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The Art of Happiness

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  • #91
    Originally posted by parrapiti View Post
    In my mother language (Spanish) there is a clear difference between happines, joy and bliss (alegría, felicidad y plenitud). They all sound similar and are usually interchanged unconsciously in a simple sentence. But they are very different, indeed.

    Is there difference between happiness, joy and bliss in English?

    Piti
    I would say there is a difference but they are all variations of happiness! Joy would be a higher state of happiness or an expression of say extreme happiness. Whereas say bliss would be similar to being in ecstasy. But there are many different definitions of each term. I know sometimes bliss can be described as serene joy or even spiritual joy.

    In each state you are happy but at a different level and they are all related.

    Eddie

    Comment


    • #92
      Interesting.

      Now, what about mind and thought?

      What can we say concerning the above two words?

      Joko
      开心 好运气
      kai xin... .......hao yunqi... - Sifu's speech, April 2005
      open heart... good chi flow... good luck ...
      ------------------------------------------------------------
      Have we not opened up thy heart ...? (The Reading, 94:1)
      ------------------------------------------------------------
      Be joyful, ..and share your joy with others -(Anand Krishna)

      Comment


      • #93
        Hello everyone!

        Sifu Piti, thank you for the intriguing question. Eddie, thank you for the warmhearted reply. Sifu Joko, thank you for posing another interesting question.

        I found myself thinking about what you all asked and wrote here...and soon an idea began to form in regard to Sifu Piti's question. It is just an idea I had, and I do not know how true it may be or may not be. But, from what I've been experiencing and feeling lately, it made sense to me. So, what do you think? I'd appreciate it if anyone might share their opinions, ideas, or otherwise expand upon the topic.

        Originally posted by parrapiti
        Is there difference between happiness, joy and bliss in English?

        Perhaps the answer is yes. And no.

        ...From what I have been experiencing lately, I've started to feel that perhaps bliss, joy, and happiness all come from the same source: The love of God, or of Great Guan Yin Pusa, or of the love and light that is in everything and every one of us.

        The difference then would be the degree to which we open ourselves up to that love.

        Happiness could perhaps be a temporary openness, dependent on external stimuli. So, for example, I listen to a wonderful song and my heart opens, filling me with happiness during the duration of the song, and perhaps a short while afterward.

        Joy then could be a state of openness not dependent on external stimuli. Perhaps joy comes from knowing that the love of God is always in ourselves and in everyone and everything around us. Feeling that love then naturally brings about a joy that is deep within us.

        And bliss might happen when that love is all that we feel...when thought and mind are zero, and we are fully open and filled completely with God's love.



        ...I must say that I know very little about this, as I have only begun to feel what I think may be true joy, and there have been only a couple of times that I have felt something that might have been bliss. So, I offer my answer not as "truth" but simply as an idea formed by what I have experienced recently.

        It would bring me great happiness if anyone else might post their thoughts on the topic here...I recall again Sifu Joko's wonderful advice:

        Whenever you find happiness, share with others; by sharing it, then you can have more.

        With joy and love,
        Erica

        Comment


        • #94
          Dear Erica!

          I like your experiential approach more than the dry "dictionary definition" and differentiation between these concepts. Thank you for sharing!

          Piti

          Comment


          • #95
            Thank you to Sihing Piti for asking such an interesting question, and Sijatlui Erica for an interesting answer! Sijatlui Erica's answer's a nice illustration of "direct experience first, philosophizing second". I've felt many shades of happiness that were distinct and unique, and I'm happy that I enjoyed those feelings fully It's sort of like qiflow---one day it has a rushing water feeling, and other times it's more like insects crawling on skin. Sometimes, it's hard to separate the feeling from the event that causes it. There was a unique feeling of serene happiness that I had the last time I took a course with Sifu---there was similar, but different happiness I felt when I very first learned our Shaolin Qigong from Sihing Jeffrey. And yet different from the happiness I felt last weekend when I went out dancing with my lovely girlfriend for the first time last weekend.
            To throw another analogy into the stewpot, my neighbor, a wine connoiseur, told me a story about an old sommelier. When asked about the best wine he ever had the old sommelier replied, "in an ancient cave in france (where they age the barrels), over dinner with some old friends". When asked further about the wine, he said,"the wine? Oh , it was good enough!"

            Comment


            • #96
              Dear All

              You may find this quote from Sigung interesting relating to joy:

              Question 1
              Dear Sigung,

              I have just arrived back in the UK after attending your intensive Kung Fu course. First of all I just thank you sincerely for all the teachings and guidance that you have given to my Wahnam brothers and me during the course. My only desire now back in the UK, despite the freezing weather, is to get outside and practice, practice, practice. May I also say what a beautiful country you have, with wonderful people and some of the best food I've ever had. It is even possible, after a few days, to get use to the very humid weather.

              I do have one question and I would be grateful for your opinions on my experience. I think it was on the second day, the last chi flow of the morning session. My mind had emptied and I was in what I consider to be a chi kung state of mind. All my negative thoughts, bad feeling and dislikes had gone and my mind was still.

              It was then (with us still in chi flow) that you asked us all to bless someone. It was at this point that I realized that as well as my hates and dislikes disappearing, all my love and compassion had also gone. The people around me could have been crowned king or slaughtered and I would not have cared either way! My once peaceful chi kung state of mind was suddenly replaced by a empty void which, if I had cared more for it, would have brought me to tears. It is very hard to describe the exact feeling and I don't normally like talking about chi kung experiences, but this one had such an effect that I took a good few hours to recover from it, and it still haunts me occasionally.

              It opened up so many questions but I guess the main one is if everything is really just energy then what room is there for love, other emotions and even karma? Because where my mind went to, there was nothing, not even, and don't worry I'm not suicidal, a reason to live.

              Your thoughts on this would be very much appreciated. Thanks once again for the course and sharing the Shaolin arts with us.
              Simon, England


              Answer 1
              That Intensive Shaolin Kungfu Course (23rd to 29th November 2004), with the largest number (31) of participants so far, was fantastic. As Markus Kahila has aptly mentioned in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum, I pushed everyone to his limits — so that everyone would emerge from the course a better person in every aspect. A few participants, at some stages of the course, were pushed so far to their mental limit that they could not tell their front leg from their back!

              Yours was even more profound. You went beyond your spiritual limit! But take note that my use of the terms “mental” and “spiritual” here follows Western nomenclature, whereby a person's dimensions are classified into physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. In Chinese terms, a person's dimensions are classified only into two parts, namely “shen” and “xin”, or “body” and “heart”. “Heart” here includes the emotional, mental and spiritual.

              What you attained at the course was a very high level satori, or spiritual awakening. You were awakened to the cosmic fact that at a very high spiritual level, there are no forms, no emotions, no thoughts and no souls! It is just the Great Void, just Emptiness. In Western terms, it is just God.

              What you experienced was what the great Bodhidharma meant when he told Emperor Liang Wu Ti that there is no holiness, just emptiness, as the Emperor asked our First Patriarch what the first principle of holiness was.

              It was also what the Buddha meant when, as recorded in the Heart Sutra, he explained that as the Great Bodhisattva Guan Yin attained Enlightenment, the great Bodhisattva discovered that there is “no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, will; no form, sound, smell, taste, touch, sub-atomic particles.”

              Congratulations. Yours was a great attainment.

              At that very high spiritual state, not only your hates and dislikes had disappeared, even your love and compassion had also gone. It was because at that state there are no emotions.

              Your mind was empty because at that state there were no thoughts. You did not find even a reason to live because at the highest level, there were no souls.

              Most people may find this state disturbing or frightening. This is so because they are limited by their intellectualization, and they operate in the phenomenal realm.

              Those who experience such a state directly will not have any fear, because there are no emotions. Instead, speaking provisionally, there is only tremendous joy, eternal peace and limitless freedom. There is also no “life” (as mere mortals understand the term) because there is no differentiation into individual persons or souls.

              Is it a contradiction to say that there are no emotions in this high cosmic state and then say that you will experience joy, peace and freedom? No, there is no contradiction. The apparent contradiction is due to the limitation of words. “Joy”, “peace” and “freedom” are mental states, not emotions in the same sense as “fear”, “confidence”, “hatred”, “love”, “cruelty” and “compassion”. You “dissolve” yourself in these mental states and are one with them. Hence these mental states do not cause karma.

              But you feel “fear”, “confidence”, “hatred”, “love”, “cruelty” and “compassion”. You are not one with them. These feelings or cravings cause karma, which sets countless processes of transformation into the phenomenal world.

              If there were emotions, which would lead to craving, you would be propelled out of this very high level of transcendental cosmic reality back into the phenomenal world. If there were individual persons or souls, then cosmic reality would not be undifferentiated. In Western terms, God would not be omnipresent, because those individual persons or souls would be outside God.

              Yes, everything is just an undifferentiated spread of energy, or of consciousness or mind or spirit. In Western terms, it is just God, the infinite, the eternal and the omnipresent. There is no room for love, other emotions and even karma in cosmic reality. Love, other emotions and karma only operate in the phenomenal realm. Indeed, it is precisely because of love and compassion that Bodhisattvas voluntarily delay entering Buddhahood, or come out of Buddhahood into the human or other worlds to help others.

              In your case, during those priceless moments when you had a glimpse of cosmic reality, you went beyond karma, and transcended life and death. Then you came back to our phenomenal world, as you still live and work in this phenomenal world, where karma and rebirth operate. This is a manifestation of what Mahayana masters refer to as “nirvana is samsara, samsara is nirvana.”

              There is no ontological difference between nirvana and samsara. The difference is only one of spiritual perspective. When you experience reality from the perspective of non-thought and non-emotion, you experience nirvana, or a glimpse of it; when you experience the same reality from the perspective of thought and emotion, you experience samsara.

              It is significant that you attained such a high level satori during a Shaolin Kungfu course, and not during chi kung or formal Zen training. This exemplifies the fact that genuine, traditional Shaolin Kungfu, besides being very effective for combat and health, is meant for spiritual cultivation.

              What should you do after such a fantastic attainment, which will surely give meaning and profundity to your life? Just carry on and enjoy your practice.
              Enjoy!

              Comment


              • #97
                Thank you, dear Brother!

                Your brother,

                Piti

                Comment


                • #98
                  Greetings!


                  Sifu Piti, thank you for the kind comments.

                  Chiahua, thank you for sharing your experiences and for the lovely story!

                  Sifu Johnny, thank you for sharing that amazing quote from Sigung.


                  In a post last week, I wrote:

                  Recent events in my life have gently shown me how very little I understood happiness, and how very much I can learn about happiness from here forth.

                  After reading Sigung's quote, I felt like I knew nothing about happiness.


                  Perhaps it is as a spiritual teacher in a book I read years ago often said:
                  "You don't know anything until you know everything."

                  Before, when I thought I knew everything, I was closed off to all the wonderful advice my seniors and juniors were offering to me. So I am happy now knowing nothing, because knowing nothing, I am open to everything.


                  Thanks again to everyone for sharing.

                  With an open heart,
                  Erica

                  Comment


                  • #99
                    Hi dear family,

                    I'd say the art of happieness is the art of letting go.
                    All suffering is created by craving. If you stop createing attechment you'll be free.
                    Out of the stillness the chirp of a bird is born and when the chirp is over it will die and be stillness again.. so don't be attachted to the beatiful sound. let it come and let it go. Go with the flow.

                    greetings
                    Benedikt Vennen
                    Shaolin Wahnam Germany

                    ______________________

                    May I be firm and resolute. may I be kind, compassionate, and friendly. May I be humble, calm, quiet, unruffled and serene. May I serve to be perfect. May I be perfect to serve.

                    Comment


                    • Hi everyone, I am now trying to write frequently in the spanish forum , but as I was around here, reading your comments I could not let this moment pass on me and share with you what I have come to realize about happiness, joy and bliss
                      As for Happiness, it is just a state of mind created by a simple action, I do something I want, feel happy
                      Now then.. Joy, is higher, cause eventhough it might be related to something i just did it makes me feel like I am in conection with something higher and bigger than I am, no wonder why Sigung says ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYY..... so much
                      As for bliss... it is just a glimps of the highest concius level I have had the chance to reach. For me is a connection with all the things that are around me, myself, people around me, people from other times and dimensions and spaces.

                      Thanks for letting me put this into words!
                      SFTH
                      DAN

                      Comment


                      • I´d make me very happy if people kept on writting their perspectives about this topic!
                        Regards
                        SFTH

                        Comment


                        • I remember there was a post about anger management in the Virtual Kwoon Forum.

                          Some dispute happened between me and my colleague. I harbor ill-feeling.

                          But i found myself already tired of feeling the hatred and anger at the end of the same day.

                          I don't know whether when one is tired of hating people and tired of feeling angry, does this means good? Or not good because it means giving up?

                          I just feel I don;t like to keep the ill-feeling for more than, i'll say, 5 minutes.

                          I want to get rid of the ill-feeling/anger/hatred before I start my Chikung practice. And when feeling so good after Chikung practice, I do not want to go back to the state of feeling angry and hatred towards others.
                          Jason Yap

                          修身

                          Comment


                          • Hi Jason,

                            to me your problem is another than anger or hatred. We all are no masters , and it happens that we are angry, even if we practice our Qi-Gong and smile from our hearts. But we all, you too, go forward.
                            Your Qi-Gong brings your problem to the surface. It is (as I see it) lack of self acceptance. You are accusing yourself of being angry. That means: you do not accept yourself, just in this moment.

                            Just look in a mirror, look in your eyes. That's YOU. With all your feelings, with all your history, with everything you have ever done, with all your past lives (if you believe in them). YOU. Singular in this world. You give this world an aspect: if you will go from here one day world won't be the same.
                            What you see in your mirrored eyes is you - today. Tomorrow you will be different. You are changing every minute. Just look into your eyes and smile at yourself.

                            The solution is, not to judge yourself. When being angry, just stop a moment and say: ah, I am angry again. But why? is there a reason? In this moment you are able to see the other person you are angry with. You might feel his feelings. And you can decide if you want to forgive him (and yourself) - or if you want not to see him again. If you are hurt by a person it is your decision if you let hurt yourself, or if you go away and let him alone.
                            The more you train this "stop" and look at your feelings without judging yourself, the more you will loose your angry feelings.

                            Together with this training it would be a good idea to ask yourself where your anger is coming from. There might be an old situation, long ago, maybe in your childhood ... perhaps you were not accepted by your parents the way you are? Maybe they wanted you to be kind and soft and quiet, but you were wild and energic and loud? maybe they gave you their love if you acted the way they wanted it? maybe you learned then to do the same, being angry to people who follow their own personality?

                            Of course this is only an example to show you how to look into your own past, your childhood, to look up situations making you reacting with anger today. If you find those situations try to let them go, and forgive those people concerned with. Your feelings will change then.

                            These are, of course, only my thoughts about what you said. It may all be different.
                            But there is a thing you can always do: Just put nice things around you that remind you to smile from your heart. E.g. put a smilie sticker on your bag. Or put a nice picture, e.g. of a location you love, as a computer monitor desktop.
                            Just a few days ago I found "by chance" this little thing in a store:



                            Everyday now it reminds me of smiling from my heart.

                            All my best,
                            confermezza
                            ... alles, alles, alles ist doch auf Liebe aufgebaut ..." (Ellen Auerbach, 1997)

                            Comment


                            • Confermezza,

                              Thanks for your advice.

                              When being angry, just stop a moment and say: ah, I am angry again. But why? is there a reason?
                              This method is useful. Why I am angry again.......

                              Of course this is only an example to show you how to look into your own past, your childhood, to look up situations making you reacting with anger today. If you find those situations try to let them go, and forgive those people concerned with. Your feelings will change then.
                              Yes, there are, I am still cannot cannot let go yet.

                              I am still analyzing your advice
                              Jason Yap

                              修身

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