The Science of Happiness

Suffering occurs automatically but Happiness we must create it. Know the fact of happiness and we can be happy for ever.

                          The science of happiness

 

 

          Who in this room doesn’t want to be happy? Yes! We all want to be happy. We work harder and do more work so that in the end, we can be happy. But it seems like we hardly ever get it.  Why is that? Is there a better way to be happy? Yes there is, it is easy, yet not too easy.

 

          Happiness is the opposite of suffering. Happiness and suffering occur alternatively throughout our daily life; one moment we could be happy, and the next moment we suffer. There is one fact about both of them; suffering can occur automatically by itself....however, happiness - we must create it ourselves.

 

           Let me give you some examples. If you sit here for long time you will eventually get bored. If you don’t eat food for 6-8 hours you get hungry. If you don’t go to the toilet for several hours you can imagine your feeling. Think about when you’ve gotten sick or lost something that you love, how did you feel? These all are suffering. And what about happiness?

 

          Happiness is the result of our brain circuitry and activity. When we do something that makes us happy, our brain will be activated and produces many brain substances to make us feel good. We can’t get these happy substances by doing nothing. We must do somethings to be happy.

 

         There are many simple activities that are able to stimulate our brain to produce these happy substances such as

 

• Physical exercise like aerobic exercise - jogging, swimming.
• Mental exercise like practicing yoga, qigong, singing or playing music, art and meditation.
• Empathy, Loving-kindness, Compassion.
• Mindfulness, this means staying with ourselves at the present
• Friendship and relationship.
• Challenging our brain by doing new things

 

          We can see that all the activities above are not difficult. We can do it all by ourselves or  ask some gurus to help us. The techniques are easy but the way to change our mind so that we intend to do these is not so easy.

 

           Start with our mind, do something to change our brain and finally be happy forever.