Happy New You

Checking In
I just read an interesting statistic that '75% of people give up on their new years resolutions within the first week!'. So as we complete the first week of 2014 - how are you doing? I know I've experienced this in the past and so this year I decided to keep it real simple and give myself one goal to work on. When I'm then consistently achieving this goal (in essence creating my new habit), I will then work on my second goal and so forth.

Your Driving Forces
Think about this: what is it that we are all trying to accomplish on a daily basis? Now I'm sure we can all come up with a finger-print specific list of daily tasks that are unique to each of us, however, underlying each and every one of them we are trying to fulfill two primary goals: firstly to be happy all the time and secondly to avoid suffering all the time. The deeper question to ask yourself though is if it truly were the case that food, exercise, sex and other worldly pursuits provide happiness why is it that the more you engage in these activities the less happiness they produce and the more suffering is experienced. For example, eating chocolate. The more we eat in one sitting the quicker our initial satiation and fulfillment of happiness becomes tainted by the nausea and digestive overwhelm experienced with our overindulgence. Clearly, this is not a true cause of happiness otherwise the more we engage in such an activity the more happiness would be experienced. In essence, all we ever experience is a temporary alleviation of our desires before they return minutes or hours later requiring more.

Discovering a True Source of Happiness
I remember meeting a gentleman once who had traveled to Tibet and his one and only comment about the Tibetan people was that 'they smiled with their whole bodies'. Can you imagine radiating such light and love to every single person that you meet, regardless of whether they appear as a friend, enemy or stranger? How transforming that would be! Buddhism details how to attain a true source of happiness through accomplishing inner peace - a mind that is clear, light and naturally happy regardless of what is happening on the outside. Why is it a true source of happiness? The more inner peace we experience the greater the sense of happiness. At no point does our inner peace turn into suffering until we lose the the object of concentration (inner peace) then our mind becomes distracted, unpeaceful and subsequently unhappy once again. We have all experienced wonderful external conditions such as being on vacation or relaxing in a hot tub but as soon as our mind becomes disturbed, for example discovering that our flight is delayed for 24-hours or our hot tub is now a cold tub, then quickly our mind experiences agitation and frustration completely destroying any sense of happiness.

Wisdom of the Ages
These basic teachings, drawn from ancient Buddhist philosophy, require time to contemplate and understand. Our understanding and wisdom grows even more powerful when we then apply these teachings into our daily life. Sitting still, breathing and training your mind to become clear allows you to understand profound topics such as understanding the mind and distinguishing between true sources of happiness (virtuous minds) and sources of suffering (non-virtuous minds).

For more information on Buddhism and learning how to meditate visit: www.kadampa.org or locally www.meditationalberta.org

Happy Meditating and I sincerely wish you a 2014 filled with inner peace and wisdom,

Jason.