is easy to become used to low level suffering and wonder whether it will be worth the effort to reach beyond our familiar discomfort zone and into less-known territory.

BE GRATEFUL

Happiness is our nature. It’s right here, right now, but we need to remind ourselves to notice it in our lives, rather than go chasing after it. Gratitude shines a light on our happiness within; it stills the turbulent surface of our minds and encourages us to pause and reflect for a moment on all the things that we already have – the things that we hold in our hands ready to make a happy and fulfilling life. It is like diving beneath the waves to discover the beauty of the deep ocean, where there is a whole other world of coral and fish and life that we couldn’t see from above. Appreciation begins to help us develop other happiness skills like patience. We remind ourselves to be joyful about all the good things in our lives, rather than envious of others or fixated on acquiring what we don’t have. Appreciation helps us to make the most of today and to be less anxious about tomorrow. 

FREE YOUR MIND TO BE HAPPY

We were born with limitless imaginations, and then over time, we construct a web of beliefs and opinions that become filters through which we see and colour the world. We impose conditions and restrictions on happiness, believing it to be a limited resource, and so we end up limiting our own potential, labelling ourselves and others as one thing or the other. This is the work of the ego, which likes to put everything in boxes. We become so attached to our sense of identity that our minds begin to become quite small and inflexible, and rather than adapt to situations or people we tend to suffer instead with irritation, impatience, even anger. As soon as we can be a little looser and understand that there is always potential for change, we free our minds to open up and let so much more happiness in.

CHANGE YOUR MENTAL HABITS

Our perceptions shape our reality. It is with our minds that we create our world and our place in it. We get very used to seeing things our way, and we don’t really like it when people or circumstances around us don’t conform to our view of how things should be. We believe that others are making us unhappy, or things that happen to us ruin our chances for happiness, but if we give ourselves the opportunity for reflection, we can begin to watch our minds and see how they work. Once we begin to understand that our thoughts form our sense of reality, we can appreciate how the potential for transformation originates in the way we think about life and what we are going to do today to make a better tomorrow.

EMBRACE YOUR FEARS

However much we might try to cling to the shores of certainty in our lives, life is by its very nature a great unknown; we don’t know what is going to happen next and the not knowing can become the seed of fear in our minds. Equally, we may use our pain and suffering from the past to influence how we think about the future: if things have gone wrong before, we may expect them to go wrong again. As we begin to practise choosing happiness, freeing our minds to be happy, seeing things differently and appreciating every day, we might see our fears and uncertainties from an alternative angle. We begin to see that where there is fear there is life and where there is uncertainty there will be things that surprise and delight us.

BE FRIENDLY WITH ALL YOUR EMOTIONS

Life is full of ups and downs, and our emotions are our signposts. We mustn’t hide them away, therefore, especially if we would like to understand such difficult emotions as anger or jealousy and work with ourselves to experience these negative states less often. We need to make friends with all our emotions, both positive and negative, so that we can begin to see where they come from or how they are triggered. And the more friendly we are with even the most painful emotions, the more easily we can let them go. As we practise the tools of patience, appreciation, understanding the nature of change and acceptance, we will gradually find that our emotions may become friendlier towards us. As we become better observers of our minds through meditation and everyday mindfulness, we may feel the burn of anger dissolve before the fire has even got going.

STOP COMPARING

We live in an era of competition and comparison, and while competition is one way to drive us to greater heights, it also develops in our minds the idea of winners and losers, creating anxiety about where we are on some imaginary ladder of success, achievement or even happiness relative to others. So instead of being happy for another person’s success or happiness, we look upon them with jealousy and envy; or if we are very successful ourselves, we might be full of pride, looking down on others from a supposed great height. This chapter is dedicated to putting all of our comparisons, gossip and judgments about others aside, while we focus on being true to ourselves, without the need for praise or blame.

DEVELOP MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS

It is when we interact with the world and make connections that we open up opportunities to give and receive happiness, inspiration, teachings, kindness and love. And the more that we develop our connections with the world, the more beauty we will see in life; they will nourish and support us when we need them and give us so many wonderful ideas and moments and experiences. We must learn to be great listeners, cultivate our patience, be willing students of life and never be afraid to reach out.

ALLOW YOUR HEART TO BE BROKEN

To experience all of our emotions fully, even to allow our hearts to be broken, is to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and therefore truly experience life. It is only by understanding suffering that we truly understand happiness.

GIVE TODAY YOUR FULL ATTENTION

The best way to be happy is to go ahead and be happy today. Don’t put it off. Don’t wait for all the conditions to be perfect. Don’t let the rain put you off … Bring your mind and your body into the moment and fully experience your day. Switch off the autopilot and really notice the detail. Build on all the good things and, if there are things that you would like to change in your life, start small and start today.

There is no time like the present to be happy.