How happy are you?

  • 10%
  • 20%
  • 30%
  • 40%
  • 50%
  • 60%
  • 70%
  • 80%
  • 90%
  • 100

0 voters

I just like to have a poll on this.
If you do not know the answer just think the question they ask in the hospitals to express your pain from one to ten.
If you wish you can give the reasons for your unhappiness.
Others can help by giving ways to increase your happiness.
The objective of this exercise is not to compare your happiness with others.
Just to learn that suffering as universal.
According to Buddha’s teaching, you will be 100% happy only if you become an Arahant.
Please use the following Sutta as a guide for your score.

Please note that there are four different English translation to chose from.

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50% expresses the idea of ups and downs in life, rather than a strict calculation of my happiness levels.

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I voted 50% too.
I have no any reasons to be unhappy about my life.
However I have some un satisfaction about the life.
Now I think it is coming from that I am too much into Buddhism. (perhaps it is my escapegoat)
As I am highly restrain in my five senses I can’t get any happiness there. (except when I eat something)
I do not meditate much ( I can’t attain any Jhana) so I do not experience the happiness of the not of flesh either.
Perhaps only thing what I should do now is to spent more time on meditation so I can attain at least first Jhana.

I like to know the opinion of our monastics in this forum @Vimala @sujato @Brahmali @Dhammanando etc to see how they keep themselves happy without five code of sensuality.

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I’m joining the 50% club. Happiness comes and goes.

Contentment is something different. It’s the absence of lacking.

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It appears that SC, we are a bunch of mediocre people.
See how exciting the DW crowd is.
:rofl:

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=30709&hilit=

To me what matters is not absolute levels of happiness, but whether I am getting happier. The point of the Buddhist path is to move us gradually towards greater and greater happiness, more and more contentment, and a gradual lessening of suffering. If it doesn’t, we need to carefully contemplate why. I can definitely say that the path is working for me in this respect. :grinning:

23 Likes

Very true!

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I prefer to see us as balanced :grin:

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I don’t know how to quantify my happiness and unhappiness. But they are both normal and fairly unpredictable.

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I voted 70%, which appears to be quite an optimistics outlook compared to what others have voted (I’m clearly an outlier here).

But that’s not so surprising. I’m often finding the glass to be half empty rather than half full - but being so intent on emptyness that’s a positive sign :wink: .

I have all I could expect from life in term of the 5 requisites, so that covers the basic 50% to me.

I have a good job that doesn’t stress me at all, so that’s another 10%. And familly life is not ideal, but there’s not much I can do about it, so that’s worth another 10%.

I honnestly don’t know how I could get an extra 30% right now. Asking for what the world can not give me is not going to get me there. So may be I’m even higher than 70%.

Now that I’m thinking about it (the supporting conditions for happiness) I am sure I am at 100% (I do have a mind, and I am still alive). But realizing those conditions into actual happiness is most likely the delta.

But I have no doubt that the gap will shrink astime goes by and I get wiser and wiser :D.

Now the important questions are how far could this gap shrinking excercise go (if I’m not totally deluded :D) and whether the basic assumption made here (70%) is not overreaching by a margin or worse - an order of magnitude :smiley: !!!

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I don’t understand what words like “happy” or “unhappy” means anymore, so it’s like asking how big is your mind and so on …

my aim is true :slight_smile:

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I see your point. As a child, I could not understand what up and down means. Even as an adult I struggle to understand what up and down means. Now, I call anything above my eye level as up and anything below my eye level as down. Even it is not a perfect expression when I talk about my upper body and lower body.
Having said that do you have some unhappy feelings at all? At least sometimes?

Are you aware of the equanimity of the householder?
I know my question is biased towards the Buddhism as it assumes that the Nibbana is the highest.

Definitions and words have lost it’s meaning in every sense, because I can’t find any dividing line between me and experiences, - so there are no up or down, inside or outside, just this knowing of unknowing now, and that’s fine :slight_smile:

I am talking about pleasant feeling, Unpleasant feeling, and neutral feelings.
Now I think, natural feelings cannot be included in the happiness scale.
Hence what I am trying to measure here is the Pithy and Sukha.

Well, you’re still using them & reading them & understanding them, so that’s not quite accurate. Sounds like Zen Sickness to me. After all, if you can’t tell the difference between pleasant & unpleasant, or between wholesome & unwholesome, you’re not really engaging the Dhamma.

But, maybe that makes you happy? If you can stop pretending you forgot how language works, anyway…

2 Likes

Hello @SarathW1,

No, I am not aware of this specifc type of equanimity. Can you elaborate?

I am trying to locate the Sutta reference.
Can any other member help or explain this?

How can one say anything at all that makes dhamma sense when we only have words and concepts made for the worldly and not the trancendent planes?

Feel free to ask me questions based on your own experience instead of judging me based on basically your own fantasies and something you read in books about practice and possible attainments!

"Now, O monks, what is worldly equanimity? There are these five cords of sensual desire: forms cognizable by the eye… tangibles cognizable by the body that are wished for and desired, agreeable and endearing, associated with sense desire and alluring. It is the equanimity that arises with regard to these five cords of sense desire which is called ‘worldly equanimity.’

This world is full of suffering, so one must learn to live or bear with it eg. seeing an ex with another but no longer affected since meeting a new boy/girlfriend.

"Now, what is unworldy equanimity? With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of gladness and sadness, a monk enters upon and abides in the fourth meditative absorption, which has neither pain-nor-pleasure and has purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. This is called ‘unworldly equanimity.’

This is equanimity from practising the jhanas

"And what is the still greater unworldly equanimity? When a taint-free monk looks upon his mind that is freed of greed, freed of hatred and freed of delusion, then there arises equanimity. This is called a ‘still greater unworldly equanimity.’

Equanimity having seen the emptiness of phenomenon ie. impermanence, unsatisfactory, selfless nature.

Tipitaka: The Pali Canon … .nypo.html

Further discussion:

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=21428&start=20

1 Like