Happy = good?
May. 18th, 2013 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusI've been very happy lately. Inexplicably. Well, almost inexplicably. I have cats.
When Yangthang Rinpoche was here, a friend from my retreat in 2011 flew in from California. We'd had a couple of long talks during the retreat.
The retreat itself was great. Intense, a lot of work, a lot of personal change--difficult, but in a BOO-YAH! kind of way.
So my friend asked me if I was feeling any better.
Hunh?
Apparently I didn't seem "happy" at the time. Well... no, of course it was hard. But I look back on this retreat as Great and didn't understand the question until I was driving home today. He thought that I was doing better when I was happier.
Where did we get the idea that happy = good?
I've been happy lots of times, mostly while watching sci-fi with a cat in my lap. Not accomplishing jack. There's nothing wrong with being happy. I enjoy it. But the times I'm happiest *about* are the so-called tough times when I've gone through a lot of personal change.
On the way home from work it hit me: that's what Shantideva meant. He didn't just mean that one *should* be happy to have enemies. He was genuinely pleased at his personal change. BOO-YAH!
When Yangthang Rinpoche was here, a friend from my retreat in 2011 flew in from California. We'd had a couple of long talks during the retreat.
The retreat itself was great. Intense, a lot of work, a lot of personal change--difficult, but in a BOO-YAH! kind of way.
So my friend asked me if I was feeling any better.
Hunh?
Apparently I didn't seem "happy" at the time. Well... no, of course it was hard. But I look back on this retreat as Great and didn't understand the question until I was driving home today. He thought that I was doing better when I was happier.
Where did we get the idea that happy = good?
I've been happy lots of times, mostly while watching sci-fi with a cat in my lap. Not accomplishing jack. There's nothing wrong with being happy. I enjoy it. But the times I'm happiest *about* are the so-called tough times when I've gone through a lot of personal change.
On the way home from work it hit me: that's what Shantideva meant. He didn't just mean that one *should* be happy to have enemies. He was genuinely pleased at his personal change. BOO-YAH!
