i've been researching as many different cultural theories for happiness as i can get my hands on.
This week i discovered some philosophy's on happiness from the Buddhist faith. The Dalai Lama in fact wrote a book call "The art of Happiness".
Buddhist have identified that unhappiness is caused by unsatisfied desires or wants. so to become happy one has to either satisfy your wants or to not desire anything.
I found this very interesting because we live in such a consumerist society. there are always things to want in our culture...BMW's, designer clothes, celebrity endorsed sunglasses, Ipod's, world class appliances, waterfront homes..and the list goes on.
but is it possible for anyone to attain all these material possessions. Is it healthy to desire so many material thing?
I thought about how one would apply this theory. So often i would desire a material item believing it would make me happy and make my wardrobe complete and once i obtained the item i was happy but it was never long before the same feeling would return that my wardrobe would be perfect if i purchased another item. This is a cycle and the Buddhist theory does provide a solution...stop wanting.
difficult i know but perhaps wanting less would make us happier.
AURORA
This week i discovered some philosophy's on happiness from the Buddhist faith. The Dalai Lama in fact wrote a book call "The art of Happiness".
Buddhist have identified that unhappiness is caused by unsatisfied desires or wants. so to become happy one has to either satisfy your wants or to not desire anything.
I found this very interesting because we live in such a consumerist society. there are always things to want in our culture...BMW's, designer clothes, celebrity endorsed sunglasses, Ipod's, world class appliances, waterfront homes..and the list goes on.
but is it possible for anyone to attain all these material possessions. Is it healthy to desire so many material thing?
I thought about how one would apply this theory. So often i would desire a material item believing it would make me happy and make my wardrobe complete and once i obtained the item i was happy but it was never long before the same feeling would return that my wardrobe would be perfect if i purchased another item. This is a cycle and the Buddhist theory does provide a solution...stop wanting.
difficult i know but perhaps wanting less would make us happier.
AURORA
1 comment:
Actually,the happiness in Buddhist is not the happiness in western culture,it's different,you know. The happiness in asian culture come from the peace of heart,people feel they are part of the nature and therefore they don't have any desire but enjoying the being part of the nature,like a tree. By the way,i'm Ivan~~haha
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