Category: Happiness

A recent NYT article about a young American couple living in Finland provides some interesting observations. Here’re some highlights.

When capitalists perceive government as a logistical ally rather than an ideological foe and when all citizens have a stake in high-quality public institutions, it’s amazing how well government can get things done.

Nordic nations as a whole, including a majority of their business elites, have arrived at a simple formula: Capitalism works better if employees get paid decent wages and are supported by high-quality, democratically accountable public services that enable everyone to live healthy, dignified lives and to enjoy real equality of opportunity for themselves and their children. For us, that has meant an increase in our personal freedoms and our political rights — not the other way around.

Nordic capitalists are not dumb. They know that they will still earn very handsome financial returns even after paying their taxes. They keep enough of their profits to live in luxury, wield influence and acquire social status. There are several dozen Nordic billionaires. Nordic citizens are not dumb, either. If you’re a member of the robust middle class in Finland, you generally get a better overall deal for your combined taxes and personal expenditures, as well as higher-quality outcomes, than your American counterparts — and with far less hassle.

Why would the wealthy in Nordic countries go along with this? Some Nordic capitalists actually believe in equality of opportunity and recognize the value of a society that invests in all of its people. But there is a more prosaic reason, too: Paying taxes is a convenient way for capitalists to outsource to the government the work of keeping workers healthy and educated, liberating businesses to focus on what they do best: business.

Even well-positioned Americans now struggle under debilitating pressures, and a majority inhabit a treacherous Wild West where poverty, homelessness, medical bankruptcy, addiction and incarceration can be just a bit of bad luck away. Americans are told that this is freedom and that it is the most heroic way to live.

Again, when capitalists perceive government as a logistical ally rather than an ideological foe, life gets better for everyone. Fins report extraordinarily high levels of life satisfaction. And for the second year in a row, Finland is ranked as the happiest country on earth.

I’m not sure what enlightenment really means. But it does seem fascinating.

Some people have probably attained it. But most people don’t really talk about it directly because they think it’s taboo. But why is that?

A guy in this 2004 article  who says he’s enlightened does talk about it directly and has some interesting takes on it based on his direct experience.

I do find it a little weird that an American named Steve Gray decided to change his name to Adyashanti. He says he had an awakening at 31 and  decided to teach about it.

I think changing your name to Adyshanti would only add to the unusualness of an unusual subject that he wants to normalize. It’s a minor point though and he’s decidedly not woo woo. I just extracted the parts of the article I found interesting. Go ahead Steve.

When I looked around at the Buddhist tradition, I realized that the success rate was terrible. People were in it for enlightenment, but very few were actually getting enlightened. If this were a business, I thought, we’d be bankrupt.

I didn’t reject anything. I just stopped blindly adhering to the traditional approach, and the energy bound up in following the traditional approach transferred to looking deeply into what’s really true.

Enlightenment is awakening from the dream of being a separate me to being the universal reality. It’s not an experience or a perception that occurs to a separate person as the result of spiritual practice or cultivated awareness. It doesn’t come and go, and you don’t need to do anything to maintain it. It’s not about being centered or blissful or peaceful or any other experience. In fact, enlightenment is a permanent nonexperience that happens to nobody. The separate person is seen through, and you realize that only the supreme, universal reality exists, and that you are that.

The tradition of talking about certain experiences only in private with your teacher keeps enlightenment a secret activity reserved for special people.

We sit around casually and talk about it. What’s happening on the inside for people isn’t kept secret or hidden. This way, people get beyond the sense that they’re the only ones who are having this or that experience. They come out of their shell, which actually makes them more available to a deeper spiritual process. When everything remains open to inquiry, then even the ego’s tendency to claim enlightenment for itself becomes obvious in the penetrating light of public discourse.

In the long run, both ways have their strengths and weaknesses. I’ve found that having students ask their questions in public breaks down the isolation many spiritual people feel—the sense that nobody else could possibly understand what they’re going through, or that they’re so rotten at their practice, or that nobody could be struggling like they are.

When people have breakthroughs and talk about them in public, awakening loses its mystique. Everyone else can see that it’s not just special people who have deep awakenings, it’s their neighbor or their best friend.

The very notion that anybody attains enlightenment is a taboo. We’re all going after this, but God forbid somebody says they’ve realized it.

People are chasing an awakening they don’t believe could happen to them. That’s a barrier, and the biggest one. People want liberation, but they are also terrified of it.

I didn’t leave Buddhism. I just woke up out of the identity of being a Buddhist, as anyone who wakes up will. I’m not teaching to transmit a tradition or carry on a lineage; I’m teaching to awaken whoever may be interested in awakening.

When is time to stop going to the circus?

If you started seeing reports about a large number of clowns molesting young children at  circuses, would you continue going to the circus? Probably not, especially if you have kids.

Why should the Catholic church get a pass (over and over) for priests who are child rapists? What about the continued cover ups and the slap-on-the-wrist punishments for the offenders ?

Revelations in the Catholic church’s decades-long child-rape and sex abuse scandals revealed “a repulsive institution — or at least one permeated by repulsive human beings who reward one another for repulsive acts, all the while deigning to lecture the world about its sin.” That was situation described by a Catholic as the straw that broke the camel’s back, compelling him to finally leave the church. 

These are some book notes and takeaways from Dereck Sivers he came away with from Mark Manson’s book, “THE SUBLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*CK.”

The key to a good life is giving a fuck about less, and giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important. Learn how to focus and prioritize your thoughts effectively – how to pick and choose what matters to you and what does not matter to you based on finely honed personal values.

Say “fuck it” to everything unimportant in life.

The point isn’t to get away from the shit. The point is to find the shit you enjoy dealing with.

What most pampered people consider “life problems” are really just side effects of not having anything more important to worry about.

Suffering is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change.

Happiness comes from solving problems. To be happy we need something to solve.

Nobody who’s actually happy stands in front of a mirror and tells himself that he’s happy.

If you feel crappy it’s because your brain is telling you that there’s a problem that’s unaddressed or unresolved. Negative emotions are a call to action and positive emotions are rewards for taking the proper action.

Just because something feels good doesn’t mean it’s good. Just because something feels bad doesn’t mean it’s bad. Emotions are merely signposts or suggestions. Make a habit of questioning them.

People over-identify with their emotions. Emotional intuition, without the aid of reason to keep it in line, sucks.

I was in love with the result, but I wasn’t in love with the process. And because of that, I failed at it. The common cultural narratives would tell me that I gave up on my dream. The truth is, I thought I wanted something, but it turns out I didn’t. End of story.

The easier and more problem-free our lives become, the more we seem to feel entitled for them to get even better.

Technology has solved old economic problems and given us new psychological problems.

The rare people who do become truly exceptional at something do so because they’re obsessed with improvement, which stems from an unerring belief that they are, in fact, not that great at all. It’s anti-entitlement.

The vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy, and that’s okay. Accepting your mundane existence will free you to accomplish what you truly wish to accomplish, without judgment or lofty expectations.

If what we value is poorly chosen, then everything will be out of whack.

Good values are
1) reality-based
2) socially constructive
3) immediate and controllable.

Bad values are
1) superstitious
2) socially destructive
3) not immediate or controllable.

If you’re miserable in your current situation, it’s because you feel like some part of it is outside your control – it’s a problem you have no ability to solve, or a problem that was thrust upon you without your choosing.

William James conducted a little experiment. Spend one year believing that he was 100 percent responsible for everything that occurred in his life, no matter what. During this period, he’d do everything in his power to change his circumstances, no matter the likelihood of failure. James would later refer to his little experiment as his “rebirth,” and would credit it with everything that he later accomplished in his life.

We are responsible for everything in our lives. We always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond.

Change is as simple as choosing to give a fuck about something else. It really is that simple. It’s just not easy.

An educated mind can entertain a thought without accepting it.

If you’re stuck on a problem, don’t sit there and think about it; just start working on it. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, the simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head.

To build trust you have to be honest. That means when things suck, you say so openly.

The only way to achieve meaning and a sense of importance in one’s life is through a rejection of alternatives, a narrowing of freedom, a choice of commitment to one place, one belief, or one person.

Travel shows you that another society can live with entirely different values and still function.