Happiness Through Meditation

I’ve just seen a  video by the Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard where he describes how happiness can be achieved, through meditation. We have to change the inner conditions of the mind he says, rather than attempt to be happy by looking to fix things outside, as our control over external events is “ at best limited, temporary and often illusory”.  

He argues that happiness is not pleasure, that it is a much deeper, more authentic reflection of our true nature, which paradoxically, can be present even when we’re sad.

How can happiness be cultivated? Ricard says we can take advantage of the inability of two opposite emotions to exist at the same time. For example it is impossible to feel both benevolence and hatred towards someone simultaneously. And meditating can help generate these positive emotions . We can become familiar enough with our own minds to use what he calls “antidotes” to negative mental states in our daily lives. Another method is to directly observe the emotion itself as it arises in the mind. As he eloquently puts it “it will vanish like frost under the morning sun” . I’ve written about this particular technique in How to Meditate mindfully.

Finally he discusses some of the scientific evidence relating to happiness and mediation, from studies on Buddhist monks, with thousands of hours meditating experience. Their brain activity was monitored during a 3 hr period when they were asked to generate a feeling of compassion (part of their usual practice), and showed levels of activity in the left prefrontal cortex (the area of the brain associated with happiness), far greater than seen in the an average population.

You can see the video here.

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