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*The Mind Creates Happiness*

—— Delivered in December 2014 at the "Happiness and Strength" Taihu International Forum

Master Jiqun

I am delighted to see so many of you at a lecture on happiness—clearly, this topic has real appeal. Some years ago, CCTV interviewed thousands of people across different regions, ages, and professions, and for a time "Are you happy?" became a catchphrase. The survey, and the many surprising replies it drew, reflected from various angles how bewildered people are about happiness. Nobel laureate Mo Yan, for example, answered, "I don't know." Was that a writer's evasion, or was he being facetious? Here is how he explained it: "I'm under a lot of pressure right now, full of worries—how could I be happy? But if I said I wasn't happy, that would sound too affected. I've just won the Nobel Prize—how could I say I'm not happy?"

You could say his answer captures what many of us feel when the word "happiness" comes up: our living conditions have improved so much that we have no reason to call ourselves unhappy—so why can't we feel happy? Where exactly have things gone wrong? In the hard years of the past, we pinned our hopes on material improvement, believing that money would bring happiness. For many, simply having enough to eat and wear was the greatest happiness imaginable. But as more and more people have grown prosperous, as what we own has long since passed the point of mere subsistence, happiness has started playing hide-and-seek with us.

Where is happiness? Money brings temporary satisfaction, but that pleasure is so fleeting, and in its wake come comparison and competition. When we see others with more money and a better life, contentment turns into discontent, and even gives rise to jealousy and resentment. The happiness we long for, meanwhile, drifts like clouds on the horizon—visible, but forever out of reach. Clearly, happiness is far from as simple as we once thought, and it is by no means the automatic result of owning wealth and improving our lives.

Why is it that we have so much, yet still cannot find happiness? That raises further questions: What is happiness, really? Is it an illusion that exists only under particular conditions, or does it represent something essential to life itself? What stands between us and happiness? Or to put it another way, what is happiness's greatest killer? If happiness is only a passing illusion, isn't pursuing it like trying to scoop the moon out of the water—a fantasy doomed from the start?

Until we resolve these questions, our pursuit of happiness will inevitably be vague and wishful. Where does the answer lie? In fact, it depends on how deeply we understand happiness, and that depth in turn depends on how we understand life and the meaning of human existence. Life has two dimensions: the material and the mental. So what is the essence of life? Pessimistic philosophy holds that life is inherently absurd and full of suffering. If that were true, what meaning would our pursuit of happiness have? And how does the Buddha's teaching view the essence of life?

The title of today's talk is "The Mind Creates Happiness," and I would like to offer some thoughts from the following angles.

*I. How to Face Adversity*

*1. Non-acceptance: the amplifier of suffering*

Life rarely goes as we wish—eight or nine times out of ten, things fall short of our hopes. In my daily life, devotees often come to pour out their misfortunes. Health problems, such as illness or even terminal disease; matters of life and death, such as the sudden passing of family and friends; family troubles, such as children's education or the relationship between husband and wife. Beyond these, there are the many difficulties brought by relationships, career setbacks, and natural or man-made disasters. To be fair, everyone encounters such problems to some degree; only the form and severity differ. Many people are living along in an orderly way when adversity strikes—and they fall apart, unable to recover. Their lives sink into affliction, and sometimes the whole family plunges into an abyss of suffering.

If we analyze it objectively, a change in one person or one event need not destroy our life. So what is it that makes people suffer so deeply, that drives them to such despair? The real cause usually lies not in the adversity itself but in the person's refusal to accept it. We simply cannot get our heads around it: how could something like this happen to me! And so we blame heaven and earth, complain that society is unjust, and accuse fate of being blind. It is precisely this non-acceptance that magnifies the original pain over and over. You could say that however much we resist, that is how much suffering we create for ourselves.

Why can't we accept change? The key lies in a deep-seated assumption of permanence in our minds. This assumption centers on our own needs: my body should stay healthy forever, my family should never leave me, my friends should be utterly loyal, my career should go smoothly in every way. We may even secretly feel: I am such a good person—calamities may happen to others, but they should not happen to me.

Once we hold this assumption of permanence, we cling to it, and clinging turns into dependence: we don't want anything to change. Change means losing what we depend on; it means the balance we now enjoy will be upset. So as soon as life disappoints us, our resistance sets off anxiety, unease, and fear—even destructive emotions like resentment and anger.

We hope for good health, a happy marriage, a harmonious family, a smooth career—we hope everything stays stable, and we feel that is what happiness is. But the world is not as stable as we imagine; in fact, it is changing impermanently at every moment. If we cannot face adversity correctly, life will be littered with time bombs that could go off at any moment.

*2. Acceptance: the wisdom of transformation*

Why do different people respond in utterly different ways to the same situation? The key lies in whether or not they accept it. If we have the capacity to accept reality, then even in the face of adversity we can remain composed and respond constructively, without letting any pain or affliction take hold in our minds. How do we develop this capacity? First, we must honestly face impermanence in our hearts. That, in fact, is the very truth of the world—like the turning of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, like flowers blooming and falling.

So-called eternity is only our fantasy and expectation; it does not correspond to the truth of the world. Among the Three Dharma Seals, "all conditioned phenomena are impermanent" comes first. This is a core teaching of the Buddha Dharma and the law governing the universe and human life. It tells us: from our own body and mind to the world outside, everything is changing from instant to instant. This change never stops—not even for the briefest moment. An apple, for instance, does not rot at some particular moment; it is already on the way to spoiling while it still looks perfectly sound. Human life is the same. From the day we are born, there is not a moment when we are not arising and passing away, not a moment when we are not moving toward death.

Change is normal; only non-change is relative. What the ancient Chinese Book of Changes reveals is likewise the principle of change. If we truly understand impermanence, we can calmly accept every change in life, because that is simply how things are. Then no adversity can harm us.

On acceptance, the Buddha taught us in the Samyuktagama through the simile of "two poisoned arrows." The first arrow is the physical pain of being struck, which also stands for the various adversities we encounter; the second arrow is the mental pain that follows from it. When the first arrow has hit us and the pain has already occurred, we must cut our losses in time and refuse to be hit by the second arrow. In fact, that second wound is more severe and longer-lasting than the first.

Suppose someone scolds or beats you—the injury lasts only a moment. But if you nurse a grudge over it or keep brooding, you will sink into negative emotions for days, months, even decades. That is what is truly frightening. If, instead, you can accept it, the harm stops right there and goes no further. But we should also understand that acceptance is not approval, and certainly not indulgence. Afterwards, depending on the other person's situation, we can still offer guidance in an appropriate way—and the purpose is to help them, not to win an argument or prove who is right.

Besides impermanence, the Buddhist teaching of causes and conditions can also help us accept adversity. For noble ones who have attained fruition, even extreme physical suffering—even the loss of life itself—will not provoke grief or resentment, will not let bodily pain trigger mental pain. They know that such suffering arises from the coming together of many conditions. Once the result has occurred, they accept it calmly; to do otherwise would only keep planting new causes of suffering.

The Buddha Dharma holds that nothing happens by accident; everything has its causes and effects. If your health is poor now, it may be because of an unhealthy diet or an irregular routine, or because of too little exercise and too little care—or perhaps from having done too much killing. All such things are factors that affect health. The same goes for relationships. Very often we blame the people around us and think the fault is all theirs. In fact, it usually has to do with our own assumptions and our own way of dealing with others. If we never consider things from the other person's standpoint, conflict is unavoidable.

Studying the Buddha's teaching helps us look for the cause whenever something happens, and then start by adjusting ourselves. We work on the causes to change the results, rather than blaming the environment or the other person at every turn. In addition, Buddhism places great emphasis on the practice of repentance: examining ourselves, correcting our faults and making a fresh start—and through that, influencing others.

Many people, through studying the Dharma, have greatly improved their relationships at home and at work: couples treating each other with respect, parents and children showing kindness and filial devotion, colleagues living in harmony. Such examples are too numerous to count. Why does this happen? Because after studying the Dharma, people learn to look inward and reflect on themselves. When a person sees their own shortcomings and faults, they stop pointing fingers at others, and the relationship stops hardening into opposition. As we change in this way, the people around us change too—and eventually the whole environment changes along with them. That is how positive energy is transmitted.

When we can accept every situation exactly as it is, what is left that could hurt us or discount our happiness?

*3. Making adversity a support for the path*

In fact, adversity is not necessarily a bad thing for one's life. There is an old Chinese saying: "When the old man lost his horse, how could one know it wouldn't turn out to be a blessing?" And the Laozi tells us: "Good fortune follows upon disaster, while disaster lurks within good fortune." Fortune, if we don't know how to use it well, becomes a breeding ground for disaster and a license for corruption; misfortune, if we know how to transform it, can become a brand-new starting point and a source of inspiration.

We often see in life that some people sink in favorable circumstances while others grow in adverse ones. Officials who end up behind bars once held high positions and basked in glory; then they did whatever they pleased and became prisoners. That is "disaster lurks within good fortune" played out in real life. For human life, good times can act like an anesthetic that makes us lose ourselves, while adversity can actually make us more clear-headed and deepen our reflection on life.

So, facing adversity correctly and accepting adverse conditions not only spares us needless affliction; it also tempers us and helps us grow, and can even become a supportive condition for our spiritual practice. Conversely, if we cannot accept and only resist, adversity will not go away—it will leave us wallowing in suffering, unable to free ourselves.

*II. Happiness Requires Blessings*

*1. The Five Blessings at the door*

Just as flowing water needs a source and a tree needs roots, happiness needs a foundation of blessings. In ancient China there was a most auspicious saying: "May the Five Blessings descend upon this home." The Five Blessings are longevity, wealth and honor, health and peace, virtue, and a good death—together they cover every factor that makes up happiness.

First is longevity. In ancient times, with limited medical care, people often died young from diseases that were not even fatal. To live out one's natural span in comfort and enjoy one's years in peace was an important blessing in life.

Second is wealth and honor, which has two parts. Wealth means having enough to live without worry and to be spiritually well-provided; honor means holding a respected position, conducting oneself nobly, and receiving the esteem of others.

Third is health and peace—a healthy body and a peaceful mind. This is extremely important. Although everyone seeks happiness, our pursuit often tilts toward external wealth and status, while health and peace are precisely what modern people generally lack. I often say: "Physical and mental health is life's greatest wealth; cultivating body and mind is life's most valuable investment." Without a healthy body and mind, we are like a leaking, broken ship—however gorgeously decorated, it is not worth much. Without a healthy body, confined to a sickbed all day, living worse than death, what happiness can there be, no matter how rich you are or how high your position? An unhealthy mind is even more troublesome. The defining trait of modern people is restlessness, confusion, and the inability to find peace. There was once a popular song that went, "Lately I've been a bit vexed, a bit vexed, a bit vexed…" That ubiquitous "vexation" is exactly how many people really feel. In fact, the Chinese word for "affliction" itself comes from Buddhism: its first character means "to disturb" and the second "disorder"—afflictions are whatever disturbs the peace of our minds. Once we fall into afflictions and negative emotions, happiness is automatically blocked. Happiness is a feeling; when the mind is occupied by affliction, happiness has no ground to stand on. Even if you possess wealth and glory that others envy, they will not make you feel happy, because in your mind they have all been branded by affliction. Only when the mind is free of affliction, like a cloudless clear sky, will happiness arrive uninvited. So, dispelling affliction and finding ease of body and mind is an essential precondition for happiness.

In addition, the ancients included virtue among the Five Blessings, which is deeply meaningful. As moral education has waned, many people think little of morality and even regard moral conduct as a losing deal. This raises a question: how much does morality matter for ourselves, and how much for society? Virtue means moral character: outwardly, it is the principles and cultivation with which we treat people and handle affairs; inwardly, it is a set of healthy, positive mental factors. So practicing morality means cultivating a healthy mind and building a sound personality, filling our hearts with positive energy. On the other hand, a moral person more easily wins the recognition and respect of others, which allows their blessings to grow sustainably. Clearly, for a happy life, morality is indispensable, both as an inner cause and as an outer condition.

Fifth is a good death. The Buddha has ten epithets, one of which is "the Well-Gone One"—one who can foresee the time of death and has mastery over birth and death. A good death is a similar beautiful wish: that at the end of life the body be free of illness and pain, the mind free of attachments, and that we leave this world peacefully and at ease—rather than meeting sudden calamity or lingering long in a sickbed. Many people avoid death and fear it. We all know we must die one day, yet in our hearts we feel it is always someone else's affair. But avoidance cannot hold death back, and fear changes nothing; in fact, it only leaves us caught unprepared when death arrives. For modern people, the richer they are, the harder a good death often is. Having money, they don't want to die, and in the end they leave the world with tubes all over their bodies, without dignity, amid one resuscitation attempt after another. So understanding and transcending death is an important Buddhist practice. In Buddhist history, many practitioners could not only foresee their time of death but pass away gracefully at their own command, seated or standing—dying however they wished and putting a perfect full stop to this life. Ordinary people cannot manage that, but to depart peacefully, free of torment, is a great blessing both for ourselves and for others. That is why the ancients counted a good death among the Five Blessings.

This brings to mind two pressing problems in China today: the spiritual life of the elderly, and hospice care. When we are young, we hustle in society and feel that career, money, and pleasure are everything. But after retirement, as our bodies gradually decline and we can no longer enjoy many sensual pleasures, how are we to pass our days? Many people have nothing to do in old age—no faith, no spiritual life—practically just eating and waiting for death. And because they know nothing about death, they are filled with dread of the end that is fast approaching. This is especially pronounced in Chinese society. So on the one hand we need spiritual pursuits; on the other, we need to understand death correctly and accept the law of birth, aging, sickness, and death. Only then can our later years be full and serene. Buddhist hospice care is precisely this kind of psychological guidance: helping people see that this life is but one segment of the long river of life, and that when the body reaches the end of its term, only by departing with a positive state of mind can we find an upward way out as one life passes into the next.

In short, happiness is made up of many factors. Long life without health and peace, wealth and honor without virtue, or failing to die well in the end—none of these amounts to a happy life. So the pursuit of happiness must begin from these aspects: not only possessing external wealth, but also enjoying physical and mental health and noble character.

*2. To have blessings, first plant them*

How, then, can a person come to possess these blessings? Being capable does not guarantee being blessed. Blessings, too, have their causes and effects, so Buddhism tells us we must first cultivate the fields of blessings—chiefly three: the field of compassion, the field of gratitude, and the field of respect.

The field of compassion means having compassion for all the toiling masses of the world. They need happiness but have none; they want to escape suffering but cannot. If, out of a compassionate heart, we help them find happiness and resolve their suffering, we are nurturing compassion and tilling the field of compassion. What is the essence of charity? It is not simply donating or helping—it is great compassionate love. Only when we give and help in the spirit of great compassionate love is our charity worthy of the name. Otherwise, however much money we donate or however much we do, strictly speaking it is merely a good deed and cannot be called true charity. And only when everything we do springs from a compassionate heart will it produce blessings in a continuous stream.

The field of gratitude means repaying with a grateful heart those who have been kind to us: parents and elders, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends—all sentient beings, and even the mountains, rivers, and the earth itself. Our lives depend on the help of others, and also on the sun and moon, heaven and earth, mountains, rivers, plants, and trees. It is because all of this exists that we can live freely and without worry. So we should face all of it with gratitude and give back as best we can—caring for society and protecting the environment. When our hearts are full of gratitude, everything we see brings joy. Gratitude is not only a wellspring of blessings; it is itself a healthy, positive, joyful state of mind. Even as we give back, we benefit in that very moment. Conversely, if we don't know gratitude and always look at things through a negative lens, feeling that the whole world owes us, the only result is our own misery.

The field of respect means honoring those of virtue: our teachers and spiritual guides, as well as people of high standing in society. When we bow before a Buddha image in a monastery, it is because such sacred places carry a power of blessing in themselves—entering them, our body and mind are gathered in. On the other hand, when we bring a measure of devotion and reverence, our own minds are purified and become serene and pliant. When we hold nothing in awe, we become reckless, and our minds grow restless and chaotic. So only by facing the virtuous with respect can we resonate with the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and good teachers, and receive the blessing of their positive energy.

Tilling the fields of blessings comes down to cultivating three kinds of heart: the compassionate heart, the grateful heart, and the respectful heart. These are the power plants that generate blessings, producing them in a steady stream, making the mind ever healthier and life ever freer. Whatever kind of mind we have, that is the kind of circumstance we will correspond to—so the kind of mind we possess is what truly governs. As said earlier, the root of charity is the heart of great compassionate love. Without such a foundation of heart and practice, even giving can have all sorts of side effects. So we must cultivate loving-kindness and bring more compassion into the world, rather than merely calling on a few rich people to donate money. If we are endowed with loving-kindness, then with financial means we can of course extend a helping hand; and even without means, we will still do all we can to serve society and benefit others—instead of doing things that harm others and ourselves.

I have spoken of success many times in my lectures. Modern society measures success by standards like the Forbes list or the Hurun Rich List, which assess only how much wealth a person owns and take no account of what kind of person they are. If someone has no compassion, knows no gratitude, and has no idea what respect is, then no amount of wealth can bring them happiness. So beyond success in what we do, success in how we live as human beings matters more—and the latter is the key to happiness. In short, happiness is never determined by wealth alone; it is composed of many factors. Virtue is the foundation, physical and mental health is the key, and external conditions are only auxiliary. Only happiness built on these foundations is complete.

*III. Raise Your Understanding: Where There Is Wisdom, There Is No Affliction*

*1. External circumstances, state of mind, and understanding*

Happiness has a great deal to do with our outlook on life. Positive psychology in the West guides us to look at things in an active, positive way. From the Buddhist perspective, the kind of understanding we have determines the kind of world we see. The world in our eyes is only an image presented to our understanding, already processed by our individual perception.

For example, is the world we see the same as the world a dog sees? Certainly not. Because a dog's way of knowing differs from ours, what it sees, hears, and perceives naturally differs too. Beyond perception, we are also swayed by emotion. If we like someone, everything they do pleases us; if we detest them, everything they do offends us. Clearly, what mode of understanding we possess is vitally important for every living being.

Our understanding also affects our state of mind. There is a story about an old woman who cried all day, rain or shine. People asked her what she was crying about. She said: "I have two sons-in-law. One makes umbrellas; the other makes tiles. When the sun shines, I think of the umbrella-maker losing business, so I cry. When it rains, I think of the tile-maker unable to work, so I cry again." Later a Chan master told her: "Think of it the other way around. When it rains, think of the umbrella-maker; when the sun shines, think of the tile-maker." From the day she adjusted her understanding, the old woman was cheerful every single day. This shows the difference between positive and negative thinking.

Buddhism is neither a negative psychology nor the same as positive psychology. What it offers is a way of thinking that is truthful and positive. "Truthful" means corresponding to the facts as they are. Buddhism holds that much of human affliction is tied to how we understand things, so we need to adjust our views and change our understanding. This is what is meant by "where there is wisdom, there is no affliction."

Many scholars and officials in ancient China liked to recite sutras to compose their minds, and this, too, is a process of changing one's understanding. The Diamond Sutra, for example, tells us: "All conditioned phenomena are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows, like dewdrops and a lightning flash. Contemplate them thus." In this world, from the mighty emperors of Qin and Han to the great rulers of Tang and Song, all that splendor is but a fleeting appearance formed by the coming together of causes and conditions, arising and perishing as conditions gather and disperse. Once we have this understanding, we no longer take the world so seriously. When everything goes our way, we won't get carried away, because it may not last; when we meet setbacks, we won't be hurt too deeply, because they too will pass. With such understanding and such a state of mind, we can keep striving ahead without being weighed down.

*2. Understanding things as they truly are*

Buddhism sums up the life state of ordinary beings in one word: ignorance. What is ignorance? Simply put, it is like switching off the lamp in a room—everything goes pitch dark. Its opposite is "illumination," which stands for wisdom. The Buddha Dharma says that within each of us burns a lamp of wisdom. Until that lamp is lit, life remains in a state of ignorance, and we can see neither ourselves nor the world clearly.

Where do we live? In fact, we live in our own thoughts, in a mental state. We don't understand ourselves, yet we care about ourselves intensely—and so we form wrong identifications, taking all sorts of things that are not "me" to be "me." This, in truth, is life's greatest misunderstanding. What we see are clouds coming and going; we have never seen the open sky itself, never known that what lies behind the clouds is the original face of life. When we take our thoughts to be "me," we become entangled by them, and they become the masters of our life—like dark rolling clouds blotting out the whole sky. But we should know that thoughts ultimately have no inherent nature of their own and no roots. If we observe our thoughts and keep a distance from them, they can no longer affect us.

Western philosophy has a famous maxim: Know thyself! Every day we attend to ourselves, care about ourselves, and our every thought is for ourselves—how could we not know ourselves? Well then: setting aside all our ideas, concepts, and assumptions, before a single thought stirs, what is the state of life? Have we ever paid attention to that? This is why Chan practice has us inquire into "Who is actually reciting the Buddha's name?", "What is your original face before a single thought arises?", "What is your original face before your parents were born?" In fact, to truly know ourselves is to illuminate the mind and see its true nature.

When we examine life with wisdom and keep asking "Who am I?" and "What represents my existence?", we find that everything we once identified as "me" has only a temporary relationship with us. Body, emotions, identity, wealth—which of these can be ours forever? Yet because of ignorance and attachment, we easily take the body to be me, take our emotions to be me, take our identity and wealth to be me—take all sorts of things that are not "me" to be "me"—and then grow attached to them and dependent on them. The problem is that all of these are impermanent and changing. Take the body to be me, and we will fear death, fear the disappearance of this physical form. Take our identity to be me, and once we lose it we no longer know how to carry ourselves. It is like wearing a mask so long that we think the mask is our face—when the mask is gone, we are left utterly at a loss.

Where do life's afflictions and pains come from? From nothing other than relationships, family, wealth, status, identity, the body… If we see clearly that these have only a temporary relationship with our life, we will no longer be anxious or fearful when they change, and we will no longer suffer needless harm.

How can we see reality clearly? The Buddha Dharma's teachings on no-self and emptiness help us correct these perceptions. When the Dharma speaks of "no-self," it does not mean this body of ours does not exist; when it speaks of "emptiness," it does not deny all existing phenomena. What it negates are the wrong assumptions we project onto the self and the world. When we continually examine ourselves and the world through "no-self" and "emptiness," we can strip away all sorts of external attachments, letting the light of wisdom shine forth—dispelling delusion and seeing things as they truly are.

When delusion and affliction no longer cloud the mind, the happiness we feel will be one with the very essence of life. It depends on no external conditions; whatever circumstances we are in, the light of wisdom we inherently possess will radiate joy in a steady stream. Happiness built on external conditions is necessarily shallow and unstable, because circumstances keep changing and feelings keep changing. True happiness represents the essence of life itself. Finding such an existence—that is the treasure house of happiness.

*IV. Many Desires Bring Suffering; Contentment Brings Happiness*

*1. Desires and the sense of happiness*

What is happiness? Usually, the happiness people pursue is just a feeling—the satisfaction that comes when a desire is fulfilled. We might as well recall: whenever we have felt unhappy, there must have been some desire left unmet—material needs, and spiritual ones as well. In fact, simple material scarcity, so long as it does not threaten survival, does not necessarily bring much pain. What really vexes us is wanting something yet being unable to get it. The suffering of not getting what we want is actually far greater than the pain of scarcity.

Everyone's needs differ, and so does the ease of satisfying them. Some people's desires are as small as the tiny cups used for gongfu tea in Minnan—a splash of water fills them. In childhood we want little, so we are easily satisfied and easily feel happy; that is why the happy moments people remember are so often from their early years. Once desire swells, it becomes like the four oceans and five continents—no amount of water can fill it. However rich such people become, they still feel poorer than others, less glorious than others. For them, what happiness can there be?

Of course, happiness gained by satisfying desire is actually an illusion, and a very brief one. Many people feel that savoring fine food is a happy thing. But that comes with preconditions: only when you want to eat and need to eat can good food bring satisfaction and happiness. If you have no appetite, or are already full, the finest cuisine only becomes a burden. And if you had to keep eating and eating, it would be sheer misery. Many people also feel it is bliss to wake naturally in the morning. But if you were made to lie in bed and forbidden to get up, happiness would turn into torture. If you were bedridden from then on, it would be agony beyond words. At that point, being able to rise and move about freely would again become the happiness you dream of.

So we can see: what desire can bring is only the satisfaction that arises when some need is relieved—a happiness produced under particular circumstances, an illusion of happiness, not its essence. That kind of happiness cannot be relied upon.

*2. The dangers of chasing desire*

Society today stimulates consumption by whipping up desire. Manufacturers keep upgrading their products; merchants do everything to provoke the urge to buy; the whole of society is caught up in possession, comparison, and competition. Not only do we want to possess wealth, we constantly compare: I must be richer than you, able to afford more than you. This comparison breeds competition—even vicious competition that stops at nothing. Once we fall into this cycle of possession, comparison, and competition, we are swept along by it and can no longer steer ourselves.

We now have so many convenient appliances, freed from the chores of washing and cooking—yet this has not made our lives leisurely; we are more exhausted than before. Why? In the old days, though materially poor, we were relatively simple and free of the pressure of keeping up with others. In today's globalized age, we can see far too many things that inflame our desires, and that easily leads to comparison. Having this, we want that; having acquired it, we chase the brand name. To keep up, we can only push forward, ever forward. Much of the effort we expend is required neither by survival nor by life and living—we simply cannot stop, because comparison won't let us.

On top of that, the flood of information and our many electronic devices are eating away at our time. Mobile phones and the mobile internet especially keep many people glued to their screens every waking moment. Amid those chaotic fragments of information, our time is fragmented, our attention is fragmented, and our very lives are shattered into pieces. Few people now can sit quietly with themselves; given a free moment, they have to look at something on the phone, or else they feel at a loss. The biggest problem this habit brings is that it robs us of the ability to rest. Very often, even when the body longs to rest, the mind is still restless and cannot settle. The ancients spoke of a mind like a capering monkey and a galloping horse—the mind constantly grabbing at external objects. Living like this, how can we not be exhausted? How can we be happy?

I often say that in the future, an important measure of whether a person can be happy will be whether they have the ability to rest. Only with the ability to rest can we have a healthy body and mind, and only then can we be happy. Why is the ability to rest so important? In fact, it represents our ability to manage the mind. A person who cannot rest has no mastery over their own mind; they can only drift with external circumstances and the winds of karma, until they finally squander this precious human life in the drifting. There is no greater waste in the world.

Desire keeps us busy and worn out. The more our needs multiply, the more we depend on the external world. And the more we depend, the greater the chance that what we depend on will change. Why are modern people generally anxious, fearful, and insecure? Because our lives can hardly stand on their own, we are forever worrying about changes outside—worrying that those changes will throw our lives off balance. In fact, the world is changing all the time, but only the parts we need, care about, and are tied to can affect us. So, one less need means one less thing to care about and be affected by.

Desire also keeps pushing up our cost of living. People in the past were poor in material terms, yet they could support themselves and even their families. Now incomes have risen enormously, yet supporting a family has become a heavy burden. Why? Because desire keeps driving the cost of survival up—and the cost of happiness rises along with it. The ancients said that contentment brings happiness: the fewer desires you have, the more easily you are satisfied, and the more easily you are happy. The opposite is equally true.

So how we deal with desire is the key to happiness. If we cannot take the initiative in this contest with desire, we will end up controlled by it.

*V. Happiness Comes from the Mind*

*1. The different levels of the mind*

The mind is the source of suffering, and it is also the source of joy. To live happily, we must build a healthy mind. I think everyone has felt this: when negative states like greed, hatred, anxiety, fear, jealousy, and selfishness stir within us, they not only twist the mind into painful knots but can even make the body react badly. So long as these states remain unresolved, problems will keep coming one after another, and we will never know a day of peace.

Yet this same mind is also the source of joy. When the mind is free of affliction, we become happy easily. Where does that happiness come from? Much of the time, it has little to do with material conditions. Think of the full-body smile of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas—that joy rising from within and spreading through the whole being comes not from gaining anything, but from an awakened mind. The Buddha Dharma tells us that everyone has the potential for awakening within, and this awakened nature produces joy in a continuous stream.

I once wrote on Weibo about the Buddhist understanding of life's suffering and joy. Students of Buddhism all know the saying "life is suffering." In fact, that statement is incomplete—it addresses a specific audience. What it means is that the life of ordinary beings, built on delusion and affliction, is suffering. For those who are awakened, the essence of life is freedom and joy. Because behind delusion and affliction lies the potential for awakening, and once that level is opened up, life becomes boundless freedom, boundless peace, boundless joy.

These are the two levels of life, created by the two camps within our minds. Healthy, wholesome mental states are our friends: they lift our lives, bring happiness to our days, and bring stability and harmony to society. Unhealthy, negative states are our enemies: they keep manufacturing pain and trouble. Buddhism holds that our greatest enemy in life is ourself—and that "self" means precisely the afflictions within. All the suffering in life, from the torment we inflict on ourselves, to discordant relationships, to crimes like killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and lying, is the work of this enemy. Fundamentally, the two sides of human nature are Buddha-nature and the demonic nature. Open up the Buddha-nature, and we can accomplish perfect wisdom and compassion; indulge the demonic nature, and the only result is to fall into the woeful realms and suffer for long eons.

Many of you here today are successful people. We spend a great deal of energy understanding and caring about society, yet it has never occurred to us that what we really should learn is to understand ourselves and manage ourselves—that is life's top priority. The Buddha Dharma helps us see which forces in our minds are positive and which are negative.

*2. From benefiting oneself to benefiting others*

Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are the goal of Buddhist practice. They can be our goal because of the three virtues they have accomplished: first, the virtue of cessation—having severed all afflictions; second, the virtue of wisdom—having perfected boundless wisdom; third, the virtue of compassion—having accomplished great loving-kindness and compassion.

Buddhism holds that the lives of ordinary beings are infected by three poisons: greed, hatred, and ignorance. All suffering and negative emotion derive from these three viruses, and so we must "diligently practice the precepts, concentration, and wisdom to extinguish greed, hatred, and ignorance." Beyond that, we must develop life's wholesome potential and accomplish wisdom and compassion. Out of compassion, we not only free ourselves from affliction; we also see that every being has greed, hatred, and ignorance, has delusion and affliction—and so we resolve to help them. This compassion is vast and without discrimination. Like the great loving-kindness and compassion of Guanyin Bodhisattva, there is not a single being you would be unwilling to help. So Buddhist practice is not only about building a happy life for ourselves; it is also about helping all beings everywhere build happy lives.

The happiness we ordinarily take for granted is usually just an illusion. True happiness must represent something essential to life itself. That requires thoroughly removing the mental states that destroy happiness and bringing forth the wholesome potential within. Once the awakened nature is developed, life truly becomes an existence of happiness, and it can bring happiness to all beings in a continuous stream. This, too, is the goal of Mahayana Buddhist practice.

*Conclusion*

We have now explored, from five angles, the principle that the mind creates happiness. What this shows is: to find the happiness we long for, we must first develop the capacity to accept all circumstances, favorable and adverse alike, so that external conditions cannot sweep us away and we remain calm and composed. Second, we must recognize the many factors that bring happiness, and till the fields of blessings at all times so that our blessings grow sustainably. Third, we must raise our understanding, viewing ourselves and the world with a positive and truthful state of mind. Fourth, we must avoid the dangers of chasing desire, which is happiness's greatest enemy. Most important of all, we must see clearly the different levels of the mind, know what to develop and what to let go of, and move from benefiting ourselves to benefiting others—from pursuing our own happiness to giving happiness to all beings. That is ultimate, complete happiness.