Unspun

Happiness, our social conditionings tell us, is about the highest aim that sensible human beings can aim for in this life. To be happy, we are told, is to enjoy the greatest gift life can bestow us.

Is it? Happiness is great, but it is a state that doesn’t last forever. No matter how happy we are at some point the thinking person becomes dissatisfied, not in the sense that they want more but that something is out of kilter with a happiness that is transitory.

Happiness, in other words, cannot ensure continued happiness. What then? The answer must lie in being able to transcend happiness, to go beyond happiness to the point that you leave it behind. The only logical way Unspun knows how in his though experiments is to try to strip the mind of all wants, desires, longings for happiness and self. It’s probably the hardest thing anyone can do. A bit like closing your eyes and to think of nothing yet being fully aware.

Unspun might have got into that state once or twice in his now lengthening life but most times this world means too much to him. So he strives for happiness instead of bliss. When he was younger this was not a satisfactory state but in his older years he’s learned to accept this duality as part of the life of someone not yet ready to take up the saffron robe.

And to think that all this was felt, thought out and explained by someone 2,500 years ago. As they say, there is nothing new under the sun – only the history you do not know. Happy Vesak one and all.