BUDDAH Archives - Mindful Happiness

July 22, 2019 By Admin

What The Buddha Taught About Metta

In the Metta Sutta (Anguttara Nikaya, 11:16) The Buddha said that we should seek the following characteristics in how we live our lives:

Wholesome goodness;
Gentle speech;
Human Humility;
Personal contentment;
Personal calmness; and,
Pure-heartedness in all we think, say, and do.

By living this way we would be most likely to find the true path to peace – inner and outer peace. On our life path, living these attributes day-to-day, we make conscious wishes (and actions) to support the following:

We wish for ourselves and others to be safe;
We wish to have positive thoughts;
We wish for gladness in our safety and the safety of others;
We wish all being to be at ease;
We will cherish all living beings;
We wish for us all to be freed from sense-desires;
We will practice universal love; and,
Living a life with all of the above will lead us to a liberated mind.

For more details refer to The Metta Sutta, Angutarra Nikaya, 11:16.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton Sangha

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

March 29, 2015 By Admin

Happiness: One Path According to The Buddha

In The Dhammapada the Buddha includes an important section on the topic of happiness. How to be happy in a life of changing joy, suffering, and neutrality? How to be happy in a world of attachment/craving for desired pleasures and avoidance of all suffering? Attachment, impermanence and unhelpful experiences – all cause suffering. It is quite difficult to overcome these worldly realities. The only way to overcome negative reactions is through the knowledge and use of the mind. The difficult practices of mind over emotions, compassion over self-interest, and equanimity over dysregulation are set up as comparisons between how an enlightened person lives versus how an unenlightened person lives. Each of the Buddha’s statements below includes the fact that enlightened beings do not do what is typical in the world of samsara. In fact, enlightened beings have life-long practices so they will not be typical. So, remember that each statements noted comes with the suggestion that the enlightened person will be without a trait or tendency that is highly common in the world and its people.

Enlightened people who wish to be happy with live: without enmity, hatred, affliction, defilement, restlessness, sensual obstructions, dis-ease, unpleasantness, victory or defeat, fire-like passion, ill will, misery, distress, craving, grief, unwholesomeness, and foes. Therefore, to be ultimately happy you must do your best to attain these outcomes of practice. Consider these statements: Working on attainment of these conditions implies true happiness via the path to enlightenment – The Way. Or, as Buddha called it, the “pathway to the stars.”

The section ends with statements about the importance of personal health (psychological and physical implied), personal contentment with what is, and personal attainment of nibanna (enlightenment). To live in the ways described above results in “world-transcending insight” on how to be in your life. The end product of these efforts is true happiness – an un-attached, un-craving, un-avoiding happiness.

Refer to Carter, J. R. and Palihawandana, M. (Trans.). (1987). Sacred Writings, Vol.6, The Dhammapada, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 254-261.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

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Psychodynamics of Alliance – Therapeutic Relationship Enhancement This post includes basic considerations, processes, and clinical skills necessary for developing a strongly positive clinical alliance and therapeutic relationship in therapy. Here the alliance is required for any substantial change in psychotherapy, and the therapeutic relationship rides the quality of the initial alliance to expand and inter-penetrate […]

Using Lectio Divina to Improve Your Self-Esteem LectioDivina is an ancient form of Christian (Benedictine) meditation. This meditative prayer is sometimes called “Sacred Seeing.” Lectio Divina follows specific steps as a process: lectio or reading a passage; Meditatio or meditating on the passage or image; Oratio or praying (I add – in your own way); […]

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Helper Self-Care is Important In the most current issue of The National Psychologist (July-August, 2019) an article linked helper effectiveness, risk management, and clinical outcomes to helper self-care. To make a long story shorter, I will simply paraphrase and re-word the suggestions. These recommendations support YOUR emotional survival and successful risk management as a helper as […]

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Meditation on Gratitude – Why it is so Important The daily rapid vibrations from our fast-paced and sometimes dangerous world may impact us in ways that make unhealthy norms of being. The struggle to feel good enough, to have enough, to be somebody, to keep up with the raging ads about what you need NOW and […]

Stress in America – On the Rise – The American Psychological Association recently completed its national survey on stress in America. Stress in America for adults is on the rise! I will review below a selection of reported percentages from the 2015 survey (published in 2016). 1) Younger people are more stressed; Xers and Millennials […]

How Most People Learn in Psychotherapy It is highly important that clients learn from their therapists. In most cases this includes alternative ways of thinking, emoting, and behaving. So what can we learn from educational research on how people learn? Of course we all know it begins with a solid therapeutic alliance – the […]

Amitabha Buddha – Pure Land Meditation The following meditation had been modified by me to make it a more specific self-healing meditation and to better fit the time we now live in. Sit quietly and complete 3-4 deep, calming breaths. Pay attention to the quality and density of the light you see outside of your […]

A Primary Source of Unhappiness Self-medication to reduce or avoid pain and suffering is a major unhelpful habit in the United States. It is a desperate human effort to reduce pain and suffering in physical and psychological experiences. Therefore, we humans may be hard-wired for it. When we suffer and do not utilize effective wise […]

Healing Meditations for Destructive Emotions Based on the mountain of research supporting the use of regular meditation practices and yoga, it is safe to say that Buddhism and its practices have merged with modern scientific investigation. From the early days of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (the MBSR of Jon Kabat-Zinn) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (the DBT […]