“We are addicted to pleasure, in part because we confuse pleasure with happiness. We would all say that deep down, all we want is to be happy. Yet we don’t have a realistic understanding of what happiness really is. Happiness is closer to the experience of acceptance and contentment than it is to pleasure. TrueContinue reading “Reading from Class: Happiness by Noah Levine”
Tag Archives: Acceptance
Reading from Class: “Welcome the Present…”
“Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have so you might as well work with it rather than struggling against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy – Pema Chodron I believe I got this from my friend andContinue reading “Reading from Class: “Welcome the Present…””
Reading: Serenity Prayer
Continuing on the theme of True Happiness by way of acceptance and presence, I wanted to share the serenity prayer, which sums up a lot of what the practice has afforded me. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom toContinue reading “Reading: Serenity Prayer”
Readings from Class July 2013: Presence + Acceptance = Happiness
“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence on the future; not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach.”― Lucius Annaeus Seneca “We are addicted to pleasure, inContinue reading “Readings from Class July 2013: Presence + Acceptance = Happiness”
Reading from Class: Acceptance of the Ordinary
“We must be willing to be completely ordinary people, which means accepting ourselves as we are without trying to become greater, purer, more spiritual, more insightful. If we can accept our imperfections as they are, quite ordinarily, then we can use them as part of the path. But if we try to get rid ofContinue reading “Reading from Class: Acceptance of the Ordinary”
Reading From Class: Ajahn Sumedho’s wise words revisited
“To practice we must start exactly where we are. Of course, we can always imagine perfect conditions, how it should be ideally, how everyone else should behave. But it’s not our task to create an ideal. It’s our task to see how it is and to learn from the world as it is. For theContinue reading “Reading From Class: Ajahn Sumedho’s wise words revisited”