Happiness

Over the years, I've learned to simplify my objectives for working with myself and helping others. I want to be happy. And I want to help others learn how to be happy. Unfortunately, most people suffer from grave misconceptions about what will really make them happy. Anthony de Mello addresses this in a little story from his book, The Heart of the Enlightened:

Traveler: "What kind of weather are we going to have today?"
Shepherd: "The kind of weather I like."
Traveler: "How do you know it will be the kind of weather you like?"
Shepherd: "Having found out, sir, I cannot always get what I like, I have learned always to like what I get. So I am quite sure we will have the kind of weather I like."

De Mello concludes this story with a comment of his own:

Happiness and unhappiness are in the way we meet events, not in the nature of those events themselves.

How very true. But the ability to like what we get requires training. This is where the meditative principles are so powerful. When we meditate we practice accepting without judgment over and over and over. This slowly but effectively trains us to accept the way things are. And that deep acceptance is the key to true happiness.