Everything we do is in pursuit of ultimate happiness. It is our innate desire and motivates our every action. The purpose of meditation is to make our mind peaceful and calm and to free ourselves of worry and stress. If we eliminate mental discomfort we should experience true happiness. My 4th new adventure took me to the Deprung Monastery to take a class in meditation. When I entered the meditation room, I immediately felt a sense of calm. Geshe Ngawang Phende was the monk who led the session. When he started talking about our journey of happiness, I knew I would enjoy the class. He seemed like one of the most enjoyable people I’ve ever been around. I would love to befriend him. I wonder if he has a facebook?
He spoke about our desire for happiness and how everything we did was in that ultimate pursuit. He spoke about how we tend to “buy” ourselves unhappiness, in work or relationships. We always complicate our lives by not being able to control simple emotions. If we experience the feeling of unhappiness, we tend to show the world that feeling and the negative feeling is contagious. Therefore, it’s like a roller coaster affect of unhappiness. By learning to meditate we are about to gradually train ourselves to become more peaceful and experience a purer form of happiness. Eventually, we will be able to be happy to be happy even in the most difficult of situations. Phende explained that it’s okay to have a wandering mind. That instinctively our mind focuses on ALL aspects of life, good or bad. Learning meditation will help alleviate some of the worries and insecurities. I find it very difficult to concentrate on one topic for very long. He called this a monkey mind. It is a consciousness that jumps all over the place and is driven by external circumstances. By training in meditation, we create clarity that enables us to control our mind regardless of the external circumstances. Gradually we develop mental equilibrium, a balanced mind that is happy all the time, rather than an unbalanced mind that fluctuates between the extremes of excitement and depressions. “If we train in meditation systematically, eventually we will be able to eradicate from our mind the delusions that are the causes of all our problems and suffering. In this way, we will come to experience a permanent inner peace, known as “liberation” or “nirvana”. Then, day and night in life after life, we will experience only peace and happiness.”
I learned that happiness is the key. Life is simple and short. It’s true that we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff. We live to be happy and to be good. I will definitely go back and try to train my monkey mind a little better. Today, I am happy.
http://www.drepung.org/
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