Zen and the Art of Walking Lightly -- Ch 7

7

Ask Yourself Whether You Are Happy? Then Notice That When You Do, You Cease To Be So ¾ The Laws Of Paradox At Work!

A long time ago, long before I ever considered writing these lines, I made an interesting discovery.  At the time of making it, it was more of an observation than a discovery. It took all the intervening time for me to realize I had made a discovery, I suppose it was the slowest epiphany on record. 

What I also discovered was that most people have been aware of this phenomenon since the dawn of time. 

Yet, I think the word discovery is appropriate, because even though it was well known, I had never come across it described or theoretically explained in any of the psychology, sociological, philosophical or psychiatric literature I had studied over the years: which in my case primarily happens to be psychology. 

So, directly or indirectly, or intentionally or unintentionally, I spent the intervening 20 or so years, nearly a quarter century, investigating this elusive phenomenon, through the facility of my practice of psychotherapy.

Here is the observation I had noticed a long time ago; happiness is not something that happens randomly.  This thing has form and it follows rules and they seem to be:

· Happiness does not happen because of good luck or because the fickle finger of fate picks you out for some grand event.  No one is special and conversely no one is non-special. 

· Happiness is not something that can be purchased nor can it be controlled or for that matter caused to occur on command by some grand authority.  Although many have tried.

· Happiness does not depend on the world about us, although conversely the world about us can affect some of the various outcomes of its occurrences.

· Happiness seems to be more an interpretation of the world both about us and within us, with all of this being taken in some sort of strange mix or recipe that is constantly changing and is difficult to replicate.  The formula might not work the second time the way it did the first time.

· Happiness, in fact, seems to be a condition that we must be prepared for, that we must cultivate and nurture, and then be prepared, if necessary to de­fend, but not from a place of unity but rather from a place of deep privacy¾as an individual. 

· The variations on the happiness formulas seem to be more effective with those people who have learned to work with inner experience(s). It seems that they will, to a certain degree, be able to determine the quality of their lives as it relates to having or not having happiness.

· The ability to determine the having or not having of the presence of happiness seems to be as close as any of us can come to causing happy to happen.  It can be a conscious decision to be or not to be, pardon the pun, but not always.

· It also seems a given that we cannot reach happiness by consciously searching for it.  The very effort of trying to search for it seems to defeat our every effort to have or possess it.  Happiness cannot be owned; it can only be experienced.

· Happiness seems to be the process of being fully involved with every detail of your life, subjectively not objectively. 

· The key statement in describing the process of being involved in life seems to be as completely as possible, and completely as possible does not seem to depend on any opinion or definition of what is good or bad or how those cognitive markers of good or bad are held in the mind of the beholder.  Just because you are prepared to fight to the death for your beliefs doesn’t mean they are true.

· Happiness seems to occur because of the intensity of the involvement with life and not in the outcomes that intensity seems to want to provide so that it could be easily seen and judged by others. 

· Degree of intensity of the involvement necessary to induce happiness will vary from individual to individual as well as from situation-to-situation.  Thus it follows that degrees of intensity i.e. very intense to mildly intense are not markers that can determine the outcome of creating happiness.  It is just a necessary factor that varies from time to time. 

· The Laws Of Paradox seems to affect the outcome of having some or not; for instance: don't aim for it because the Laws Of Paradox will tend to cause you to increase the size and shape of the target you have set for yourself and then at the same time cause you to miss with greater frequency.  Something like Chinese handcuffs, the harder you try the more difficult it becomes. 

· Happiness and success cannot be pursued for their own sake.

· Happiness and success, to be most effective must sneak up from behind and envelop us ... It is something that happens to us while we are busy doing something else … as the inadvertent, unintentional after-effect of our efforts to simply get on with the business of being ourselves and by doing whatever is next simply because it is there and needs to be done.  Then this seems to need to be taken into consideration with the effort made by the individual to be willing to work in the shadow of his or her spiritual self and then deliberately attempting to work with the spiritual forces of the Greater Way of Things.

· Again paradox.  The Art of Trying Not to Try.

· So how can we reach this elusive goal that cannot be attained by a direct route?  My practice and practices of the past 20 or so years has convinced me that there is a way. 

· It is a circuitous path of going nowhere the long way in search of someone who was not lost and there all along … You. And it can only begin with a willingness by the participant to want to make the journey.

 

1)               Describe how comfortable or confined you are in your present ­shell.

            2)              When did you "crab" last (if you remember ever doing so)?

            3)              What circumstances helped you to do this?

            4)              How close are you to the next casting of your shell, or "crabbing"? 

            5)              What do you need, or need to do or have happen, in order to do this?

Some Observations On “The Same And Different”, Now That We Know We Are In A Shell Game

In our lives we remain the same in some ways and we change in others. 

1)               As you look back over your life, as a child, as a youth, and now as an adult, how have you been the same all your life?

2)              How were you different during those periods of your life, as a child, a youth, an adult, and now? 

3)      What were the circumstances that helped bring these differences into being?

Remember:

You Don’t Make Things Different

By Keeping Them The Same