[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[curt]

Benito Carral wrote:

>   I  think  this  is  really interesting, it has to do
>with  the  "hapiness myth." Why do most of people think
>that the goal of life is to be happy? I don't agree. In
>fact,  I consider such a view a very dangerous one, and
>certainly unwholesome.
>  
>
I have a friend who is a Buddhist nun and a Zen teacher, who was once 
asked whether or not she was really happy in her life as a nun. Her 
answer was "my life isn't about happiness." She is a wonderful person 
with a great spirit, and I think that I understand what she was saying - 
but personally I believe that this is a problematic way of expressing 
the Dharma in English. In the Sutra Spoken to the Kalamas, the Buddha 
advised against any arbitrary or unreliable criteria for accepting a 
teaching - rather he tells the Kalamas only "when you yourselves know 
that these things are good..." should one adhere to a teaching. After 
two thousand years of dualistic Christian brainwashing it can be hard to 
get past the old "if it feels good there must be something bad about it" 
mentality - but prior to Christianity all of the Ancient Philosophers 
upon which the "western" intellectual tradition is supposedly based 
taught that seeking what is truly Good leads to the only true happiness. 
Platonists even called their most sublimely ineffable first-principle 
"the Good". And they (the Platonists) also taught that one must know for 
oneself what is "Good" to really attain happiness (see especially 
Plato's Republic, for example - or Julia Annas' book The Virtue of 
Happiness for a contemporary scholar's take on this).

Also, the Dalai Lama often expresses the Dharma in terms of both ending 
suffering and attaining happiness. I don't think he is just trying to 
please his audience when he says that - in fact I have the impression 
that the Dalai Lama pretty much means what he says quite sincerely - and 
that his understanding of traditional Buddhism is quite solid. So while 
some people might choose to avoid talk of "happiness", there are others 
who agree with the Dalai Lama and Plato in thinking that happiness, if 
properly understood, is the natural result of living our lives in a good 
way.

- Curt