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What if our relentless pursuit of happiness is the very thing making us miserable? This thought-provoking conversation between MyongAhn Sunim and Dr. Ruben Lambert dives deep into our complicated relationship with happiness, challenging the notion that it should be our default emotional state.
Starting with a listener question about happiness as an "inalienable right," the hosts unravel how our definitions and expectations shape our experience. They draw clear distinctions between fleeting pleasure and deeper contentment, explaining how happiness and suffering exist in an inseparable relationship – like yin and yang, day and night. One cannot exist without the other, yet humans persistently try to have just half the equation.
The dialogue takes fascinating turns through Eastern medicine principles, where excessive happiness is understood to damage the heart just as other emotional extremes harm different organs. Using vivid metaphors like the sky with passing clouds or a projector screen displaying changing images, the hosts illustrate how our true self remains unchanged beneath the emotional weather patterns of daily life.
Perhaps most powerful is their examination of how we surrender our power to external sources – relationships, possessions, achievements – expecting them to deliver happiness. "The greater the degree to which something can make you happy equals the greater degree to which it can make you miserable," MyongAhn SUnim notes, explaining why we're most hurt by those closest to us. This perspective reveals the wisdom in cultivating "koyo" – a state of stillness and peace that serves as solid ground while emotions naturally rise and fall.
The conversation doesn't dismiss happiness as unimportant but reframes it as one of many valuable emotional experiences rather than life's ultimate goal. Through examples ranging from retirement fantasies to advertising manipulation, they show how attachment to happiness often leads to its opposite.
Whether you're struggling with emotional extremes, feeling pressured to be constantly happy, or simply curious about Zen perspectives on well-being, this episode offers practical wisdom for a more balanced approach to life's inevitable ups and downs. Subscribe now and join us in exploring what true contentment might look like beyond the happiness trap.
Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com
Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
MyongAhn Sunim (00:15):
Welcome back episode 11 of the World Through
the Eyes podcast.
I'm Jan Sunin here with DrRuben Lambert and we are back
for another fan mail.
I'm going to stop saying fanmail.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (00:32):
No, it's just great that people are really
listening, participating andcontemplating things and giving
us some feedback.
So again, thank you very much.
MyongAhn Sunim (00:40):
We really appreciate that Absolutely we do
.
It does make this somethingother than just the two of us
having a chit-chat.
It does feel like we're talkingwith.
Hopefully it doesn't feel toyou like we're talking at, but
we're talking with the listeners, especially when these
(01:03):
questions come in or thesesuggestions and in this case,
questions, suggestions, but alsoa bit of a perspective already
built into the question.
So, anyway, this is what's onthe table.
Thank you for the gift of thispodcast.
(01:28):
I'd like to suggest happiness asa topic In general.
I think many people have highexpectations about being happy.
For example, in the context ofthe US, the Declaration of
Independence refers to life,liberty and the pursuit of
happiness as inalienable rights.
However, by expecting ordemanding happiness to be our
(01:53):
default state of being, we canunintentionally increase our own
suffering.
What can we learn from Zenprinciples about developing a
healthier perception ofhappiness?
Does the alleviation ofsuffering mean happiness or
something more like neutrality?
Can we still pursue our ownhappiness and that of others
(02:15):
without being attached to orclinging to the idea of
happiness?
It's a mouthful.
It asks questions, but alsoanswers questions from the Zen
perspective as well.
So the listener clearly has anunderstanding of Zen, at least
(02:41):
its larger principles andhappiness and things of that
nature.
So, as per usual, I think italways calls to the need to
define terms If you have notlistened to the very first of
(03:01):
our podcast episodes.
First of our podcast episodes,which ended up sort of being a
general disclaimer perhaps forthe podcast in general, words on
words, and we talked aboutwords and meaning of words and
how words have been eitherweaponized or kind of defanged.
(03:25):
And anyway, throughout the,throughout the podcast, we've
weaved this idea of words havinga meaning.
That's assigned to them by, say, the websters, but they also
have a meaning assigned to us byan individual right and it's
(03:46):
which word, which definition arewe working with?
I mean, we must forget, wemustn't forget that the Tower of
Babel is a real thing.
We are in it, not in the factthat necessarily you speak
Spanish, I speak Polish, knowpolish, let's say and this and
that, but in the sense that wecould speak the same language
(04:08):
and yet just can't get an ideaacross because and and this
could, this could get you knowwe can't do it in the day-to-day
conversations, I think, becausethe conversations would get
very technical and this and that.
But when it comes to discussinga point, I think it's a good
(04:32):
idea to get some bearing as towhat in fact it is that we're
discussing.
And arguments, interpersonal,intersort, of ideological,
political, religious, whateverare frequently hinged on the
(04:52):
fact that it appears that thetwo parties are talking about
the same thing.
But when you listen a littlebit closely, you realize that
they're talking about theirindividual definition of the
word and the concept of the word, and they're arguing up on it
as if they're talking about thesame thing, which they're not.
So the arguments made for oragainst an idea from one
(05:15):
perspective, who, who are aperson who's working with a
different definition than theother person, it's what are we
talking about?
What are we arguing about?
There has to be some groundrules, in a sense, of what it is
that we're talking about, andso I think things like, for
example, you mentioned, excuseme, definitions.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (05:39):
right, there's a general definition for
any term.
Let's say, one thing that I wasthinking about was temperature,
and you could look updefinitions of, let's say, hot
and cold, right, and then youhave the individual experience
of those things.
And it could be completely.
I see this with like my parents, for example, when it comes to
just hot and cold.
MyongAhn Sunim (05:59):
Who's hot?
I'm hot, who's cold?
What do you mean?
You're hot, I'm cold.
Who's cold?
What do you mean?
You're hot, I'm cold?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (06:03):
My mother's always cold, my dad is always
hot.
So when they ask each otherthat question, they're using the
words and the terms to describetheir experience.
MyongAhn Sunim (06:12):
But the person is perceiving it from a
completely different angle.
Yeah, it really, really is.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (06:19):
My mom can ask my dad oh, is it going to be
hot out there?
MyongAhn Sunim (06:28):
And my dad's like, oh, is it going to be hot
out there?
And my dad's like, oh, yeah,it's hot.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (06:28):
And then my mother goes outside.
She says it's freezing outside.
You're like okay, what worldbring your jacket?
What world are the two you'reliving in?
It's just, but they're usingthe words hot and cold yeah,
that's perfectly, that'sperfectly cool yeah people are,
they're just yeah.
MyongAhn Sunim (06:38):
So let's, let's, let's kind of unpack a little
bit the idea or the wordhappiness or the definition with
which we're.
You know, I think the biggest,or the first maybe, place to
start is happiness versuspleasure.
Yes, because happiness isfrequently thought of as
(07:03):
pleasure, right, and not alwaysthe case, not by everybody.
All right is frequently thoughtof as pleasure, not always the
case, not by everybody.
All right, everybody.
Put down your keyboards, don'tclickety-clackety just yet.
Not me, all right, let me putit this way Sometimes people,
when they speak of happiness,it's synonymous with a state of
pleasure, something pleasurableis going on, et cetera, et
(07:29):
cetera.
So we have to consider thatelement.
Also, we have to consider thenuance, spend the spectrum of
(07:51):
contentment, satisfaction,happiness, excitement, elation
and mania and ecstasy.
Sure, right.
So it could be that wholespectrum if your definition is
wherever it lands.
So I guess the whole thing willdepend on what personal
(08:20):
definition of happiness is goingto be.
Personal definition ofhappiness is going to be.
The listener pens it against.
Does the alleviation ofsuffering mean happiness?
And we could say, yes, right,the absence or the alleviation
(08:41):
of suffering is a happiness, orthe alleviation of suffering is
a happiness.
But then consider sadism andmasochism, right?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (08:57):
So again this thing.
Well, I I think the sadism andmasochistic ideas also fall in
line with what you werereferring to just right before
that, where you have almost likethis range of happiness and
then if you cross a line or yougo into an extreme, then you
have some terms that even inclinical psychology we actually
don't consider as adaptive orfunctional for daily life, which
(09:19):
is states of ecstasy and statesof euphoria, which are closely
tied to the term that I usethere, mania, which, if you look
at the definition of a manicepisode, you can see that a lot
of the things that a person doesin that state of mind doesn't
lead to a happy life when theywake up out of their manic state
(09:39):
.
MyongAhn Sunim (09:40):
But in that moment they're feeling that.
They're feeling that they'rehappy, they're uber happy.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (09:45):
Yeah, there's no sense of control there,
there's no sense of limit, right.
So, yes, they're happy.
But then there's this endlesspursuit of pleasure, soul
pleasure.
And then I think back toremember when we went to go see
the Buddha play in New York, theone-man show.
Ah yes, that was really nice.
(10:05):
And one of the things that hesaid there is like he was
playing the role of the Buddha.
And I think Mara comes and saysto the Buddha, who was
Siddhartha Gautama at the time.
He tells him to stop hispursuit of enlightenment and he
says I believe something likethat.
I will grant you one mountainfull of gold or something.
And then in the play, thegentleman playing
Suddathagottama responds andsays no, I would not want that
(10:28):
because I know the human mind.
MyongAhn Sunim (10:35):
After you, give me one mountain full of gold
after some time.
Yeah yeah, if the rain werethrown to gold, even then our
greed will not be satiated.
So, yes, an element or orcontrol is always a thing, so we
could tie that to wisdom.
Sure, happy, how happy, ishappy enough.
(10:55):
Enough and because one could behappy.
And if your happiness isdependent or built on the backs
and necks of others, is ithappiness?
You know it's happiness forthat person, right?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (11:14):
it's their own personal happiness and
somebody else's personal at thecost of what right I mean then,
right there, when you describeit like that, then I just think
ebenezer scrooge type ofhappiness, right, right until he
gets I'm happy but taking awayfrom somebody else does that
bring me happiness, right?
So that means theirdissatisfaction, their pain is
(11:35):
my pleasure, and of course, uh,grapes of wrath, if I must.
MyongAhn Sunim (11:40):
Uh, tom is having conversation with someone
and the person goes well, youknow, you just got to make a
living.
And Tom says, yeah, I wish onecould make a living without
taking it away from another.
And so this idea of happiness,from the Zen perspective, or
(12:07):
psychological perspective tooyou mentioned mania and this
kind of extreme it's, it's ahostage situation.
In a sense it's a blackmailsituation.
The happiness is dependent onunhappiness for its very
existence and vice versa.
It's this yin-yang, the um-yangelement that we cannot have one
(12:29):
without the other.
You cannot enjoy a meal if youdon't know hunger.
And this goes with thirst andany form of joy and happiness,
and they are codependent in thatsense.
So the very pure approach is towant one thing without
(12:55):
understanding that the other,its shadow, is.
This is the sort of buildingblocks towards one's suffering.
Is this is the sort of buildingblocks towards one's suffering?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (13:08):
Ultimately yes.
MyongAhn Sunim (13:08):
It's going to build you out of your happiness
if you're expecting happinessand happiness only, and also
forget the fact that happiness,like I said, is the other side
of the coin of suffering theother side of the coin of
suffering, and so this happinessis a slippery, slippery fellow.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (13:32):
I think that's a very good point
understanding it with theyin-yang perspective, keeping
that in mind, where there'snight, there's day, where
there's day, there's night.
Where there's light, there'sshadow.
And there's a very good pointthat you make there it's human
beings want half the equationonly.
And just by wanting half theequation, right there alone,
(13:53):
you're already causing so muchsuffering, because, as the
Buddha says, all things areimpermanent.
That includes happiness too.
And one makes the other.
So the absence of sadness makeshappiness.
But then the absence ofhappiness makes sadness.
And if you, let's say, justlook at those individual parts
(14:13):
and you become attached to that,so you, let's say, are eating
your favorite slice of pizza andyou're very happy, what happens
after that last bite?
You're full, but automaticallynow you're left wanting more.
And it's in that wanting moreand that craving more that you
might feel disappointed.
MyongAhn Sunim (14:35):
But that automatically came.
What is enough?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (14:37):
How do you find that state of being full
enough and understanding that,yes, this happy moment, surely,
will now come to an end?
MyongAhn Sunim (14:47):
and that's okay.
What do you do with that onehill?
That's uh, uh.
You know, one of one of uh bigplayers in korean zen has a list
of these things and one of theone of these little short
statements he makes, a statementakin to contentment is the
(15:11):
highest, either riches orsatisfaction, something to that
effect and contentment?
right, because now we have, wehave the satisfaction, you have
the thing you wanted, you gotthe thing that you wanted.
How do you hold on to thecontentment with it?
And contentment could be, youknow, across the board right.
But so this last element of thequestion from the listener can
(15:39):
we still pursue our ownhappiness and that of others
without being attached to orclinging to the idea of
happiness?
This is a very important pointthat we can absolutely pursue
and we ought to, and in fact,yes, we can, so long as it's not
this rigor mortis attachment.
(16:00):
I mean the Four Noble Truthsclearly pin these things the
building blocks of existence andhappiness, and dissatisfaction,
or the unhappiness and thesuffering, if you want to call
it that.
You know we see it there andthat the fundamental
(16:26):
prerequisite for suffering isattachment and clinging Right.
So again, we could go so manyways with this, because the
nuance then would suggest thatthere's nothing wrong with
happiness, there's nothing wrongwith suffering, there's nothing
wrong with anything, there'snothing wrong with suffering,
there's nothing wrong withanything, there's nothing wrong
or nothing right.
(16:47):
It's the attachment and the notknowing what is enough and
where is enough.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (16:52):
That that is a that is a problematic
situation here humans don't knowhow to balance the scales, so
we're constantly chasing.
When you're working, andworking hard, sometimes, uh,
your mind becomes exhausted andnaturally, what comes next is
what you complain.
I just or I just can't wait forthe weekend, and we've talked
(17:14):
about this right you work forthe weekends yeah hump day and
all of that yeah.
So then you work really hard,you suffer in your mind working,
and then the weekend comes,you're happy.
But then Sunday nights, themisery starts again, in
anticipation of Monday.
And if you continue down thisendless cycle, it's this
emotional roller coaster that,by the time you're 50 years old,
(17:35):
your heart will be ground downto a pulp.
MyongAhn Sunim (17:38):
Well then, we've invented for your further
carrots to the donkey a thingcalled retirement.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (17:48):
Oh yes, so many people suffer in retirement
.
MyongAhn Sunim (17:50):
So many people suffer the retirement and the
pursuit of retirement.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (17:55):
As when I retire.
I can't wait to retire.
MyongAhn Sunim (17:57):
I can't wait to retire when I retire.
If you haven't it organized andyou retire, it's a premature
death.
I've seen people retire andwithin three years the cognitive
and physiological deteriorationis so severe that it's a death.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (18:22):
It's a death, it's a death sentence.
MyongAhn Sunim (18:23):
I?
I know people who have retiredand within six months, went and
got a some menial job somewherejust to stay active, and you
know.
So retirement is what do you dowith it, firstly, but also to
live the entirety of the lifefor the retirement and, god
forbid, you drop dead 10 minutesbefore it.
(18:46):
How many years do you retire?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (18:47):
for.
MyongAhn Sunim (18:50):
Mini retirements .
You drive and derive joy andfulfillment from your momentary
things and the smaller things,and it is, I think, more
fulfilling than this kind ofpromised land which you may not
see, because that's the realityof it.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (19:12):
And what a sad life you know.
You work 60 years to lookforward to your retirement and
then you're old, you're sleepy,you're grumpy, you're tired, you
know, and then you suffer then.
So that means your whole lifeyou suffer, right?
Yeah, that's why I think somesort of a resolution is yes,
happiness and sadness does exist.
They're almost like siblings,right, one makes the other From
(19:36):
one the other one is born andthey're impermanent.
Right, you will cycle throughthat.
There's nothing wrong withexperiencing happiness, but know
that your happiness shall pass,the same way that your pain and
suffering shall pass, too right, and then we get into this
great human contradiction that,again, we've spoken about many
times is when happiness comes.
We're human beings, we loveloopholes.
(19:58):
Right, when the when thehappiness comes, you want it to
never end.
But when the bad stuff comes,you're like make it go away
right away, right so it's likepick one.
Is it either one or the other?
Yeah, you know, and that's whyI think one hill solution there
is, almost like the, the yumju,which no one has one on right
now, but it's like the stringwith the beads on it, right, the
changing moments in life.
(20:19):
But you have the string.
The contentment can almost bethe string, and I think that'll
grant you a better way of livingyour daily life.
Yes, you're gonna have to.
There'll be times when you'llwork and you'll suffer and the
dissolvement of that will comeand you'll experience pain.
I'm sorry.
Happiness, but then thathappiness too, those things are
conditional.
That can fade also.
But then what do you plungeright into?
(20:40):
Like depression and darknessand my life is over.
No, but see if you have thatstring of contentment throughout
then I think I think that can,that can provide you a formula
where you can live your lifewith more meaning, but, yeah,
contentment is very close to,we're getting there, we're
working towards it.
MyongAhn Sunim (21:00):
Actually, the, the, the experience in life is
going to be what, what lifepresents, and what life presents
is this, um, young, thishappiness and unhappiness, the
pain and pleasure, the sufferingand and the absence of
suffering, and and this is this,is the state of reality, right,
(21:24):
and so understanding it as such, this idea of happiness, in a
sense, is, to a certain degree,delusional, and what the
listener is suggesting is thatexactly that.
However, by expecting ordemanding happiness to be our
(21:45):
default state of being, we canunintentionally increase our own
suffering, and it's absolutelythe case, but, again, it's the
expectation that makes it.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (21:58):
It's not the fault of happiness.
MyongAhn Sunim (22:00):
It's the fault of the expectation of happiness.
So what is enough?
How much is enough?
We have to understand, and yes,absolutely it is not the
default state of being.
Happiness is not the defaultstate of being.
War is closer to the defaultstate of being, unfortunately,
right.
But having said that,understanding that it is not the
(22:41):
default state of being also,then must bring with it the idea
that no one in this world orthe world to get into Diamond
Sutra Asang In, sang Chung, sang, sang Suja Sang.
You know these things, that notthe other persons or your,
frankly, even your families.
No thing outside of yourself isrequired or saddled with the
(23:02):
responsibility of yourindividual happiness.
So the expectation of someoneelse as being the one who
furnishes happiness, who makesme happy, is unfair.
It's unfair and it's not real.
So this idea of expectation oflife and it's as the listener
(23:29):
puts it the default state ofbeing, it is not.
Happiness is not the defaultstate of being.
The expectations cannot be puton the world, people in it, to
to furnish me with happiness.
It's unfair to to to burdensomeone in that way I kept
(23:50):
thinking burden, yeah,relationships do it.
You know family, ship and youknow we have all those things.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (23:55):
But that we're talking kind of well the
extreme to be the sole source ofmy happiness.
MyongAhn Sunim (24:01):
You put in so you could have a family, you
could have a loved one, youcould have all those things and
they can make you happy.
You could have them and bemiserable.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (24:10):
That happens all the time, I wouldn't be out
of business if that wasn't thecase.
MyongAhn Sunim (24:16):
So what responsibility lies with the
individual?
This is something that must beunderstood.
It is my personalresponsibility.
Not only is it theresponsibility, but the reality
of the fact.
It is the only way to be happy.
It is the only way to be happyis to make yourself happy.
(24:42):
You could bring in people toparticipate in this, but with
every degree of participationand involvement, you surrender
to another person, rememberingthat that person is a person and
a human and not perfect.
With every degree of that, whatwe get is the degree of control
(25:08):
that they are given, andtherefore, the greater the
degree to which a person canmake you happy equates to the
greater the degree to the personcan make you miserable or hurt
you.
We are more hurt, and we arehurt more so by those who are
closest to us, who we let intoour hearts.
(25:29):
Right, yeah, and that's thekind of thing.
So, yes, do not expect theworld around you to make you
happy.
You can make out of ithappiness, and only you can do
it.
Right, and other people couldparticipate et participate, etc.
But at the bare bone minimum.
That's the thing.
(25:50):
Now, having said that, we alsohave to consider that that
happiness is an emotion, and soright it's, it's just one of
life's experiences.
You know, I tell this toparents frequently in terms of
(26:12):
protecting children fromemotional experiences upon them.
But the simple experience oflife being and having to be
(26:36):
really this kind of broadplethora of human experience,
from moments of sadness, to godforbid boredom, boredom is the
new devil right.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (26:41):
No one knows what to do with their boredom
nowadays it's.
MyongAhn Sunim (26:44):
it is worse than pain, it is worse than
suffering.
Suffering, I mean, we've talkedabout that and we don't even
want a kid to spend like twoseconds in boredom.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (26:50):
Heaven forbid .
We bombard them.
Well, because this is the thingBlinking lights.
They can't, they don't knowwhat to do with it.
MyongAhn Sunim (26:59):
Because we don't provide tools and equipments as
much as we sort of used to.
You know, this isn't to saythat old ways were like gods I
don't play, and you know, if youbreak a leg, walk it off.
That's not what I'm suggestingthat's not the way but the point
is it's you know, and I've, I'mstill searching, and perhaps
(27:19):
there's a listener out there whocould come up and help me.
Help me, because I have yet tocome up with a better image for
this than the old computers.
You remember defrag,defragmenting your computer,
where?
you had to defrag your computerfor, and you had more space to
get more space right and you hadthis yeah, you had this grid
right and you had these littlelittle bars and lines of
(27:42):
different files and stuff, andwhen you defrag you compress all
of that stuff into one side, soyou you squeeze out the useless
empty spaces and that spacethen is transferred to a broader
empty space in a sense.
So now you make more room, workspace.
I I can't come up with the,with the imagery of modern day
(28:04):
that is akin to that, because itwas perfectly exemplifies the
need for boredom as a as a meansto expand the mind, like if you
, if your computer hasn't enoughmemory and you want to open a
program, it takes so much energyand so much space for the
program to initially just openand then it collapses and it no
(28:26):
longer uses so much energy.
But the opening needs space,and if we haven't that, how then
is the mind going to kind ofopen up?
But, anyway, that's anotherthing.
What I did want to bring up isthis idea of emotions, and we
could kind of dive back into theprinciples of real medicine.
(28:48):
Happiness or joy is we'retalking about it as the highly
coveted emotion to have, emotionto have, but from whether it's
(29:13):
the five element principles oforiental medicine or the sasang
Korean medicine system, right,emotions and we've talked about
this briefly when uncontrolled,and here's that word again right
.
What do you do with it?
How much is enough, what issufficient, et cetera, et cetera
.
Emotions, when uncontrolled andI've mentioned that famous, I
(29:37):
don't know famous, but quote byIgema, who said that if you let
your emotions run rampantly, youknow they damage your five
viscera, means your lungs, yourheart, and it takes, you know
when the damage is done, itcould take 10 years for you to
fix it.
It really kind of drives that.
(29:58):
It's the same thing as stabbingyourself in those organs with a
knife, organs with a knife.
And so this idea of emotions asexperiences, but an extreme end
of it, right?
So with children, as I said,this idea of like a multivitamin
, emotional multivitamin, right,and boredom is just one kind of
(30:20):
vitamin.
You need it, right?
Sadness too is a neededemotional experience because
they will go out into the bigwide world and they will
experience sadness and etc.
Loss.
And so this idea of emotions asa necessary experience is one
(30:41):
thing, but this idea of thembeing uncontrolled and within
the sasang principles oforiental or the Korean principle
of sasang medicine.
We have four makeups of thebody, in a sense, and out of
these four, two the um, soum andtaum work with initially,
(31:09):
there's this thing called thenature, that a person has a
certain nature and then thenature expresses itself in its
kind of opposite ways.
So you have, you know, calmnessand joy, and they play these
kind of games within one personand too much of one or the other
right.
So too much calmness, rightwhich on its extreme end is
(31:32):
laziness and kind of uh, youknow, inactivity, and too much
joy on and on the other end isis, we said, like elation, and
then mania, yeah, hysteria, youknow those kind of things.
So this idea of, of theseemotions, running a mac, a muck
that's the english word runninga muck can damage your physical
(31:53):
health, so happiness yeahright.
And then we see the same thingin in the five element, uh,
principles, whether avoid ormissing, or the philosophy right
happiness, too much happinessis damaging to the heart.
Too much happiness is damagingto the internal organs.
So too much happiness is whatwe may seem we want, but if you
(32:20):
get enough of it, or not enough,if you get too much of it, then
, like anything else, too muchof anything too much.
Anything else too much ofanything too much of a good
thing becomes a bad thing.
So if we look at it from thisexperience of emotional state
and things I'm happy with andunhappy, and if we pair that
with absolving the world aroundus of the responsibility to
(32:45):
furnish this upon me, then wehave some, you know, control
panel that we could work inwithin oneself.
Which thing do I surrender thepower to if I choose to make me
happy?
From which thing do I withdrawthe power for it to make me
(33:07):
happy?
And happy, you could substituteany emotion for it.
And so this simple idea that anemotion arises and then we are
there, just kind of at the mercyof it, it's not the healthy way
to look at it.
It's not.
We want to have the kind ofmultivitamin you know, the nice
(33:31):
bouquet of emotional experiencein life.
It makes things, for you know,interesting.
If it's just roses and rosesand roses and roses, yeah.
And if it becomes roses andthen it becomes damn roses, and
then goddamn roses, and then, ah, roses, right, and then you get
jaded, and then roses are nolonger roses, they're now be you
(33:51):
know, murderous demon thing youtry to get rid of out of your
mind so it is.
It lies between this idea andand you know, we even have, with
an oriental medicine, you know,by, by means of diagnosis,
right, the sound of a person'svoice, right.
So we have a thing called thelaughing voice, for example, and
(34:12):
the laughing voice is anexpression of the fire and it's
damaging to the heart, etc etcso by means of diagnosis,
listening to the sound of thevoice of the person, um, and
there's an emotional element toit, and that emotion then
suggests an excess.
And this is again the thingwhat is excess, what is too much
(34:35):
, what is not enough.
And so we have to remember thatwe have this ability.
Now, I do have to absolutelybring in the idea of the fact
that we use the word happinessinterchangeably and frequently,
within Zen tradition also.
Why?
Because the word peace isboring.
(34:57):
Contentment is boring, peace isboring, satisfaction is boring.
It's this theater, theassumption is, because
there'sisfaction is boring, it'sthis teeter, this kind of
seesaw.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (35:09):
The assumption is because there's no
change.
MyongAhn Sunim (35:11):
There's no growth or no development in that
.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (35:14):
When people use that term.
MyongAhn Sunim (35:16):
It's stagnation.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (35:17):
It's viewed as stagnation.
MyongAhn Sunim (35:18):
You know.
And boredom, and we knowboredom is the new devil.
You don't want to go there, butit's the seesaw thing, right?
And if we consider that theabsence of suffering equates to
joy, right, or the absence ofjoy or happiness equates to
suffering, then, like I said,it's a hostage situation.
(35:39):
It's a see-saw thing, yeah, andthey're fizzy.
I like to say that they'refizzy.
So you have, your happiness isfizzing but it's fizzing upwards
, and your suffering is fizzingbut it's fizzing downwards.
So there's a fizz, there's anactivity, there's a happening,
there's an evolution, there's aliving thing that is assigned to
(36:01):
, you know, there's movement andlife, to happiness and to
suffering, too, sure.
And so when we consider theidea of calmness or tranquility,
of peace, or what, the Koreanterm that we frequently use,
koil, which simply means kind ofstillness, it's unappealing to
(36:23):
the general mind.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (36:28):
It's unappealing to the general mind,
but I think, maybe to give apractical metaphor, I like the
concept of the seesaw.
So if you look at the seesaw,the seesaw is plastered into
solid ground and then so youhave the ups and downs which can
represent the day-to-daychanges in the emotions.
(36:48):
But you always come down ontosolid ground and maybe this can
be the contentment or thesatisfaction, and you always
come back to solid ground andfrom there you're going to have
the changes, the emotionalstates that come and go, the
things that you have to worktowards, the things that you
(37:09):
have that you lose.
But if you have this commonground throughout, that you
return back to, that is a stateof peace, a state of contentment
.
Then I think when the ups anddowns happen, you'll be able to
tolerate and endure them with amore clear mind, a more.
You'll come out of that withyour heart intact yeah, it is
(37:33):
you know it's not.
I think it's sometimes people.
We want to create this vacuumwith these terms.
Right?
Oh yeah, koyo, it's, you know,just complete peace and silence.
Well, that that sounds boring.
What do we do?
And so I think, when you launchfrom there, when that becomes
(37:55):
your launch pad and again theactual term, what it really is,
this is just a practicalmetaphor that people could apply
for their day-to-day living,because some people you have the
ups and downs in life andthey're entangled in that, but
then when that stuff ceases,they don't return back to solid
ground.
No, theirs is a deep, dark cavethat they plunge into, or they
(38:22):
plunge into murky waters, andthen they feel like they're
drowning and they cannot swimand stay afloat.
MyongAhn Sunim (38:30):
Yeah.
I like the imagery of the sky.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (38:32):
Yeah, the sky sure.
MyongAhn Sunim (38:33):
You know, and contentment and peace, and that
coil you know without gettingtoo deep into it.
You know the nature of our trueself, if you will.
There's a self that isunchanging.
And again, when we sayunchanging, our conscious mind
(38:58):
goes man, that sounds boring,man, that's just what do you do?
It's just unchanging.
But if we inspect one's ownlife's experience, I think most
people will find somewhere intheir life experience a moment
where things were just right,right, and it wasn't on the
(39:22):
account of happiness.
There's a happiness, if youwant to call it that, that
arises from that contentment,peace, and that stillness.
Happiness is for the birds,happiness in this idea of some,
you know, it's a nice thing, butit's trash really when we
(39:46):
consider the bliss, if you wantto layer that in that way, the
bliss of peace.
And it is not boredom, it isnot some kind of death, because
this is the thing.
We view it through the lens ofour sensory perception, in the
(40:09):
grossest of ways.
And and then we say you know, I, there's a.
So this idea of the sky, thevastness, the prodigious
vastness of it, and it's, it'sclear we're talking about and
then clouds of various shapesand birds and such and such and
(40:31):
such.
All there experienced seen,there they are, but not, for
lack of a better word soilingthe firmament itself.
And perhaps even better stillis this idea of a projector
screen and a thing beingprojected onto the screen, and
(40:54):
if it's, you know, you project ascene of a fire or you project
a scene of a flood.
The scene of a flood is flood,the scene of the fire is fire,
but the screen itself is neitherburned nor made wet.
Scene of the fire is fire, butthe screen itself is neither
burned nor made wet.
Yeah, and so that is theactually thing we're after
(41:21):
within the zen principles, right?
We sometimes call it happinessbecause, like I said, it's.
We avoid then this, uh, havingto define the terms every single
time, and people like it.
So, so you know, pursuit ofhappiness or the absence of
suffering, and things like that.
So, to go back to the way thatlet's see, this question was
does the alleviation ofsuffering mean happiness or
(41:43):
something more like neutrality?
This is, and this is where I'mkind of driving at.
Neutrality can be seen as thiskind of boredom, and then why
you live, what's?
You know there's no kind ofwoohoo or boohoo going on in
your life, and neutrality seemsboring, and neutrality seems
(42:08):
boring.
And so the Zen, pursuit ofpeace, is what we're after.
On the firmament of it therewill be happiness, and there
will be unhappiness, etc, etc.
And those are experiences,valued, informative, as we said
from last episode.
But they are also not theentirety of the sky, the
(42:33):
entirety of the prodigiousvastness of the firmament of
self.
And when they are viewed thatway, then the smallest of
sufferings become sort ofinsurmountable, and then we
collapse under the weight of it.
You know, and and and happinessthen becomes the only soul
(42:53):
thing that one pursues.
And when that's the case, thenone will pursue happiness, no
matter what the cost your own,your body, your mind, your
spirit or other people.
And so, yes, they it is.
It is what that, what we areafter within the zen principles
(43:16):
is.
We could say I'm just going tosay coil, I.
I like korean terminologiesbecause they are not well known
and and I could kind of preservetheir integrity in a way that I
mean the word.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (43:33):
They're not tainted and sold by other
people's ideas.
MyongAhn Sunim (43:36):
And it's not that I mean it that way.
That's what it is.
So this idea, you know.
Now comes to mind this briefline from somewhere that if
paradise was my prison, I shallstill want to leap that crystal
wall.
Yes, if paradise was my prison.
Yes, and so we could say ifhappiness was my prison, right,
(43:59):
I shall stay.
So we could build absolutelyout of the bricks of the pursuit
and the manic or the attachedand fixed and fixations on
pursuit of happiness isabsolutely a remedy for disaster
.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (44:16):
And I think Zen always offers us this
resolution with many of thethings that we talk about.
We talk about balance, right,and we talk about not getting
lost, being aware of what you'reexperiencing, and you stay in a
state of control where youexperience that that doesn't
become a wave that consumes you,and now it's like a parasite
(44:36):
that's now, you know, pushingthe buttons inside of your brain
and steering you in directionsthat you don't want to go in,
because it's very easy tounderstand how happiness can
become very quickly reckless.
I just want to give you themetaphor of teenagers living in
a home where their parentsdecide to go on vacation and
(44:58):
they leave them there and theteenagers have a pool party and
then, all of a sudden, they'reso super excited and they invite
all of their friends and andthey engage in underage drinking
and reckless behavior andthey're so happy and free Until
somebody decides to jump off theroof because they're happy and
free and excited and then nowpeople are getting hurt.
(45:19):
So it's always what is the cost?
That's the wisdom that needs tobe always taken into account,
and you can also look at manycases of movie stars that have
gained all this wealth and fameand then they experience this
emptiness and then they go andtake the things that they think
are happy and then they engagein this endless, nonstop pursuit
(45:42):
of pleasure and you can veryquickly see that all of their
fortune whether it be reputationfortune, financial fortune and
what we see right up front isthat their health is just washed
down the drain because theydidn't take into account what is
the cost right.
So some people are happy andthey think, let me drink now and
(46:06):
let me drink for endless hours,endless amounts, or let me
engage in endless amounts of sexwith endless amounts of people,
or or drugs, and I'm so happybecause I'm I have the money and
the resources to do that.
But when the storm, when uh,leaves and the dust settles,
(46:26):
what was the cost of it?
And oftentimes then the harshreality sets in is you lost many
things that were valuable toyou in that process.
So wisdom always needs to betaken into account, balance and
an awareness as to well what isthe healthy use of this emotion
(46:46):
and when is it becomingsomething that is a obstacle or
a hindrance in my life.
MyongAhn Sunim (46:53):
Yeah, it is, I think, a good kind of way to
summarize this whole thing, yeah, yeah, let's go through this.
so, no, happiness is not thedefault state of being.
Defining the terms is a greatway to start or a great place to
(47:20):
start.
Know what that means to you?
You've mentioned, you know,people with sort of affluent and
and fame, and, and if, and ifyou define the fame as your
happiness, then that's yourdefinition of it, right, um,
fame is granted, right, yourfans make you famous in a sense,
(47:41):
and when the fans stop makingyou famous in a sense, and when
the fans stop making you famousand the fame goes away, have you
any happiness then?
And wealth, this being so, etc.
Etc.
So, to whom do you surrenderthis power over you, unless the
(48:05):
other party is conscious andconscientious participant in
this communal happiness, whichis what, hopefully, people close
to our hearts do for us?
So, knowing, to where do wesurrender the power?
(48:31):
To, like we said, and thedegree to which a person can
make you happy or a thing canmake you happy is also the
degree to which they can takethat happiness and turn it into
suffering.
So, no, life and its sheerdefault state is not responsible
(48:52):
, nor does it suggest that itwill furnish you with happiness.
Yeah, that really could.
It's your work.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (48:59):
Yeah, that makes me feel when someone
thinks that way.
I feel as though someone has asense of entitlement so it can
breed arrogance, or life issupposed to give me happiness.
I also feel as though that canplunge a entitlement so it can
breed arrogance, or life issupposed to give me happiness.
I also feel as though that canplunge a person into a state of
laziness, like I don't have todo anything because the inherent
nature of life is just thingsare gonna come to me and make me
happy.
MyongAhn Sunim (49:17):
Or depressive states or somehow, when life
doesn't give you that yeah, thenthere's something wrong with me
, right?
Life is supposed to be happyfor everyone.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (49:32):
And this is the thing.
What is your?
MyongAhn Sunim (49:34):
self-worth.
Your self-worth is this howmuch are you worth?
You're worth this understandingof the power that you have,
which is in fact your godlikepower, and we forget it and we
don't utilize it properly.
And when you buy, entirely andwholeheartedly, hook sinker and
(50:03):
line or whatever, however thesaying goes into, let's say,
hook line and sinker.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (50:08):
What is it?
Hook line and sinker?
Hook line and sinker.
MyongAhn Sunim (50:11):
And if you buy to that degree to, let's say,
advertising industry, you'redone for Sure, because the
amount of truth that is inadvertising is dismal.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (50:23):
It's half the story.
Half, maybe less.
I wish it was half, maybe less.
MyongAhn Sunim (50:28):
I'm going to venture against 90% of
advertising thing is lie.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (50:32):
I've yet to find a Coke bottle that has
glistening pearls perfectlyround glistening pearls of sweat
, just designed to make youthirsty by coke.
MyongAhn Sunim (50:43):
But so yeah, if you, if you really subscribe to
to these, uh, fairy tale yeahthat that advertising industry
presents before us.
If you buy this car, you willbe like this If you buy this
thing, you're they purposelypair and make an association
right.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (51:04):
Yes, this thing will make you sexy To
speak to what you want.
That thing will make you lean.
MyongAhn Sunim (51:07):
This thing will make you smart.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (51:08):
You have these shades on and you get the
girl and.
MyongAhn Sunim (51:10):
That's it.
Right, Someone's thinking, youknow let me get these shades so
I can get that.
I was.
I was behind a bus this isyears ago and and it had a
woman's butt in a bikini and abottle of vodka, and I don't
remember what the juxtapositionwas, but that it was like that.
So it's sort of saying youeither get when you get this,
you get that.
(51:30):
I don't know, I don't know whatthey were selling the butts or
the vodka, but they'resuggesting us.
You know they're synonymous.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (51:36):
It's actually the opposite you drink too much
, you're gonna not have that butright you're gonna be in the
gym.
Well, that's the thing it's.
It's.
They make you think right, thatsure that this will get you
that yeah, that the beauty is inthe eye of the beer holder.
MyongAhn Sunim (51:50):
Right, right yeah, that's a whole other thing
right and so if you subscribeto that, the the fact that what
is advertised is advertised asthe gift of happiness then
you've lost your own magic ofmaking a thing into happiness.
(52:12):
Kids in their early lives atleast have it.
They find a rock, and it's thebest thing that happens.
In sliced bread, by the way, asa bread maker of sorts, sliced
(52:32):
bread is not the best thing.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (52:38):
I like to see a nice solid loaf that looks
hearty right, it's like thatcame out of the oven right.
MyongAhn Sunim (52:43):
That's right, somebody's hand was touching
that right yeah and so kids haveit, they find the leaf and they
make that leaf into the HolyGrail Museums, have the leaf,
like this leaf leaf, right, andand so they have the power to
make contentment andsatisfaction and joy and to make
the mundane and too special andtoo beautiful.
(53:04):
And we grow smarter, and thesmarter we grow, the dumber we
grow, in a sense.
And then we think, oh no, no,it must be complex.
And if my I don't know phonedoesn't have 78 cameras, then
(53:30):
satisfaction and happiness isnot going to be found there,
because I need all 17 cameras.
And to hold on to that is tohold on to a real power and not
to surrender.
That is to hold on toself-worth and the ability to
overcome and do anything youcould imagine.
It is a godlike power, itreally is.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (53:50):
Well, it gives you freedom, right,
freedom to make a choice again,something we discussed in a
prior Well freedom.
MyongAhn Sunim (53:56):
Freedom is the topic we ought to do.
Freedom again, something wediscussed in a prior Well,
freedom.
Freedom is a topic we ought todo freedom?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (53:59):
Yeah, we should, but I think to that
state that you're talking about.
If a person is filled withhunger for and that gets an
omanipadmehum too right Forsomething I think somebody is
desperate, then they can be veryeasily sold.
Any kind of advertisement thatcomes your way, you're easily
sold and you lose your, yourability to have wisdom, to
(54:20):
understand what's truly there.
You well what are you desperate?
MyongAhn Sunim (54:22):
you get sold the story.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (54:24):
Well, people could be desperate for fame and
money and things like that,because they think this, they're
in this, you know recklesspursuit of those things, because
they think once I get there,it's's the promised land, all of
my suffering will just washaway and I will finally, finally
be happy.
And, man, all you got to do isturn on the news, because I'm
(54:47):
just saying I think we talkedabout in the patience episode,
patience with happiness, andthat's also a thing to consider
right.
MyongAhn Sunim (55:00):
And I believe I've conjured up this memory of
a football team winning a game,and this was recently.
I think you said it was SuperBowl, super Bowl, right.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (55:16):
And people took the seat.
They're so happy, yeah, sohappy.
MyongAhn Sunim (55:21):
And we saw this at Rutgers years ago.
Right, there was a couch onfire because the team won or
something or other.
So happiness.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (55:31):
Or you see some actors they make it big,
they get money and then they buya Ferrari or a Porsche.
There's actually one famous onefrom uh, fastest and the
furious, who passed and the samething that you thought was your
happiness was your downfall,and you, they died there.
Right, you could look atcharlie sheen.
He was a guy that was desiredby many women women and then you
(55:51):
know he engaged in recklessdrugs and sex and he now got, a
few years back, diagnosed withhiv, so that the same thing that
you thought was your pleasureor your happiness actually now
became your downfall, so we needwisdom, yeah at all.
MyongAhn Sunim (56:08):
So, yes, pursue, pursue happiness.
Know that definition of whatthat means to you, right, right,
pursue it.
Know to the which degree youare pursuing it, to which end
you are pursuing it, right, whatis it costing you, right?
What is it costing you orsomeone else, right, or someone
else?
(56:28):
You know, we mustn't forget thekarmic element.
If you pursued, if yourhappiness is built like we said,
none, the necks and heads andbacks and the stepping stones of
human beings and people andanimals and things of that
nature, and if you take that tothe extreme, your happiness will
(56:49):
end with this life and thecollection of the just
(57:16):
principles of existence, thatone thing, like you said, night
and day, et cetera, et cetera,that happiness is a.
There is always a pricesomewhere, paid by somebody.
And so let's see, I think, yes,manage your expectations about
(57:48):
being happy, define the terms,pursue it to a healthy degree.
That gets you a nice sort ofhealthy perception of happiness.
And then, if you want to gowith the Zen route, know that
the pursuit of koyo, ofstillness and peace, does not
(58:09):
fly in the face of pursuit ofhappiness, it doesn't leave you
some kind of emotionallycastrated kind of cow and it
doesn't mean that you're ofemotionally castrated kind of
cow and it doesn't mean thatyou're not going to experience
suffering.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (58:21):
Absolutely.
MyongAhn Sunim (58:22):
You know there's a lot of fairytale thing of
like, oh, enlightenment, andthen you're not what.
Your nervous system justevaporates when you reach
enlightenment, right.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (58:33):
No, you don't .
MyongAhn Sunim (58:37):
So it is a good topic, yes, it paired with the
nice, healthy dose of wisdom andunderstanding of life.
And, as it is not as we wouldlike it to be, and you're going
to be doing just fine, beinghappy, be happy.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (58:59):
Absolutely and search for happiness within
your life, not in a fairy tale,not in a movie, not in social
media.
Find it in your life.
MyongAhn Sunim (59:13):
Until next time, take care of yourselves and
each other.
I'm Milan.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (59:16):
Sunim, I'm Dr Ruben Lambert.
If you like what we said today,subscribe and like and pass it
on to somebody else.
Welcome back episode 11 of the World Through
the Eyes podcast.
I'm Jan Sunin here with DrRuben Lambert and we are back
for another fan mail.
I'm going to stop saying fanmail.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (00:32):
No, it's just great that people are really
listening, participating andcontemplating things and giving
us some feedback.
So again, thank you very much.
MyongAhn Sunim (00:40):
We really appreciate that Absolutely we do
.
It does make this somethingother than just the two of us
having a chit-chat.
It does feel like we're talkingwith.
Hopefully it doesn't feel toyou like we're talking at, but
we're talking with the listeners, especially when these
(01:03):
questions come in or thesesuggestions and in this case,
questions, suggestions, but alsoa bit of a perspective already
built into the question.
So, anyway, this is what's onthe table.
Thank you for the gift of thispodcast.
(01:28):
I'd like to suggest happiness asa topic In general.
I think many people have highexpectations about being happy.
For example, in the context ofthe US, the Declaration of
Independence refers to life,liberty and the pursuit of
happiness as inalienable rights.
However, by expecting ordemanding happiness to be our
(01:53):
default state of being, we canunintentionally increase our own
suffering.
What can we learn from Zenprinciples about developing a
healthier perception ofhappiness?
Does the alleviation ofsuffering mean happiness or
something more like neutrality?
Can we still pursue our ownhappiness and that of others
(02:15):
without being attached to orclinging to the idea of
happiness?
It's a mouthful.
It asks questions, but alsoanswers questions from the Zen
perspective as well.
So the listener clearly has anunderstanding of Zen, at least
(02:41):
its larger principles andhappiness and things of that
nature.
So, as per usual, I think italways calls to the need to
define terms If you have notlistened to the very first of
(03:01):
our podcast episodes.
First of our podcast episodes,which ended up sort of being a
general disclaimer perhaps forthe podcast in general, words on
words, and we talked aboutwords and meaning of words and
how words have been eitherweaponized or kind of defanged.
(03:25):
And anyway, throughout the,throughout the podcast, we've
weaved this idea of words havinga meaning.
That's assigned to them by, say, the websters, but they also
have a meaning assigned to us byan individual right and it's
(03:46):
which word, which definition arewe working with?
I mean, we must forget, wemustn't forget that the Tower of
Babel is a real thing.
We are in it, not in the factthat necessarily you speak
Spanish, I speak Polish, knowpolish, let's say and this and
that, but in the sense that wecould speak the same language
(04:08):
and yet just can't get an ideaacross because and and this
could, this could get you knowwe can't do it in the day-to-day
conversations, I think, becausethe conversations would get
very technical and this and that.
But when it comes to discussinga point, I think it's a good
(04:32):
idea to get some bearing as towhat in fact it is that we're
discussing.
And arguments, interpersonal,intersort, of ideological,
political, religious, whateverare frequently hinged on the
(04:52):
fact that it appears that thetwo parties are talking about
the same thing.
But when you listen a littlebit closely, you realize that
they're talking about theirindividual definition of the
word and the concept of the word, and they're arguing up on it
as if they're talking about thesame thing, which they're not.
So the arguments made for oragainst an idea from one
(05:15):
perspective, who, who are aperson who's working with a
different definition than theother person, it's what are we
talking about?
What are we arguing about?
There has to be some groundrules, in a sense, of what it is
that we're talking about, andso I think things like, for
example, you mentioned, excuseme, definitions.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (05:39):
right, there's a general definition for
any term.
Let's say, one thing that I wasthinking about was temperature,
and you could look updefinitions of, let's say, hot
and cold, right, and then youhave the individual experience
of those things.
And it could be completely.
I see this with like my parents, for example, when it comes to
just hot and cold.
MyongAhn Sunim (05:59):
Who's hot?
I'm hot, who's cold?
What do you mean?
You're hot, I'm cold.
Who's cold?
What do you mean?
You're hot, I'm cold?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (06:03):
My mother's always cold, my dad is always
hot.
So when they ask each otherthat question, they're using the
words and the terms to describetheir experience.
MyongAhn Sunim (06:12):
But the person is perceiving it from a
completely different angle.
Yeah, it really, really is.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (06:19):
My mom can ask my dad oh, is it going to be
hot out there?
MyongAhn Sunim (06:28):
And my dad's like, oh, is it going to be hot
out there?
And my dad's like, oh, yeah,it's hot.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (06:28):
And then my mother goes outside.
She says it's freezing outside.
You're like okay, what worldbring your jacket?
What world are the two you'reliving in?
It's just, but they're usingthe words hot and cold yeah,
that's perfectly, that'sperfectly cool yeah people are,
they're just yeah.
MyongAhn Sunim (06:38):
So let's, let's, let's kind of unpack a little
bit the idea or the wordhappiness or the definition with
which we're.
You know, I think the biggest,or the first maybe, place to
start is happiness versuspleasure.
Yes, because happiness isfrequently thought of as
(07:03):
pleasure, right, and not alwaysthe case, not by everybody.
All right is frequently thoughtof as pleasure, not always the
case, not by everybody.
All right, everybody.
Put down your keyboards, don'tclickety-clackety just yet.
Not me, all right, let me putit this way Sometimes people,
when they speak of happiness,it's synonymous with a state of
pleasure, something pleasurableis going on, et cetera, et
(07:29):
cetera.
So we have to consider thatelement.
Also, we have to consider thenuance, spend the spectrum of
(07:51):
contentment, satisfaction,happiness, excitement, elation
and mania and ecstasy.
Sure, right.
So it could be that wholespectrum if your definition is
wherever it lands.
So I guess the whole thing willdepend on what personal
(08:20):
definition of happiness is goingto be.
Personal definition ofhappiness is going to be.
The listener pens it against.
Does the alleviation ofsuffering mean happiness?
And we could say, yes, right,the absence or the alleviation
(08:41):
of suffering is a happiness, orthe alleviation of suffering is
a happiness.
But then consider sadism andmasochism, right?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (08:57):
So again this thing.
Well, I I think the sadism andmasochistic ideas also fall in
line with what you werereferring to just right before
that, where you have almost likethis range of happiness and
then if you cross a line or yougo into an extreme, then you
have some terms that even inclinical psychology we actually
don't consider as adaptive orfunctional for daily life, which
(09:19):
is states of ecstasy and statesof euphoria, which are closely
tied to the term that I usethere, mania, which, if you look
at the definition of a manicepisode, you can see that a lot
of the things that a person doesin that state of mind doesn't
lead to a happy life when theywake up out of their manic state
(09:39):
.
MyongAhn Sunim (09:40):
But in that moment they're feeling that.
They're feeling that they'rehappy, they're uber happy.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (09:45):
Yeah, there's no sense of control there,
there's no sense of limit, right.
So, yes, they're happy.
But then there's this endlesspursuit of pleasure, soul
pleasure.
And then I think back toremember when we went to go see
the Buddha play in New York, theone-man show.
Ah yes, that was really nice.
(10:05):
And one of the things that hesaid there is like he was
playing the role of the Buddha.
And I think Mara comes and saysto the Buddha, who was
Siddhartha Gautama at the time.
He tells him to stop hispursuit of enlightenment and he
says I believe something likethat.
I will grant you one mountainfull of gold or something.
And then in the play, thegentleman playing
Suddathagottama responds andsays no, I would not want that
(10:28):
because I know the human mind.
MyongAhn Sunim (10:35):
After you, give me one mountain full of gold
after some time.
Yeah yeah, if the rain werethrown to gold, even then our
greed will not be satiated.
So, yes, an element or orcontrol is always a thing, so we
could tie that to wisdom.
Sure, happy, how happy, ishappy enough.
(10:55):
Enough and because one could behappy.
And if your happiness isdependent or built on the backs
and necks of others, is ithappiness?
You know it's happiness forthat person, right?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (11:14):
it's their own personal happiness and
somebody else's personal at thecost of what right I mean then,
right there, when you describeit like that, then I just think
ebenezer scrooge type ofhappiness, right, right until he
gets I'm happy but taking awayfrom somebody else does that
bring me happiness, right?
So that means theirdissatisfaction, their pain is
(11:35):
my pleasure, and of course, uh,grapes of wrath, if I must.
MyongAhn Sunim (11:40):
Uh, tom is having conversation with someone
and the person goes well, youknow, you just got to make a
living.
And Tom says, yeah, I wish onecould make a living without
taking it away from another.
And so this idea of happiness,from the Zen perspective, or
(12:07):
psychological perspective tooyou mentioned mania and this
kind of extreme it's, it's ahostage situation.
In a sense it's a blackmailsituation.
The happiness is dependent onunhappiness for its very
existence and vice versa.
It's this yin-yang, the um-yangelement that we cannot have one
(12:29):
without the other.
You cannot enjoy a meal if youdon't know hunger.
And this goes with thirst andany form of joy and happiness,
and they are codependent in thatsense.
So the very pure approach is towant one thing without
(12:55):
understanding that the other,its shadow, is.
This is the sort of buildingblocks towards one's suffering.
Is this is the sort of buildingblocks towards one's suffering?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (13:08):
Ultimately yes.
MyongAhn Sunim (13:08):
It's going to build you out of your happiness
if you're expecting happinessand happiness only, and also
forget the fact that happiness,like I said, is the other side
of the coin of suffering theother side of the coin of
suffering, and so this happinessis a slippery, slippery fellow.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (13:32):
I think that's a very good point
understanding it with theyin-yang perspective, keeping
that in mind, where there'snight, there's day, where
there's day, there's night.
Where there's light, there'sshadow.
And there's a very good pointthat you make there it's human
beings want half the equationonly.
And just by wanting half theequation, right there alone,
(13:53):
you're already causing so muchsuffering, because, as the
Buddha says, all things areimpermanent.
That includes happiness too.
And one makes the other.
So the absence of sadness makeshappiness.
But then the absence ofhappiness makes sadness.
And if you, let's say, justlook at those individual parts
(14:13):
and you become attached to that,so you, let's say, are eating
your favorite slice of pizza andyou're very happy, what happens
after that last bite?
You're full, but automaticallynow you're left wanting more.
And it's in that wanting moreand that craving more that you
might feel disappointed.
MyongAhn Sunim (14:35):
But that automatically came.
What is enough?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (14:37):
How do you find that state of being full
enough and understanding that,yes, this happy moment, surely,
will now come to an end?
MyongAhn Sunim (14:47):
and that's okay.
What do you do with that onehill?
That's uh, uh.
You know, one of one of uh bigplayers in korean zen has a list
of these things and one of theone of these little short
statements he makes, a statementakin to contentment is the
(15:11):
highest, either riches orsatisfaction, something to that
effect and contentment?
right, because now we have, wehave the satisfaction, you have
the thing you wanted, you gotthe thing that you wanted.
How do you hold on to thecontentment with it?
And contentment could be, youknow, across the board right.
But so this last element of thequestion from the listener can
(15:39):
we still pursue our ownhappiness and that of others
without being attached to orclinging to the idea of
happiness?
This is a very important pointthat we can absolutely pursue
and we ought to, and in fact,yes, we can, so long as it's not
this rigor mortis attachment.
(16:00):
I mean the Four Noble Truthsclearly pin these things the
building blocks of existence andhappiness, and dissatisfaction,
or the unhappiness and thesuffering, if you want to call
it that.
You know we see it there andthat the fundamental
(16:26):
prerequisite for suffering isattachment and clinging Right.
So again, we could go so manyways with this, because the
nuance then would suggest thatthere's nothing wrong with
happiness, there's nothing wrongwith suffering, there's nothing
wrong with anything, there'snothing wrong with suffering,
there's nothing wrong withanything, there's nothing wrong
or nothing right.
(16:47):
It's the attachment and the notknowing what is enough and
where is enough.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (16:52):
That that is a that is a problematic
situation here humans don't knowhow to balance the scales, so
we're constantly chasing.
When you're working, andworking hard, sometimes, uh,
your mind becomes exhausted andnaturally, what comes next is
what you complain.
I just or I just can't wait forthe weekend, and we've talked
(17:14):
about this right you work forthe weekends yeah hump day and
all of that yeah.
So then you work really hard,you suffer in your mind working,
and then the weekend comes,you're happy.
But then Sunday nights, themisery starts again, in
anticipation of Monday.
And if you continue down thisendless cycle, it's this
emotional roller coaster that,by the time you're 50 years old,
(17:35):
your heart will be ground downto a pulp.
MyongAhn Sunim (17:38):
Well then, we've invented for your further
carrots to the donkey a thingcalled retirement.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (17:48):
Oh yes, so many people suffer in retirement
.
MyongAhn Sunim (17:50):
So many people suffer the retirement and the
pursuit of retirement.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (17:55):
As when I retire.
I can't wait to retire.
MyongAhn Sunim (17:57):
I can't wait to retire when I retire.
If you haven't it organized andyou retire, it's a premature
death.
I've seen people retire andwithin three years the cognitive
and physiological deteriorationis so severe that it's a death.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (18:22):
It's a death, it's a death sentence.
MyongAhn Sunim (18:23):
I?
I know people who have retiredand within six months, went and
got a some menial job somewherejust to stay active, and you
know.
So retirement is what do you dowith it, firstly, but also to
live the entirety of the lifefor the retirement and, god
forbid, you drop dead 10 minutesbefore it.
(18:46):
How many years do you retire?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (18:47):
for.
MyongAhn Sunim (18:50):
Mini retirements .
You drive and derive joy andfulfillment from your momentary
things and the smaller things,and it is, I think, more
fulfilling than this kind ofpromised land which you may not
see, because that's the realityof it.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (19:12):
And what a sad life you know.
You work 60 years to lookforward to your retirement and
then you're old, you're sleepy,you're grumpy, you're tired, you
know, and then you suffer then.
So that means your whole lifeyou suffer, right?
Yeah, that's why I think somesort of a resolution is yes,
happiness and sadness does exist.
They're almost like siblings,right, one makes the other From
(19:36):
one the other one is born andthey're impermanent.
Right, you will cycle throughthat.
There's nothing wrong withexperiencing happiness, but know
that your happiness shall pass,the same way that your pain and
suffering shall pass, too right, and then we get into this
great human contradiction that,again, we've spoken about many
times is when happiness comes.
We're human beings, we loveloopholes.
(19:58):
Right, when the when thehappiness comes, you want it to
never end.
But when the bad stuff comes,you're like make it go away
right away, right so it's likepick one.
Is it either one or the other?
Yeah, you know, and that's whyI think one hill solution there
is, almost like the, the yumju,which no one has one on right
now, but it's like the stringwith the beads on it, right, the
changing moments in life.
(20:19):
But you have the string.
The contentment can almost bethe string, and I think that'll
grant you a better way of livingyour daily life.
Yes, you're gonna have to.
There'll be times when you'llwork and you'll suffer and the
dissolvement of that will comeand you'll experience pain.
I'm sorry.
Happiness, but then thathappiness too, those things are
conditional.
That can fade also.
But then what do you plungeright into?
(20:40):
Like depression and darknessand my life is over.
No, but see if you have thatstring of contentment throughout
then I think I think that can,that can provide you a formula
where you can live your lifewith more meaning, but, yeah,
contentment is very close to,we're getting there, we're
working towards it.
MyongAhn Sunim (21:00):
Actually, the, the, the experience in life is
going to be what, what lifepresents, and what life presents
is this, um, young, thishappiness and unhappiness, the
pain and pleasure, the sufferingand and the absence of
suffering, and and this is this,is the state of reality, right,
(21:24):
and so understanding it as such, this idea of happiness, in a
sense, is, to a certain degree,delusional, and what the
listener is suggesting is thatexactly that.
However, by expecting ordemanding happiness to be our
(21:45):
default state of being, we canunintentionally increase our own
suffering, and it's absolutelythe case, but, again, it's the
expectation that makes it.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (21:58):
It's not the fault of happiness.
MyongAhn Sunim (22:00):
It's the fault of the expectation of happiness.
So what is enough?
How much is enough?
We have to understand, and yes,absolutely it is not the
default state of being.
Happiness is not the defaultstate of being.
War is closer to the defaultstate of being, unfortunately,
right.
But having said that,understanding that it is not the
(22:41):
default state of being also,then must bring with it the idea
that no one in this world orthe world to get into Diamond
Sutra Asang In, sang Chung, sang, sang Suja Sang.
You know these things, that notthe other persons or your,
frankly, even your families.
No thing outside of yourself isrequired or saddled with the
(23:02):
responsibility of yourindividual happiness.
So the expectation of someoneelse as being the one who
furnishes happiness, who makesme happy, is unfair.
It's unfair and it's not real.
So this idea of expectation oflife and it's as the listener
(23:29):
puts it the default state ofbeing, it is not.
Happiness is not the defaultstate of being.
The expectations cannot be puton the world, people in it, to
to furnish me with happiness.
It's unfair to to to burdensomeone in that way I kept
(23:50):
thinking burden, yeah,relationships do it.
You know family, ship and youknow we have all those things.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (23:55):
But that we're talking kind of well the
extreme to be the sole source ofmy happiness.
MyongAhn Sunim (24:01):
You put in so you could have a family, you
could have a loved one, youcould have all those things and
they can make you happy.
You could have them and bemiserable.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (24:10):
That happens all the time, I wouldn't be out
of business if that wasn't thecase.
MyongAhn Sunim (24:16):
So what responsibility lies with the
individual?
This is something that must beunderstood.
It is my personalresponsibility.
Not only is it theresponsibility, but the reality
of the fact.
It is the only way to be happy.
It is the only way to be happyis to make yourself happy.
(24:42):
You could bring in people toparticipate in this, but with
every degree of participationand involvement, you surrender
to another person, rememberingthat that person is a person and
a human and not perfect.
With every degree of that, whatwe get is the degree of control
(25:08):
that they are given, andtherefore, the greater the
degree to which a person canmake you happy equates to the
greater the degree to the personcan make you miserable or hurt
you.
We are more hurt, and we arehurt more so by those who are
closest to us, who we let intoour hearts.
(25:29):
Right, yeah, and that's thekind of thing.
So, yes, do not expect theworld around you to make you
happy.
You can make out of ithappiness, and only you can do
it.
Right, and other people couldparticipate et participate, etc.
But at the bare bone minimum.
That's the thing.
(25:50):
Now, having said that, we alsohave to consider that that
happiness is an emotion, and soright it's, it's just one of
life's experiences.
You know, I tell this toparents frequently in terms of
(26:12):
protecting children fromemotional experiences upon them.
But the simple experience oflife being and having to be
(26:36):
really this kind of broadplethora of human experience,
from moments of sadness, to godforbid boredom, boredom is the
new devil right.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (26:41):
No one knows what to do with their boredom
nowadays it's.
MyongAhn Sunim (26:44):
it is worse than pain, it is worse than
suffering.
Suffering, I mean, we've talkedabout that and we don't even
want a kid to spend like twoseconds in boredom.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (26:50):
Heaven forbid .
We bombard them.
Well, because this is the thingBlinking lights.
They can't, they don't knowwhat to do with it.
MyongAhn Sunim (26:59):
Because we don't provide tools and equipments as
much as we sort of used to.
You know, this isn't to saythat old ways were like gods I
don't play, and you know, if youbreak a leg, walk it off.
That's not what I'm suggestingthat's not the way but the point
is it's you know, and I've, I'mstill searching, and perhaps
(27:19):
there's a listener out there whocould come up and help me.
Help me, because I have yet tocome up with a better image for
this than the old computers.
You remember defrag,defragmenting your computer,
where?
you had to defrag your computerfor, and you had more space to
get more space right and you hadthis yeah, you had this grid
right and you had these littlelittle bars and lines of
(27:42):
different files and stuff, andwhen you defrag you compress all
of that stuff into one side, soyou you squeeze out the useless
empty spaces and that spacethen is transferred to a broader
empty space in a sense.
So now you make more room, workspace.
I I can't come up with the,with the imagery of modern day
(28:04):
that is akin to that, because itwas perfectly exemplifies the
need for boredom as a as a meansto expand the mind, like if you
, if your computer hasn't enoughmemory and you want to open a
program, it takes so much energyand so much space for the
program to initially just openand then it collapses and it no
(28:26):
longer uses so much energy.
But the opening needs space,and if we haven't that, how then
is the mind going to kind ofopen up?
But, anyway, that's anotherthing.
What I did want to bring up isthis idea of emotions, and we
could kind of dive back into theprinciples of real medicine.
(28:48):
Happiness or joy is we'retalking about it as the highly
coveted emotion to have, emotionto have, but from whether it's
(29:13):
the five element principles oforiental medicine or the sasang
Korean medicine system, right,emotions and we've talked about
this briefly when uncontrolled,and here's that word again right
.
What do you do with it?
How much is enough, what issufficient, et cetera, et cetera
.
Emotions, when uncontrolled andI've mentioned that famous, I
(29:37):
don't know famous, but quote byIgema, who said that if you let
your emotions run rampantly, youknow they damage your five
viscera, means your lungs, yourheart, and it takes, you know
when the damage is done, itcould take 10 years for you to
fix it.
It really kind of drives that.
(29:58):
It's the same thing as stabbingyourself in those organs with a
knife, organs with a knife.
And so this idea of emotions asexperiences, but an extreme end
of it, right?
So with children, as I said,this idea of like a multivitamin
, emotional multivitamin, right,and boredom is just one kind of
(30:20):
vitamin.
You need it, right?
Sadness too is a neededemotional experience because
they will go out into the bigwide world and they will
experience sadness and etc.
Loss.
And so this idea of emotions asa necessary experience is one
(30:41):
thing, but this idea of thembeing uncontrolled and within
the sasang principles oforiental or the Korean principle
of sasang medicine.
We have four makeups of thebody, in a sense, and out of
these four, two the um, soum andtaum work with initially,
(31:09):
there's this thing called thenature, that a person has a
certain nature and then thenature expresses itself in its
kind of opposite ways.
So you have, you know, calmnessand joy, and they play these
kind of games within one personand too much of one or the other
right.
So too much calmness, rightwhich on its extreme end is
(31:32):
laziness and kind of uh, youknow, inactivity, and too much
joy on and on the other end isis, we said, like elation, and
then mania, yeah, hysteria, youknow those kind of things.
So this idea of, of theseemotions, running a mac, a muck
that's the english word runninga muck can damage your physical
(31:53):
health, so happiness yeahright.
And then we see the same thingin in the five element, uh,
principles, whether avoid ormissing, or the philosophy right
happiness, too much happinessis damaging to the heart.
Too much happiness is damagingto the internal organs.
So too much happiness is whatwe may seem we want, but if you
(32:20):
get enough of it, or not enough,if you get too much of it, then
, like anything else, too muchof anything too much.
Anything else too much ofanything too much of a good
thing becomes a bad thing.
So if we look at it from thisexperience of emotional state
and things I'm happy with andunhappy, and if we pair that
with absolving the world aroundus of the responsibility to
(32:45):
furnish this upon me, then wehave some, you know, control
panel that we could work inwithin oneself.
Which thing do I surrender thepower to if I choose to make me
happy?
From which thing do I withdrawthe power for it to make me
(33:07):
happy?
And happy, you could substituteany emotion for it.
And so this simple idea that anemotion arises and then we are
there, just kind of at the mercyof it, it's not the healthy way
to look at it.
It's not.
We want to have the kind ofmultivitamin you know, the nice
(33:31):
bouquet of emotional experiencein life.
It makes things, for you know,interesting.
If it's just roses and rosesand roses and roses, yeah.
And if it becomes roses andthen it becomes damn roses, and
then goddamn roses, and then, ah, roses, right, and then you get
jaded, and then roses are nolonger roses, they're now be you
(33:51):
know, murderous demon thing youtry to get rid of out of your
mind so it is.
It lies between this idea andand you know, we even have, with
an oriental medicine, you know,by, by means of diagnosis,
right, the sound of a person'svoice, right.
So we have a thing called thelaughing voice, for example, and
(34:12):
the laughing voice is anexpression of the fire and it's
damaging to the heart, etc etcso by means of diagnosis,
listening to the sound of thevoice of the person, um, and
there's an emotional element toit, and that emotion then
suggests an excess.
And this is again the thingwhat is excess, what is too much
(34:35):
, what is not enough.
And so we have to remember thatwe have this ability.
Now, I do have to absolutelybring in the idea of the fact
that we use the word happinessinterchangeably and frequently,
within Zen tradition also.
Why?
Because the word peace isboring.
(34:57):
Contentment is boring, peace isboring, satisfaction is boring.
It's this theater, theassumption is, because
there'sisfaction is boring, it'sthis teeter, this kind of
seesaw.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (35:09):
The assumption is because there's no
change.
MyongAhn Sunim (35:11):
There's no growth or no development in that
.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (35:14):
When people use that term.
MyongAhn Sunim (35:16):
It's stagnation.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (35:17):
It's viewed as stagnation.
MyongAhn Sunim (35:18):
You know.
And boredom, and we knowboredom is the new devil.
You don't want to go there, butit's the seesaw thing, right?
And if we consider that theabsence of suffering equates to
joy, right, or the absence ofjoy or happiness equates to
suffering, then, like I said,it's a hostage situation.
(35:39):
It's a see-saw thing, yeah, andthey're fizzy.
I like to say that they'refizzy.
So you have, your happiness isfizzing but it's fizzing upwards
, and your suffering is fizzingbut it's fizzing downwards.
So there's a fizz, there's anactivity, there's a happening,
there's an evolution, there's aliving thing that is assigned to
(36:01):
, you know, there's movement andlife, to happiness and to
suffering, too, sure.
And so when we consider theidea of calmness or tranquility,
of peace, or what, the Koreanterm that we frequently use,
koil, which simply means kind ofstillness, it's unappealing to
(36:23):
the general mind.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (36:28):
It's unappealing to the general mind,
but I think, maybe to give apractical metaphor, I like the
concept of the seesaw.
So if you look at the seesaw,the seesaw is plastered into
solid ground and then so youhave the ups and downs which can
represent the day-to-daychanges in the emotions.
(36:48):
But you always come down ontosolid ground and maybe this can
be the contentment or thesatisfaction, and you always
come back to solid ground andfrom there you're going to have
the changes, the emotionalstates that come and go, the
things that you have to worktowards, the things that you
(37:09):
have that you lose.
But if you have this commonground throughout, that you
return back to, that is a stateof peace, a state of contentment
.
Then I think when the ups anddowns happen, you'll be able to
tolerate and endure them with amore clear mind, a more.
You'll come out of that withyour heart intact yeah, it is
(37:33):
you know it's not.
I think it's sometimes people.
We want to create this vacuumwith these terms.
Right?
Oh yeah, koyo, it's, you know,just complete peace and silence.
Well, that that sounds boring.
What do we do?
And so I think, when you launchfrom there, when that becomes
(37:55):
your launch pad and again theactual term, what it really is,
this is just a practicalmetaphor that people could apply
for their day-to-day living,because some people you have the
ups and downs in life andthey're entangled in that, but
then when that stuff ceases,they don't return back to solid
ground.
No, theirs is a deep, dark cavethat they plunge into, or they
(38:22):
plunge into murky waters, andthen they feel like they're
drowning and they cannot swimand stay afloat.
MyongAhn Sunim (38:30):
Yeah.
I like the imagery of the sky.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (38:32):
Yeah, the sky sure.
MyongAhn Sunim (38:33):
You know, and contentment and peace, and that
coil you know without gettingtoo deep into it.
You know the nature of our trueself, if you will.
There's a self that isunchanging.
And again, when we sayunchanging, our conscious mind
(38:58):
goes man, that sounds boring,man, that's just what do you do?
It's just unchanging.
But if we inspect one's ownlife's experience, I think most
people will find somewhere intheir life experience a moment
where things were just right,right, and it wasn't on the
(39:22):
account of happiness.
There's a happiness, if youwant to call it that, that
arises from that contentment,peace, and that stillness.
Happiness is for the birds,happiness in this idea of some,
you know, it's a nice thing, butit's trash really when we
(39:46):
consider the bliss, if you wantto layer that in that way, the
bliss of peace.
And it is not boredom, it isnot some kind of death, because
this is the thing.
We view it through the lens ofour sensory perception, in the
(40:09):
grossest of ways.
And and then we say you know, I, there's a.
So this idea of the sky, thevastness, the prodigious
vastness of it, and it's, it'sclear we're talking about and
then clouds of various shapesand birds and such and such and
(40:31):
such.
All there experienced seen,there they are, but not, for
lack of a better word soilingthe firmament itself.
And perhaps even better stillis this idea of a projector
screen and a thing beingprojected onto the screen, and
(40:54):
if it's, you know, you project ascene of a fire or you project
a scene of a flood.
The scene of a flood is flood,the scene of the fire is fire,
but the screen itself is neitherburned nor made wet.
Scene of the fire is fire, butthe screen itself is neither
burned nor made wet.
Yeah, and so that is theactually thing we're after
(41:21):
within the zen principles, right?
We sometimes call it happinessbecause, like I said, it's.
We avoid then this, uh, havingto define the terms every single
time, and people like it.
So, so you know, pursuit ofhappiness or the absence of
suffering, and things like that.
So, to go back to the way thatlet's see, this question was
does the alleviation ofsuffering mean happiness or
(41:43):
something more like neutrality?
This is, and this is where I'mkind of driving at.
Neutrality can be seen as thiskind of boredom, and then why
you live, what's?
You know there's no kind ofwoohoo or boohoo going on in
your life, and neutrality seemsboring, and neutrality seems
(42:08):
boring.
And so the Zen, pursuit ofpeace, is what we're after.
On the firmament of it therewill be happiness, and there
will be unhappiness, etc, etc.
And those are experiences,valued, informative, as we said
from last episode.
But they are also not theentirety of the sky, the
(42:33):
entirety of the prodigiousvastness of the firmament of
self.
And when they are viewed thatway, then the smallest of
sufferings become sort ofinsurmountable, and then we
collapse under the weight of it.
You know, and and and happinessthen becomes the only soul
(42:53):
thing that one pursues.
And when that's the case, thenone will pursue happiness, no
matter what the cost your own,your body, your mind, your
spirit or other people.
And so, yes, they it is.
It is what that, what we areafter within the zen principles
(43:16):
is.
We could say I'm just going tosay coil, I.
I like korean terminologiesbecause they are not well known
and and I could kind of preservetheir integrity in a way that I
mean the word.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (43:33):
They're not tainted and sold by other
people's ideas.
MyongAhn Sunim (43:36):
And it's not that I mean it that way.
That's what it is.
So this idea, you know.
Now comes to mind this briefline from somewhere that if
paradise was my prison, I shallstill want to leap that crystal
wall.
Yes, if paradise was my prison.
Yes, and so we could say ifhappiness was my prison, right,
(43:59):
I shall stay.
So we could build absolutelyout of the bricks of the pursuit
and the manic or the attachedand fixed and fixations on
pursuit of happiness isabsolutely a remedy for disaster
.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (44:16):
And I think Zen always offers us this
resolution with many of thethings that we talk about.
We talk about balance, right,and we talk about not getting
lost, being aware of what you'reexperiencing, and you stay in a
state of control where youexperience that that doesn't
become a wave that consumes you,and now it's like a parasite
(44:36):
that's now, you know, pushingthe buttons inside of your brain
and steering you in directionsthat you don't want to go in,
because it's very easy tounderstand how happiness can
become very quickly reckless.
I just want to give you themetaphor of teenagers living in
a home where their parentsdecide to go on vacation and
(44:58):
they leave them there and theteenagers have a pool party and
then, all of a sudden, they'reso super excited and they invite
all of their friends and andthey engage in underage drinking
and reckless behavior andthey're so happy and free Until
somebody decides to jump off theroof because they're happy and
free and excited and then nowpeople are getting hurt.
(45:19):
So it's always what is the cost?
That's the wisdom that needs tobe always taken into account,
and you can also look at manycases of movie stars that have
gained all this wealth and fameand then they experience this
emptiness and then they go andtake the things that they think
are happy and then they engagein this endless, nonstop pursuit
(45:42):
of pleasure and you can veryquickly see that all of their
fortune whether it be reputationfortune, financial fortune and
what we see right up front isthat their health is just washed
down the drain because theydidn't take into account what is
the cost right.
So some people are happy andthey think, let me drink now and
(46:06):
let me drink for endless hours,endless amounts, or let me
engage in endless amounts of sexwith endless amounts of people,
or or drugs, and I'm so happybecause I'm I have the money and
the resources to do that.
But when the storm, when uh,leaves and the dust settles,
(46:26):
what was the cost of it?
And oftentimes then the harshreality sets in is you lost many
things that were valuable toyou in that process.
So wisdom always needs to betaken into account, balance and
an awareness as to well what isthe healthy use of this emotion
(46:46):
and when is it becomingsomething that is a obstacle or
a hindrance in my life.
MyongAhn Sunim (46:53):
Yeah, it is, I think, a good kind of way to
summarize this whole thing, yeah, yeah, let's go through this.
so, no, happiness is not thedefault state of being.
Defining the terms is a greatway to start or a great place to
(47:20):
start.
Know what that means to you?
You've mentioned, you know,people with sort of affluent and
and fame, and, and if, and ifyou define the fame as your
happiness, then that's yourdefinition of it, right, um,
fame is granted, right, yourfans make you famous in a sense,
(47:41):
and when the fans stop makingyou famous in a sense, and when
the fans stop making you famousand the fame goes away, have you
any happiness then?
And wealth, this being so, etc.
Etc.
So, to whom do you surrenderthis power over you, unless the
(48:05):
other party is conscious andconscientious participant in
this communal happiness, whichis what, hopefully, people close
to our hearts do for us?
So, knowing, to where do wesurrender the power?
(48:31):
To, like we said, and thedegree to which a person can
make you happy or a thing canmake you happy is also the
degree to which they can takethat happiness and turn it into
suffering.
So, no, life and its sheerdefault state is not responsible
(48:52):
, nor does it suggest that itwill furnish you with happiness.
Yeah, that really could.
It's your work.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (48:59):
Yeah, that makes me feel when someone
thinks that way.
I feel as though someone has asense of entitlement so it can
breed arrogance, or life issupposed to give me happiness.
I also feel as though that canplunge a entitlement so it can
breed arrogance, or life issupposed to give me happiness.
I also feel as though that canplunge a person into a state of
laziness, like I don't have todo anything because the inherent
nature of life is just thingsare gonna come to me and make me
happy.
MyongAhn Sunim (49:17):
Or depressive states or somehow, when life
doesn't give you that yeah, thenthere's something wrong with me
, right?
Life is supposed to be happyfor everyone.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (49:32):
And this is the thing.
What is your?
MyongAhn Sunim (49:34):
self-worth.
Your self-worth is this howmuch are you worth?
You're worth this understandingof the power that you have,
which is in fact your godlikepower, and we forget it and we
don't utilize it properly.
And when you buy, entirely andwholeheartedly, hook sinker and
(50:03):
line or whatever, however thesaying goes into, let's say,
hook line and sinker.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (50:08):
What is it?
Hook line and sinker?
Hook line and sinker.
MyongAhn Sunim (50:11):
And if you buy to that degree to, let's say,
advertising industry, you'redone for Sure, because the
amount of truth that is inadvertising is dismal.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (50:23):
It's half the story.
Half, maybe less.
I wish it was half, maybe less.
MyongAhn Sunim (50:28):
I'm going to venture against 90% of
advertising thing is lie.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (50:32):
I've yet to find a Coke bottle that has
glistening pearls perfectlyround glistening pearls of sweat
, just designed to make youthirsty by coke.
MyongAhn Sunim (50:43):
But so yeah, if you, if you really subscribe to
to these, uh, fairy tale yeahthat that advertising industry
presents before us.
If you buy this car, you willbe like this If you buy this
thing, you're they purposelypair and make an association
right.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (51:04):
Yes, this thing will make you sexy To
speak to what you want.
That thing will make you lean.
MyongAhn Sunim (51:07):
This thing will make you smart.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (51:08):
You have these shades on and you get the
girl and.
MyongAhn Sunim (51:10):
That's it.
Right, Someone's thinking, youknow let me get these shades so
I can get that.
I was.
I was behind a bus this isyears ago and and it had a
woman's butt in a bikini and abottle of vodka, and I don't
remember what the juxtapositionwas, but that it was like that.
So it's sort of saying youeither get when you get this,
you get that.
(51:30):
I don't know, I don't know whatthey were selling the butts or
the vodka, but they'resuggesting us.
You know they're synonymous.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (51:36):
It's actually the opposite you drink too much
, you're gonna not have that butright you're gonna be in the
gym.
Well, that's the thing it's.
It's.
They make you think right, thatsure that this will get you
that yeah, that the beauty is inthe eye of the beer holder.
MyongAhn Sunim (51:50):
Right, right yeah, that's a whole other thing
right and so if you subscribeto that, the the fact that what
is advertised is advertised asthe gift of happiness then
you've lost your own magic ofmaking a thing into happiness.
(52:12):
Kids in their early lives atleast have it.
They find a rock, and it's thebest thing that happens.
In sliced bread, by the way, asa bread maker of sorts, sliced
(52:32):
bread is not the best thing.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (52:38):
I like to see a nice solid loaf that looks
hearty right, it's like thatcame out of the oven right.
MyongAhn Sunim (52:43):
That's right, somebody's hand was touching
that right yeah and so kids haveit, they find the leaf and they
make that leaf into the HolyGrail Museums, have the leaf,
like this leaf leaf, right, andand so they have the power to
make contentment andsatisfaction and joy and to make
the mundane and too special andtoo beautiful.
(53:04):
And we grow smarter, and thesmarter we grow, the dumber we
grow, in a sense.
And then we think, oh no, no,it must be complex.
And if my I don't know phonedoesn't have 78 cameras, then
(53:30):
satisfaction and happiness isnot going to be found there,
because I need all 17 cameras.
And to hold on to that is tohold on to a real power and not
to surrender.
That is to hold on toself-worth and the ability to
overcome and do anything youcould imagine.
It is a godlike power, itreally is.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (53:50):
Well, it gives you freedom, right,
freedom to make a choice again,something we discussed in a
prior Well freedom.
MyongAhn Sunim (53:56):
Freedom is the topic we ought to do.
Freedom again, something wediscussed in a prior Well,
freedom.
Freedom is a topic we ought todo freedom?
Dr. Ruben Lambert (53:59):
Yeah, we should, but I think to that
state that you're talking about.
If a person is filled withhunger for and that gets an
omanipadmehum too right Forsomething I think somebody is
desperate, then they can be veryeasily sold.
Any kind of advertisement thatcomes your way, you're easily
sold and you lose your, yourability to have wisdom, to
(54:20):
understand what's truly there.
You well what are you desperate?
MyongAhn Sunim (54:22):
you get sold the story.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (54:24):
Well, people could be desperate for fame and
money and things like that,because they think this, they're
in this, you know recklesspursuit of those things, because
they think once I get there,it's's the promised land, all of
my suffering will just washaway and I will finally, finally
be happy.
And, man, all you got to do isturn on the news, because I'm
(54:47):
just saying I think we talkedabout in the patience episode,
patience with happiness, andthat's also a thing to consider
right.
MyongAhn Sunim (55:00):
And I believe I've conjured up this memory of
a football team winning a game,and this was recently.
I think you said it was SuperBowl, super Bowl, right.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (55:16):
And people took the seat.
They're so happy, yeah, sohappy.
MyongAhn Sunim (55:21):
And we saw this at Rutgers years ago.
Right, there was a couch onfire because the team won or
something or other.
So happiness.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (55:31):
Or you see some actors they make it big,
they get money and then they buya Ferrari or a Porsche.
There's actually one famous onefrom uh, fastest and the
furious, who passed and the samething that you thought was your
happiness was your downfall,and you, they died there.
Right, you could look atcharlie sheen.
He was a guy that was desiredby many women women and then you
(55:51):
know he engaged in recklessdrugs and sex and he now got, a
few years back, diagnosed withhiv, so that the same thing that
you thought was your pleasureor your happiness actually now
became your downfall, so we needwisdom, yeah at all.
MyongAhn Sunim (56:08):
So, yes, pursue, pursue happiness.
Know that definition of whatthat means to you, right, right,
pursue it.
Know to the which degree youare pursuing it, to which end
you are pursuing it, right, whatis it costing you, right?
What is it costing you orsomeone else, right, or someone
else?
(56:28):
You know, we mustn't forget thekarmic element.
If you pursued, if yourhappiness is built like we said,
none, the necks and heads andbacks and the stepping stones of
human beings and people andanimals and things of that
nature, and if you take that tothe extreme, your happiness will
(56:49):
end with this life and thecollection of the just
(57:16):
principles of existence, thatone thing, like you said, night
and day, et cetera, et cetera,that happiness is a.
There is always a pricesomewhere, paid by somebody.
And so let's see, I think, yes,manage your expectations about
(57:48):
being happy, define the terms,pursue it to a healthy degree.
That gets you a nice sort ofhealthy perception of happiness.
And then, if you want to gowith the Zen route, know that
the pursuit of koyo, ofstillness and peace, does not
(58:09):
fly in the face of pursuit ofhappiness, it doesn't leave you
some kind of emotionallycastrated kind of cow and it
doesn't mean that you're ofemotionally castrated kind of
cow and it doesn't mean thatyou're not going to experience
suffering.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (58:21):
Absolutely.
MyongAhn Sunim (58:22):
You know there's a lot of fairytale thing of
like, oh, enlightenment, andthen you're not what.
Your nervous system justevaporates when you reach
enlightenment, right.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (58:33):
No, you don't .
MyongAhn Sunim (58:37):
So it is a good topic, yes, it paired with the
nice, healthy dose of wisdom andunderstanding of life.
And, as it is not as we wouldlike it to be, and you're going
to be doing just fine, beinghappy, be happy.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (58:59):
Absolutely and search for happiness within
your life, not in a fairy tale,not in a movie, not in social
media.
Find it in your life.
MyongAhn Sunim (59:13):
Until next time, take care of yourselves and
each other.
I'm Milan.
Dr. Ruben Lambert (59:16):
Sunim, I'm Dr Ruben Lambert.
If you like what we said today,subscribe and like and pass it
on to somebody else.
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