Being Happy
David Tuffley
Pleasure is spread through the earth
In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.
~William Wordsworth
Published by David Tuffley at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 David Tuffley
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.
Acknowledgement to Nicola Tuffley for suggesting this eBook.
Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly
On-going choice between safety and risk
Make peak experiencing more likely
Introduction
True happiness, lasting happiness can be achieved through a process known as Self-Actualisation, or Self-Realisation. This is a natural state and within the reach of all human beings. It comes from having satisfied all of one’s human needs.
This is the kind of happiness that cannot be obtained through the acquisition of things. The fleeting gratification in receiving goods or services is not true happiness. That is an illusion created by our global consumer society. I am not suggesting that you should avoid having nice things, just that they are not a source of true happiness.
Truly happy people are Self-Actualised (SA) people, so called because they are a much fuller expression of their unique human potential than non SA people. The state has been given many labels, enlightened or awakened being two of them. In Zen, it is described Satori.
While you cannot order happiness on demand, you can create the right conditions in yourself for Self-Actualisation to occur. This eBook describes what these conditions are, and how you might go about creating them. The rest is up to you.
Maslow
The humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow is well-known for his ideas on a hierarchy of human needs. Basic needs must be satisfied before higher order needs are felt. The hierarchy is represented as a pyramid, with the basic needs at the pyramids broad base, and with self-actualisation at the apex. A Self-Actualised person has found a way to satisfy all of his or her lower needs and has cultivated the conscious awareness of their highest self. They allow this awareness to express itself more fully in their lives.
The achievement of Self-Actualisation is recognised by Maslow as a human need, so in a sense it is everyone’s birthright to be happy.
The need for Self-Actualisation asserts itself once we have satisfied the lowest-order needs for food, shelter, sex, then middle-order needs for safety and security, then the higher middle-order needs for love and belonging. Above these is the higher-order need for self-esteem. The highest need of all, sitting like the capstone of a pyramid is the need for Self-Actualisation.
The annals of various religions tell us that a person can achieve enlightenment with only some or none of the higher and middle order needs being met, and with only the barest of lower-order needs like food and shelter being satisfied. This is more difficult, requiring you to become an ascetic recluse and engage in mortification of the flesh in order to free yourself of these normal human needs. This eBook is not recommending this course of action. Our body is not an impediment to happiness. Quite the opposite, it is a great ally. We owe it to ourselves to take the best care of our body that we can by eating well, getting enough exercise and rest, and avoiding toxic and/or addictive substances.
Self-Actualised (SA) people, whoever they are and whatever the circumstances of their lives, tend to approach life in the ways described below:
Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly
Self-Actualised (SA) people throw themselves into the experiencing of something; concentrating on it fully, allowing it to totally absorb them.
The only way this can be done is to be (a) mindful, that is fully awake in the present moment and (b) fully accepting of the circumstances of that moment.
This is easier said than done because most of the time we impose judgment on situations and in the process of doing so, we alienate ourselves from it. Soon we are thinking we would like to be somewhere else.
In terms of achieving your full potential as a human being, mindfulness is about using an evolved part of your brain that many people do not use. It lies dormant, waiting for the command to awaken.
You can awaken this part of your brain simply by deciding (and following through on the decision) to observe the on-going activity in your own mind. Using a computer metaphor, you activate a monitoring program that watches what is going on.
Eckhart Tolle calls this a new dimension of thought. There is the part of you who thinks your normal thoughts, then there is the part that observes you thinking those thoughts. Previously there was only the thinker. Now there is the thinker and the observer.
Awakening the observer is an important aspect of becoming Self-Actualised.
Mindfulness also helps you to stop thinking so much about the past and the future by removing the dimension of time from your thinking.
In the Now you observe the world of phenomena in a judgment-free way. You accept it without mental resistance, understanding that this resistance is what prevents you from experiencing every moment as the best moment.
On-going choice between safety and risk
Life is a moment-by-moment choice between safety (out of fear and need for defence) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): SA people consciously make the growth choice many times a day.
If you observe your own mind in action (as in previous section) you will notice that this continuum (with safety at one end and risk at the other) is often active in your thinking.
There is a dynamic tension between these two opposites, and you will habitually lean towards one or the other. If you are like many people, you are probably inclined towards the safe, low-risk option because you want predictability with no unpleasant surprises.
A Self-Actualising person may still value comfort and security, but they know that personal growth is slow while they are in their comfort-zone. They therefore take themselves out of their comfort zone as often as they can in order to create the right conditions for Self-Actualisation.
A life well-lived will always involve both pleasure and pain.
Let your true self emerge
SA people try to go beyond socially-defined modes of thinking and feeling. They let their inner experience tell them what they truly feel.
When in doubt, be honest. It may take some courage, but SA people look honestly at themselves and take responsibility for who they are and what happens to them. Self-delusion is the enemy of self-actualisation.
If you are monitoring your thinking and behavior, you might notice that much of what you think and do conforms to what people expect.
To the greatest extent possible, you should listen to what your own intuition is telling you about people and situations and behave according to this. As you become Self-Actualised, the voice of your intuition becomes stronger because you are listening to it more.
I understand that we all need to conform, myself included, to certain behavioral standards to get along in the world. The challenge is finding a way of harmonising or reconciling what your intuition is telling you and how the world expects you to behave.
The idea is summed up in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where Polonius gives this advice to his son; This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Listen to your own tastes
SA people are prepared to be unpopular if necessary.
The SA person does not look for trouble, but when there is a conflict between what they inwardly know is the right thing, and what everyone else seems to think is the right thing, a SA person has the courage to disagree with the group and risk their disapproval.
When we receive disapproval, it is profoundly uncomfortable. Most of us will do anything to avoid it. That means compliantly going along in order to get along. Disapproval is an instrument of control that society uses to create conformist behavior. Blind conformity is anathema to the SA person.
Likewise, approval is an instrument of control that society uses to create conformist behavior. The so-called “carrot and the stick” approach to motivating people are two sides of the same coin.
The SA person recognises when the people around them use approval and/or disapproval to try to influence their behavior. Their challenge is finding a way to maintain their integrity without creating unnecessary conflict.
Use your intelligence
SA people work to do well the things they want to do, no matter how insignificant those things seem.
SA people know that happiness comes from focussing on the task in front of them now, and doing that task really well.
There is tremendous satisfaction in doing everything as well as you can, even the small, seemingly unimportant things. Doing this keeps your mind firmly in the present moment, the only time and place where you can truly be alive.
The task is not so important as the creation in yourself of an attitude of excellence, which is another way of saying living to your full potential.
You no longer think that near enough is good enough, that economy of effort and taking it easy is the best way to live. These are self-limiting attitudes that will keep you in the realm of mediocrity.
When you live this way, every moment becomes the best moment of your life.
Make peak experiencing more likely
Get rid of illusions and false notions. SA people learn what they are good at and conversely what they are not good at.
Being honest with yourself, like mindfulness, is a foundation for Self-Actualisation. SA people are honest, even brutally honest with themselves at every level of their lives. What they aim for is congruency between their inner and outer worlds.
Honesty will eventually create harmony inside and outside of yourself. Nature cannot lie to itself, but humans can lie to themselves and create a false inner world. By ridding yourself of delusion, you come into greater harmony and alignment with the outside world.
So, honesty creates the right conditions to have deep insight into the nature of the world you live in. This insight leads you to Self-Actualisation.
Know thyself
SA people ask themselves; Who am I? What am I? What is good and what is bad for me? Where am I going? What is my mission/purpose in life?
Honestly asking yourself these questions and listening to the answers reveals something important in your quest to be happy; the defences and excuses that are keeping you from achieving your full potential.
Once you know what is holding you back, the next challenge is to find the courage to give them up.
Summary of characteristics
So what were those characteristics of SA people again?
Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly; On-going choice between safety and risk; Let your true self emerge; Listen to your own tastes; Use your intelligence; Make peak experiencing more likely; Know thyself
SA people are like this
You will know when you are making progress towards Self-Actualisation when you can look honestly at yourself and recognise the following character traits:
Realistically oriented with an efficient perception of reality extending into all areas of life. SA people are unthreatened and not frightened by the unknown. SA people usually have a superior ability to reason, to see the truth.
Accept oneself, others and the natural world the way they are. SA people see human nature as is. They have rid themselves of crippling guilt or shame; they enjoy themselves without regret or apology, and have no unnecessary inhibitions.
Spontaneous in their inner life, thoughts and impulses. SA people are unhampered by convention. Their ethics are autonomous, they see themselves as an individual, and are motivated towards continual improvement.
Focus on problems outside oneself. SA people have a mission in life requiring much energy, and their mission is their reason to be alive. SA people are usually serene and worry-free as they pursue their mission with unshakeable determination.
Detachment, the need for privacy. Alone but not lonely, unflappable, retaining dignity amid confusion and personal misfortunes, objective. SA people are self starters, responsible for themselves. They own their behaviour.
Autonomous, independent of culture and environment. SA people rely on inner self for satisfaction. Resilient and stable in the face of hard knocks, SA people are self contained, independent from the love and respect of others in the sense that they can resist attempts to use these to manipulate them.
Freshness of appreciation. SA people have a fresh rather than stereotyped appreciation of people and things. Moment to moment living is thrilling, transcendent and spiritual. SA people live the present moment to the fullest.
Peak experiences. In Maslow’s words ‘Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences. When peak experiences are especially powerful, the sense of self dissolves into an awareness of a greater unity.’ (from Religion, Values and Peak Experiences, 1970).
An example
Here is an example of a Peak Experience from my own life.
I resolved some time ago to adopt an attitude of appreciating the many small things around me as I went about my everyday life. To most people, these small things seem so ordinary, so insignificant and common-place that they are easy to overlook, even scorn. Why then are these things worthy of our attention? In their way, they are perfect, and they have much to tell us if we stop and notice with a child’s open mind. Everyday objects have something of great value to give if you would take a moment to receive it.
With this mind-set, one day I noticed the humble moss plants growing in the cracks between the paving stones as I walked along the service road from the car-park to my office at Griffith University’s Nathan campus. Moss is a common sight in shady places where the dew lingers, even in dry eucalypt forests like this.
Moss is easy to overlook because we are often pre-occupied and it is so small and common. It is just one of thousands of objects passing through our visual field any day of our life. Choose one instance of this humble plant and look more closely. With a macro lens on my camera it was revealed as a beautiful forest, as lovely as any full-sized forest I had ever flown-over. (You can see it here: http://www.ict.griffith.edu.au/~davidt/Griffith%20Moss.jpg )
There is something quite beautiful about moss when seen up close, this perfectly adapted survivor on our planet for the past 500 million years. Getting down on my hands and knees to see more clearly made me feel humble. It was mind-expanding to think that this humble little plant had existed in its current form for so long. I tried to stretch my imagination across such a vast span of time.
Having stretched my imagination so far into the past, I now tried sending it into the future by the same amount. Now I had a billion year span balanced on the fulcrum of the Now. This modest little plant turned out to have a big story to tell to anyone willing to listen.
The story it told me in that moment was that my appreciation of this little plant was the dream of the Earth realised. Life wants to become conscious of itself. After four billion years of evolution, life on this planet had become aware of itself. This is a major milestone which I felt greatly privileged to be a part of. I knew though that the moss would have told the same story to anyone else willing to listen.
Unlike the moss, we humans will not survive a billion years in our current form. And when our species has morphed into something else or become extinct, the moss will still be modestly growing in shady places.
This train of thought, I realised, was a continuation of one which began 35 years earlier. In 1975 I visited an ancient forest in New Zealand. It was near the Southland town of Te Anau. The glaciated terrain is like that of the Cadillac National Park in Maine, or the fjord lands of Norway.
The forest here is as it has been since the last Ice Age, perhaps 8,000 years, though this kind of forest had probably grown here on and off for many millions of years during the inter-glacial periods.
The trees were magnificent; tall, straight, and majestic in their ancientness. There was a quality to the light filtering through the forest canopy that gave this place a transcendent beauty. It was like being on the set for the movie Lord of the Rings.
The moss in this temperate forest covered every bit of available ground with a layer perhaps a meter thick in places. It was soft underfoot, like walking on a mattress. It exhaled a sweet earthy breath when walked on. I felt an immense reverence for that moss. I wanted to sink into it, be embraced by it, become one with it.
In that peak-experience moment, as I lay on the moss, something in me resonated with the spirit of the forest. It was a moment of enlightenment, of Self-Actualisation. (visit the forest: http://www.ict.griffith.edu.au/~davidt/Te%20Anau%20Moss.jpg )
Peak experiences like this have a way of staying with you forever, a constant source of happiness. You can have that happiness too. You can start right now.
The End
About the author
David Tuffley PhD combines a career as a university lecturer and researcher with his very personal search for spiritual meaning over the past 40 years. This work is the fruit of that journey.
David's academic interests range across Comparative Religion, Philosophy, Psychology, Anthropology, Literature, History, Software Engineering and Architecture. He blends his broad academic knowledge with the ancient practice of Buddhism and Taoism to create a truly unique work of timeless value.
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See these other titles by the same author:
Buddhism: The Essence: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/26233
The Bodhicaryavatara: A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/45368
The 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/49330
Communing with Nature: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/26225
The Tao Te Ching: Lao Tzu’s Timeless Classic for Today:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/25703
Zen Koans: Ancient Wisdom for Today:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/25961
Satori Now: Awakening your Highest Self: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/25629
Cultivating Intuition: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/26230
Leadership & the Tao: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/28342
What happens when I die? https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/26221
Email Etiquette: Guide to email in the Information Age: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/49923