📒 The Buddha's Way of Happiness

The Buddha's Way of Happiness is the sixth book about Buddhism that I’ve read, and one of the best. Maybe it just felt that way because my brain has finally accumulated enough connections. Or maybe the author really does know how to convey Eastern concepts to Western readers. I won’t analyze the book in depth, let’s just look at what stayed with me after reading it.

1. I liked the concept of universal interconnectedness and constant change. The atoms of your body come from many different places, forming a complex dissipative system that will last a few decades and then fall apart back into atoms. In your body there are parts of the sun, the Baltic Sea, some pine tree, and maybe even a couple of atoms from Isaac Newton. Later, your atoms will end up who knows where. This perspective on life makes it easier to understand death.
2. The concept of no-self is very difficult, and I can barely grasp its essence. The book spends quite a bit of time on it, but it’s still hard to gain a clear understanding. The general idea is that you can’t find a “self” in the body — it just doesn’t exist. You can change your body, perception, brain structure, and everything else, yet remain the same complex system. The hardest question for me was about consciousness, but my wife gave a great example. Suppose you have late-stage Alzheimer’s. Is that still “you,” or not anymore? Your consciousness has changed so drastically that it may differ from your past consciousness even more than it differs from someone else’s. Is that still “you”? In such a thought experiment, it’s actually very difficult to locate a “self” in the body. It’s not there. You are a dynamic system, whose characteristics change over time — sometimes slowly, sometimes very quickly. This kind of dissociation is hard to reconcile with our past experience, because we barely notice changes. We see ourselves every day and only notice big things, like serious illness. People in general don’t perceive time well. I can say that I developed some intuitive sense of no-self, but attempts to accept this principle provoke fierce resistance in the mind.
3. The path to happiness is very short. It runs through immersion in the present moment. In our society, this is lost, and that’s why mental disorders are on the rise. We are always living in the past or the future, or somewhere off to the side, and we rarely dive fully into the present. But happiness in the past or future is impossible — it’s only possible now.
4. There are many practices to learn how to be in the now. Lots of different meditations. In general, meditation is the foundation of mindfulness. You need this foundation in order to return to mindfulness as often as possible throughout the day. I really liked the practice of using pauses. For example, when you stop at a red light, don’t let your thoughts run away somewhere far — instead, pay attention to what’s happening around you: people crossing the street, clouds, the architecture of the buildings, the rain, or the shop signs. It’s like a mini-meditation in the moment. You can do the same while going up the stairs, waiting for the subway, taking the first sips of coffee, or stepping into the shower. There’s also a cool walking meditation: you just walk, count your steps with your inhales and exhales, and stop to admire something interesting (hint: everything around you is interesting).

Apparently, dissociation, interconnectedness of reality, and mindfulness truly are the only path to happiness.

Happiness is the direct path. We don’t need to establish anything else to be happy. We can be happy simply and directly by just learning to be present to the wonders around us.