Awareness and Happiness

[Cooper5362]

I have the current guess that awareness brings understanding but happiness requires action.  I will investigate the validity of this guess on this thread.

[Cooper5362]

Awareness is like understandin​g. You can be cool about things understandin​g them. Happiness takes action though. Awareness can improve the action you take, but doesn't deliver it on its own.  This is another part of my guess.

[MasterMischief]

Awareness can improve the action you take, but doesn't deliver it on its own.

Or does it?

Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. – Lao Tzu

We want what we can not have.  The grass is always greener.

Perhaps the secret is that we only need become aware of our happiness.

[Cooper5362]

Is it morally correct to be happen knowing so many suffer?  I think Lao Tzu missed that.

[MasterMischief]

Worry

Worry is a problem that seems to be rampant. Perhaps it is due to the nature of our overly advanced civilization; perhaps it is a measure of our own spiritual degeneracy. Whatever the source, it is clear that worry is not useful. It is a cancer of the emotions -- concern gone compulsive. It eats away at body and mind.
It does no good to say, "Don't think about it." You'll only worry more. It is far better to keep walking your path, changing what you can. The rest must be dissolved in compassion. In this world of infants with immune deficiencies, racial injustice, economic imbalance, personal violence, and international conflict, it is impossible to address everyone's concerns. Taking care of yourself and doing something good for those whom you meet is enough. That is compassion, and we must exercise it even in the face of the overwhelming odds.

Whenever you meet a problem, help if it is in your power to do so. After you have acted, withdraw and be unconcerned about it. Walk on without ever mentioning it to anybody. Then there is no worry, because there has been action.

I struggle with this myself.  How can one claim to be compassionate and do nothing about the injustices in the world?  I do not have the answers.  Perhaps we should look to the great men and women who have defeated injustice.  How did they do it?  Was it alone?  Was it that they became an example others could not ignore?  Even the Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. did not bring about change overnight or alone.

Also, is it a crime not to live up to the legend of a Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr.?  If you make the world better for just one person, how can you say that is not important?  It is certainly important for that one person.

[Cooper5362]

That is a very good point.  You have put a lot of wisdom into that post.  I think sadness can be something apart from worry though.  True, don't fret, do what you can.  But doesn't compassion call forth sadness when you know there are decisions you won't impact?  Of course don't wallow in it.  But isn't there a measure of happiness that crossed the line to insensitivity?

[MasterMischief]

I am only passing on what I have found.  It has helped me.

I do not think we can ever wipe out suffering.  Suffering and happiness may be opposite sides of the same coin and we may destroy both by destroying one.  For how could one exists without the other.  Perhaps that also gives us our answer.  We can not always be happy anymore than we can always suffer.  Life must be a balance of all things.

Manure

When you water your plants, you sometimes have to feed them. Manure is an excellent way to feed plants.
Isn't that funny? Something that is so repellent when stuck to your shoe is so important to sustaining life.

In the fields, everything is saved. Night soil helps things grow. We grow vegetables, eat vegetables, excrete vegetables, and give the waste back to the soil so that vegetables can grow again. Truly, it is said : Everything is only borrowed.

The same is true of the misfortune, failures, and disappointments of life. If we understand the importance of manure, we understand that nothing is truly wasted. Everything can be useful if correctly applied. Therefore, even the bad things in life may become fertilizer that will help us grow and become strong.

Insensitivity would be happiness at someone else's suffering.  I think we should take every opportunity to find happiness where we can, just as we should take every opportunity to ease suffering where we can.

Again, who can say that helping one person is any less worthy than helping a hundred?  If only everyone helped but just one person.

[Cooper5362]

Your points are very good ones MasterMischief.  A question still remains though.  The universe delivers pain and suffering without our help.  Happiness will no more extinguish, than the suffering of reality itself.  Earthquakes will crush, volcanoes will burn, tornadoes will rip.  There is no shortage of suffering for us to help one another and discover happiness.  Eating will bring death.

What of the suffering we choose though?  Are we doing the right thing to accept a person who does more harm than good and preserve them at the expense of life?  Is that a proper happiness?  Isn't it fair, and probably even proper, to allow ourselves the mourning of freedom misused?

[MasterMischief]

I can not help but think you are being somewhat cryptic, perhaps in hopes of getting the advice you want.  I am happy to help, but you should be honest with yourself.  No one can know what is best for you better than you can.

We do often inflict our own suffering and then are quick to blame everyone but ourselves for that suffering.  Only when we take responsibility can we empower ourselves to break this cycle.

Some people are toxic and are best avoided whenever possible.

Ultimately, we can only change ourselves.  Stop wishing others to change.  Do what is right and succeed or fail content that you did the best you could.  No more can be asked of you.

[Cooper5362]

Very true.  I've just noticed all the great men in history never really seemed fully happy.  Will and determination?  Of course.  Turmoil seems to always chase them and it's usually a product of poor choices by others, if not sometimes of their own doing.