If you counted them, you’d find you experience about 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts each day. That we experience thoughts is universally accepted and understood. Where they come from and where they go is subject to interpretation, however, by all of us. The question I am posing is this: How does thought fit into happiness?
The Dali Lama answered the question this way: “I like to consider happiness as peace. Peace is the state of no differences. When I do not separate myself with thought, I become ‘peace’, again. I become ‘happiness’, again.”
Mindful observation of our thoughts offers the choice to observe thought. Each of us observes what our senses pick up as ‘happening’. Sight, sound, touch, and taste, all, observe the world outside and link that world with the inside information we have stored through our personal experiences. From this observing and linking comes thought, judgment, and decision.
But what about happiness? Or back to the Dali Lama, where is the peace?
We each direct our use of attention in a basic, unbroken stream, which exists as awareness, before focusing on objects to categorize as good or bad. It is with the same awareness that we laugh at jokes, brush our teeth, listen to our loved ones, or decide it’s time to take out the trash.
Pure awareness without judgment is the quiet observer within all experience. Activity, in the form of thought, is that same observing awareness moving into action as judgment. Pre-judgement, no-choice (yet) is peace. The activity of choice is simply judging the world. We are made to do this, live and die, according to our awareness-turned-to-choice.
Most humans participate in this judgment all day long from the moment they wake until the instant they drop off into sleep, without knowing it, without an inkling. They will say many times during the day “I think…” or “I feel…” without the peaceful understanding of their power to stop deciding for a moment, and just simply observe.
Ceaseless thinking, which is part of life and arises from peace, can by its focus result in un-happiness. That’s right, the experience of not-happy or non-peace arises from judgments, which are mostly unnoticed except for one byproduct, which is emotion.
As we observe and engage in judgment, our library of memories instantly links up our emotional histories with what we observe. Our emotional responses, both pleasant and unpleasant, are part of the wisdom that makes up all of nature. By design, we experience encouraging or discouraging feelings in every cell of our bodies. Pretty thorough, huh?
So here are two pieces to the happiness puzzle: thinking and feeling. But what is the third piece? It is very naturally some action, based on thinking and feeling.
Deliberate behavior, movements arising from the contemplation of thought, is very different from spontaneous, emotionally driven action. When we choose to simply be aware of our thinking, we may well find the origin of our painful emotion. Choosing to stand on the shore of our awareness and see the waves of thought arrive, we are engaged in whether to step back or forward, or simply keep watching.
Fear and anger are common but important emotions that we all experience. Their original purpose is to expand and improve life. Their misuse is often a byproduct of inaccurate thinking. For example, in a discussion with a lifetime friend or family member, I may find myself feeling afraid or angry, thinking, “I hate you.” Observing the feelings and the words without letting the words fly is how awareness can offer us the third piece of the puzzle: peaceful behavior.
A version of this post was previously published at The Father Connection and is republished here with permission from the author.
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