UnbornTao

Oops, one day late. Happy birthday, Leo!

I was hinting at our tendency to conflate self-survival with happiness. The latter seems to be independent of circumstances. Still, not sure what it is.

Hey, this is essentially what I said here:

What do you mean by "that"? What we consider happiness, as a culture, is 'winning', accomplishment, success –things going your way. For example: Are we able to be happy when our wants aren't met or when we fail to avoid what we don't want? So, the substance of happiness still seems to elude us –something to look into.

You guys are speculating too much. Stay focused on the topic at hand. Recall a moment when you considered yourself to be genuinely happy, and ask yourself what that was about. We can start with that.

This sounds to me as "I don't know what it is."

Happiness will make you nothing!

To ground our contemplation: Is happiness getting what you want? Is it the rush of pleasure at accomplishing something? Is it the temporary relief of a successful self-survival -- or "winning"? Is it avoiding what you don't want? Is it being free from some threat, pain or fear? Our relationship with happiness may be similar to a hamster running on a wheel, chasing a cheese that it will never reach. We think of happiness as the cheese, but perhaps it isn't. Are we in actuality able to be happy regardless of circumstances, whether our wants and needs are met or not? What does this say about happiness and our confusion?

We haven't accessed insight into what happiness is.

Maybe, and this doesn't say much about its nature. An answer is an answer, after all. Insight into it is the goal. To contemplate it, we might imagine the following: We are Neanderthals without "language." What has to occur so that that context or invention takes place? What is the distinction of language itself? What occurs in one's experience that allows for language to show up? How does it really come about? Some questions.

So, what is happiness? I assert we don't know what it really is.

We could try to take a look at what language is, contemplate it, not assuming that we know what it is already-

Where did you hear about it? It originally wasn't an experience of yours. You wouldn't have come up with that particular concept/name and the associated ideas if you hadn't heard of them from an outside source. This is important to acknowledge. Without the obviously superficial interpretation of the belief system: What's experienced? Perhaps an intense bodily state, likely precipitated by your cosmology relative to this matter, adding a particular meaning, trying to reinforce your world-concept. You say that you experience something –whose nature is by the way unknown– and then hearsay is superimposed onto it. Without reference to belief, what's experienced is still up for grabs; your interpretation of it is filtered through the lens of your biases, beliefs, desires and worldview. So, is it real? I don't know. Is it relevant?

Nice.

My bad, I meant to mention @aurum.