Happiness

I know we are all looking for more happiness. How could you ever have enough? But, what I have learned from Buddhist teaching is that with happiness inevitably there is also unhappiness. Certainly, being aware of that can cause a slight dampening of spirits in connection with that happy making item, event, person. However, a slight reduction in intimate connection with this sensation Happiness, can actually be a good thing.

When we can stay at least just a little aware of how our emotions can change and fluctuate, see that what can make us happy can become something that makes us sad, or unhappy, then we are able to stay more even emotionally. Certainly the highs are fun, but the greater the high the lower the low. If we stay more evenly emotionally keeled, we are able to enjoy a stable, contented, peaceful existence.

Recognising how quickly the bad emotions pass helps to relax us when those times come, to accept, and not resist what is life just now for us. With that, very often the bad dissolves, or passes quickly. Resisting the bad emotions causes greater unhappiness for ourselves than the original emotion ever would have. Certianly, resistance exaggerates, and elongates our unhappiness.

Alternatively, recognising that we are happy now, but this too shall pass, may slightly dampen that happiness. But when the time for that happiness fades, we can accept and adjust more easily to the change in lifes tone.

If we can access the quiet, peaceful nature of our true selves, whether happy or sad, we always have that basis of peace to gratefully bask in.

Meditation Practice

For a long time I had lost my meditation practice. Years ago I would daily practice a chakra meditation. However, I found having young children made meditation hard. They were always wanting you, or you were always cleaning up, or preparing food, and then you were just too tired.
When I read Eckhart Tolle, I stopped even thinking of meditation. He doesn't talk a great deal about a meditation practice. More, he tends to support just present living - all the time! If I could live presently all the time, I am sure, I wouldn't need to meditate. However, in this I am still a novice.
So, recently, I have taken up regular meditation again. I am trying to meditate twice a day. My kids are a bit older now, and when they are home, I can negotiate 15 minutes away from them. They are accommodating, too, because Mummy is so easy to get along with when she meditates!
I am finding this regular practice so beneficial. Within that meditation time, I explore the sense of Stillness, Space, and Silence. The peace, the oneness with God, and the aliveness of my body. In short, I am getting intensive practice into Eckhart Tolle's Now twice a day. With that, I can get in touch with those sensations more easily during the day. I am regularly reminded to seek out that space within me during the day. I am more peaceful, and I feel the Now more strongly for the practice.
I would urge all who want to try to connect with that spiritual self, Being, God, to try to make a place for regular meditation practice and see what it can do for your spiritual journey.