[Buddha-l] Republicans are happier ?

[Richard Hayes]

On Wednesday 13 February 2008 04:50, Bill Kish wrote:

> Speaking of happiness, I'm curious if anyone else has seen this
> study:
>
> http://pewresearch.org/pubs/301/are-we-happy-yet

Probably someone has, but it has not been discussed on buddha-l. Is there 
anything you'd like to say about it, Bill? It's an interesting study, and it 
is certainly worth talking about in the context of Buddhism, which has an 
interestingly obsessional relationship with dukkha. 

One of the groups of people who reported high levels of happiness in the Pew 
poll are those who attend "church" at least once a week. I wonder how broadly 
that question is construed. Does it include someone who attends some kind of 
religious function (synagogue, Sikh temple, Quaker meeting, Zen meditation, 
vipassana meditation, church bingo etc) at least once a week; could it 
include someone who does some kind of religious ritual or meditation at home 
at least once a week, that is, someone who has a part of the home considered 
sacred space that is regularly visited? Does it include someone who reads 
buddha-l at least once a week? (One former regular contributor to buddha-l 
described this forum as a kind of Internet church, rather like a version of 
televangelism.)

If "going to church" is interpreted broadly, it would not surprise me too much 
to see that people who do that consider themselves happy. (The folks on 
buddha-l have always struck me as an unusually happy lot of people, but 
perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps it is only because I consider myself to be in the 
35% of Americans who say they are very happy and I have this Joni Mitchell 
tendency to see myself in everyone.)

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes