Happy, happy, joy, joy

Sometimes it amazes me how happy I am. Considering where I come from, WHAT I come from, where I've been, what I've seen, it's a pretty impressive feat to feel the joy I do. It can only be attributed to grace. And maybe some luck. Hmmm, luck and grace, same thing? Not really.

"Tis grace that brought me safe thus far...."

Happiness and satisfaction are different things. We all can see room for improvement in our lives, in ourselves, in those around us, in our choices. That's a necessary thing, otherwise, we would not grow, we would not make the changes we need to make to become who we are. And I think you can be temporarily satisfied fairly easily but long term happiness comes from inside. You cannot create happiness. You can get things out of the way so you can feel it but you can't MAKE it happen.

The Dalai Lama said "Happiness IS our natural state, our purpose in life is to be happy"

I remember when I read that the first time years ago. I was appalled. I come from a land of "whoever is the most miserable wins". Trouble equals attention. Happiness feels weird and means it's your job to take care of all the misery. In Christianity we are taught that it's all about suffering and then we get to add that big ole guilt trip of Jesus suffering and dying for our sins and how we need to be remorseful and pay penance. It is bad to feel good. We must suffer. Because life just isn't miserable enough on it's own.

Zen philosophy has a saying, "Why lay your head on a rock when a pillow is nearby?"

If Jesus died for our sins, why would he want us to continue suffering? Isn't the whole goal that we feed His sheep? And when you do that, doesn't it make you HAPPY? Mmmmm. Why do we pretend and create hardship when we have all we need already?

We don't meditate to find answers. The answers are already there. We meditate to uncover them. We spend our whole lives being conditioned, we are taught what to feel, what to say, how to act, what is right, what is wrong, who to hate, who to love. Everything we believe to be true has been told to us by others. In books, on TV, in our homes. It becomes impossible to hear that "small still voice". We have to learn to let go of all the other voices, even our own.

So we begin the process of dropping. Every thought that comes up, we drop. We let it go, we do not attach it to us, we wait. It can take years. God doesn't speak in words.

One day we get a glimpse. And "ten thousand doors" open all at once. And we continue dropping. LOL...kinda like when you get tree for the first time and you get so excited that you fall over. And then you have to get over the excitement.....

As time goes on and I have dedicated myself to this truth pilgrimage and have learned to slowly continue to let go of all my conditioning, I have seen the glimpse.

The glimpse is happiness. And when you stop looking it's there.

Amazing.