The meaning of life...

“What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful”

- The Dalai Lama

The meaning of life has always puzzled everyone’s minds, and has created an ultimate goal of striving to something that is suppose to give you an ultimate meaningful life. The meaning of life, it doesn’t consequently mean to live a “meaningful life” but is in the definition as a way to find the way to live your life in your personal way for you to find happiness and comfortability with yourself and with everyone around you. People’s minds, in a satisfied state that embraces the task of completed something meaningful to your personal preference and to have found the balance of doing so at a regular basis. That is the meaning of life. That is very personal. Every person is different, and that is for many reasons, like previous life experiences and own degree of happiness that is looked for.

A famous Chinese saying is: “happiness is a river. It may surround you, but you have to keep swimming”. The Chinese culture devotes a lot of their views on life on elements of the earth, and the water element is very important to happiness. This Chinese saying is related to that we want to live a happy life, with little hardships and everything flowing like a stream next to us, that everything should go so easy. Though, to achieve this happiness and “easiness” we have to work hard. This is most feeling for most people around us, where we work hard without noticing our achievements and give ourselves to absorb the happiness and be satisfied. And the good ethics that has given us strength to do so will be able to pass the happiness on to future life and the next life. So, interpreting the quote, happiness is always around us and can be found but we all to work for it. It is a good definition on happiness, because it is very valid in the sense of the a single persons individual goal with an overall sense of ethical focus, to reach happiness there may be obstacles that may disturb the way to find happiness, but there are ways to limit the “noise” and be able to reach a longer sense of happiness, in the sense of the happiness cycle. Happiness can be seen as cycles in everyone’s life, where anxiety and hard work towards the dream of happiness composes most of the cycle and the happiness is a short peak and then that happiness stops and the peak dies off quickly, but then the cycle starts again, for example seeing the cycle as an up and down curve where a short curve that curves up a little for happiness but the majority of the cycle is stress or anxiety or other related things in the search of happiness. Therefore, a constant search for the best way to find happiness is very popular.

The Dalai Lama is saying that the meaning of life is in the quest for human happiness and he says that everyone can reach happiness if they find their inner personal peace and have a positive ethical conduct. The Dalai Lama practices with a Buddhist philosophy and psychology, while trying to reach everyone on the planet, the search for happiness. The philosophy talks a lot about the peace within yourself and to find your own personal space, because if you have peace within yourself, you can easier handle a problem that appears. Anyone who does find this composed state within, anyone; homeless, refugee or people who suffer, they are all able to find it. This is possible because we create un-happiness ourselves, and therefore we should be able to avoid it. The peace within us, as the Dalai Lama prints in to our minds can be reached by controlling your thoughts, emotions, and behavior. For example, people who do have positive ethical attitudes and controlled within are happier and more satisfied than those with negative ethics.

Also, in this view, happiness is according to Billy Graham “happy is the person who has learned the secret of being content with whatever life brings him, and has learned to rejoice in the simple and beautiful things around him.” These thoughts are mind blowing, as the search for the meaning of life continues, and happiness comes from a balances status of mind, for example we need to make adjustments in our everyday schedules to favor other events over the other, because, finding happiness is in our minds. If the mind is balanced and the right choices of events and karma are successful, there is a big chance that the cycle of happiness will spike up for a longer period of time and the anxiety and stress period will be shorter, as Buddhasaid, “if you think or act with a calm and bright heart-mind, then happiness follows you always, like a shadow”. This mixture of being content with everyday chores and take an extra look around you, happiness will come.

What I thought was really interesting was when the Dalai Lama mentioned “when we are more concerned for others, we experience our own suffering less intense”. It shows that the ethic is extremely necessary as a way to promise that we don’t do anything bad or hurt anyone. So, that way you can find your own happiness and a genuine gratitude to others, by showing for example love, or forgiveness or compassion. I believe that the love aspect is extremely important, because we all have to be loved by others. It is absolutely shown in people as we are young kids and when we get old, the love from others truly shows it importance and we all get reminded of how crucial it is to be loved and cared about, as you are young and old, but also in your middle years. It could be love from a partner, family, or friends, it doesn’t matter, love is easily expressed to the ones you feel warm hearted to.

Also, a way of handling others and a moral way of living is Karma. It is extremely interesting how a way of handling an every day life can be so astonishing and appreciated, but so easily accomplished. Karma believes that nothing happens to a person that is not for a reason or is deserved. It is a result of our past actions and what is done in the now. As, we are responsible for our own doings so we have responsibility for our own happiness and misery, “we are the architects of our own fate”. Karma is something that you get from your previous life and that will pass on this life, so what you do today will create karma for your next life. Though, not everything is due to karma, there are actually 23 more conditions who are being supposed to follow in the described Buddhist philosophy, but Karma, which are important to the Buddhist religion but doesn’t make it all the way to the commons and my view of creating a longer period of happiness. So, bad karma gives a painful future and good karma gives a happy future, as a result of the actions performed in our lives.

“For happiness is the goal of human life, as the Dalai Lama of Tibet likes to say, and wisdom, both practical and transcendental, is needed to achieve it.” Knowing the world is were you find information and knowledge, and knowing yourself is wisdom. When I become clearer, everything becomes clearer, and all my relations are clarified and harmonized. As Socrates mentioned, “the good life is a life that questions and thinks about things; it is a life of contemplation, self-examination, and open-minded wondering. The good life is thus an inner life, the life of an inquiring and ever expanding mind.” It shows how important it is to constantly have the strive to improve your knowledge, because the inner mind strive of off knowing more and constantly have questions to make the world clearer.

Another way of cleaning your mind and figure out how to easier find happiness could be through Feng Shui. It is a life changing way of life and the philosophy keeps a clear life where your base, home and comfortability is. Feng Shui literally means wind and water, which comes from the Chinese belief where most is based on the five elements of living, that are wood, fire, earth, metal and water. According to the Chinese belief, we are all build upon these five elements, blended in all different ways, and you, according to Feng Shui, belong to one of those elements depending on when you were born. And, when you know what element you are, you will be able to know what and who you mix well with and don’t. For those people that you ‘click with’, but according to the five elements, you don’t match well with; you can be prepared that there is a remedy to prevent clash to happen. Feng Shui can help handle that stress and allows you to live in harmony with all living things. When Feng Shui is used, people see it as pure cleanliness, and the source of stress like clutter and other anxiety promoters, are eased and an easier way to happiness is presented to you. Using these simple principles of Feng Shui offers harmony to everyone and improves the quality of our lives.

Wealth may or may not lead us to happiness and minimize suffering in the world. But philosophers like Aristotle said “good or happiness is another direction than the sought of richness.” He sees happiness as something deeper than commodities, commodities of power, esteem, pleasure and friends – which takes us further away from the idea of happiness. The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we have seeking; for its merely useful and for the sake of something else. Though, happiness in Buddhism is more of the person who “needs” less and not the person who “has” more. It takes to find happiness in simple little things and enjoy what we have. We shouldn’t waste our lives running after desire, because that is another reason, like stress and anxiety, to why our happiness curve short, because our lives are short, and if we keep on running we will miss all the valuable things in our lives.

To be rich does not give you a free ticket to happiness, because in Buddhism the less wealthy people are shown to be less anxious, and by now you know that anxiousness leads to shorter period of happiness and being less anxious and enjoying life more will take you a shorter route through the cycle. Many of the wealthy people, according to Buddhism, do not know how to use their wealth intelligently. They are to be too caught up in the idea of acquiring more, constantly tormented, emotionally and mental suffering within, and in that, they lose their dream of happiness and constantly feel dissatisfied with their life.

As I have written before, the public intellectual Peter Singer, one of Singer's best-known philosophical essays, he said that some people living in ‘abundance’ while others starve, is horrible. Singer proposes that anyone able to help the poor should donate part of their income to help poverty relief and similar efforts. Singer says that, when one is already living comfortably, “A further purchase to increase comfort will lack the same moral importance as saving another person's life”. He personally gives 1/5 of his wealth to helping organizations, and he urges people to try to do the same.

On the other side, in Karma, wealth could be seen as something good. In this way of living you live in a healthy and moral way, by doing positive things for others you will gain wealth and wealth therefore shows that you have good karma. This moral virtue leads to wealth, and wealth is the result and proof on previous generosity, so therefore wealth is looked upon as good positive. I do not see wealth as something good or bad, i rather see it as something that can help, as a motivation, and a way to find instant gratification, it may be not a key to the meaning of life, but if wealth is used with the right strings and the joyfulness and peacefulness is found within, you can own the a whole country and still find happiness and the meaning of life.

Karma, Love, Happiness, Feng Shui, creating a clear ming, education, and finding peace within yourself. As this may come off as a little too “hocus pocus”, or a little too spiritual for many, but there is a way to find the meaning of life, if you seek happiness, by simply using your own creativity and mind. It is a way for more people to realize that there are more options out there to find the meaning of life. As, Buddhism and the Dalai Lama promotes, that happiness doesn’t happen without hard work.

An interesting anecdote is from the book “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, where life by the character Scrooge is too caught up by wealth and personal anxiety, not showing love or helping anyone else, which has lead him to be alone and unhappy. But, he managed to turn things around, and you can, as scrooge, change the future with your present actions, just like in the sense of Karma.

Everybody should have in his or her interest to do what is leading to happiness, for example when we have more concern for others, we experience our own suffering less intense, and that ethics is true for truly showing care to others. That genuine happiness, which we all are looking for, consisting of your own personal qualities, and that provides not only happiness to ourselves but to our others too. Everyone could clear their mind and find a peace within, and start thinking a little but "about themselves" to create peace within themselves, as of others. That is the meaning of life.

Works cited

"Aristotle's View Of Ethics." Topics On Morals Of Current Interest In Society. Web. 08 Oct. 2011. <http://www.happinessonline.org/MoralCode/LiveWithTruth/p18.htm>.

Bien, Thomas. The Buddha's Way of Happiness: Healing Sorrow, Transforming Negative Emotions & Finding Well-being in the Present Moment. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications, 2010. Print.

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. New Delhi: Campfire, 2010. Print.

Graham, Billy. The Secret of Happiness. Waco, TX: Word, 1985. Print.

Hedley, Donna L. Strategies for Happiness: How to Achieve Your Happiness Potential. Ottawa: Sassy Sunflower, 2009. Print.

Sayadaw, Ven. Mahasi. "The Theory of Karma." Thesis. Buddha Darma Education Association, 1996. Web. <http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/karma.htm>.

Singer, Peter. Practical Ethics. New York: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.

"Socrates: The Good Life." FSU Faculty/Staff Personal Page Web Server Index. Web. 08 Oct. 2011. <http://faculty.frostburg.edu/phil/forum/SocratesLife.htm>.

Webster, Richard. Feng Shui for Success & Happiness. Llewellyn Worldwide, 1999. Print.