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awakening
August 2009 
Thomas Carlyle and Happiness
Posted on Feb 6th, 2007
by 
Bruce
Bruce
This is a comment to Siona's recent blog posting on Thomas Carlyle on the anniversary of his death. Quoting from her post:
To which I comment:
"Yes, yes, yes. Carlyle seems amazingly close to the core! - But I wonder if the blessed / happiness distinction doesn't suffer from issues of definitions of terms. I really like Eckhart Tolle's idea that unhappiness is any state of identifying who we are with emotions we're having an aversive reaction to, such as feelings we should have something or shouldn't be experiencing something else.
When viewed with detachment, the same feelings are clearly seen as an ineffable, invaluable part of the unblemished suchness of each moment. Without the story attached to the feelings, the background of joy emerges, as the content, no longer resisted, merges with the whole mass-of-what-is, penetrated through and through by the vast, spacious awareness. Then we fall into being, consciousness and bliss. How can this not be happiness?
So, the pursuit of happiness is exactly its opposite when we are grasping at any “thing” that we dream will somehow finally complete the image of “Me,” completely impossible within the temporal framework of the world of form. And is utterly transformed when we release attachment to outcomes and to the chronic reaction to the sense of unsatisfactoriness that drives the imaginary self. The pursuit becomes effective and practical when directed by a seeing of what is along with complete acceptance of what's seen. Then we are truly blessed, but not by anything outside of ourselves. We are blessed by surrender to that to which we are directly connected at the center of our being."
And as Siona ended, Yes.
"But this I love more: Carlyle had an unblinkered awareness of the suffering inherent to the world. He believed the point of life is to make man blessed, not happy, and that the pursuit of happiness is one of the things that prevents people from achieving blessedness."
To which I comment:
"Yes, yes, yes. Carlyle seems amazingly close to the core! - But I wonder if the blessed / happiness distinction doesn't suffer from issues of definitions of terms. I really like Eckhart Tolle's idea that unhappiness is any state of identifying who we are with emotions we're having an aversive reaction to, such as feelings we should have something or shouldn't be experiencing something else.
When viewed with detachment, the same feelings are clearly seen as an ineffable, invaluable part of the unblemished suchness of each moment. Without the story attached to the feelings, the background of joy emerges, as the content, no longer resisted, merges with the whole mass-of-what-is, penetrated through and through by the vast, spacious awareness. Then we fall into being, consciousness and bliss. How can this not be happiness?
So, the pursuit of happiness is exactly its opposite when we are grasping at any “thing” that we dream will somehow finally complete the image of “Me,” completely impossible within the temporal framework of the world of form. And is utterly transformed when we release attachment to outcomes and to the chronic reaction to the sense of unsatisfactoriness that drives the imaginary self. The pursuit becomes effective and practical when directed by a seeing of what is along with complete acceptance of what's seen. Then we are truly blessed, but not by anything outside of ourselves. We are blessed by surrender to that to which we are directly connected at the center of our being."
And as Siona ended, Yes.
Access: Public
Terrific! See my invitation to you to re-post in Camp Happiness…:) H.
“When viewed with detachment, the same feelings are clearly seen as an ineffable, invaluable part of the unblemished suchness of each moment.”
Ah, that's the trick. I'm not too sure that many people know what detachment means though. Would you like to expound on that?
I am feeling attached to something. Can't even quite name what it is, but some sense of unsatisfactoriness with the world as it is is making itself known. The blessedness, the unconditioned happiness, the all's right with the world kind of peaceful ease, nope, not there in my experience this moment.
I'm actually speaking from the now of my experience. Or rather, maybe more accurately, the now of my story around the experience.
The other day I wrote: Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki have meant by: “Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement”?
Well, anyhow, sensing I am leaning way into perceiving the lots and lots and lots of room for improvement side, now.
In addition to Byron Katie's immensely practical The Work, Peter Fenner's work has been a godsend to me. He writes about fixations here (just a snippet below):
“A fixation occurs everytime we take a rigid and inflexible position about any aspect of our experience. When we are fixated, we invest mental, emotional and physical energy in defending or rejecting a particular interpretation of who we are. The fixations disclosed in this work are traced back to a core belief that something is missing in our lives. What is missing can be anything from a nice cup of tea through to enlightenment. We feel that “This isn't it”-where IT represents our particular version of how things should be. We are sure that something is happening that shouldn't be happening, or that something that should be happening, isn't. Either view is a fixation which throws us into emotional confusion as we struggle to gain whatever IT is. We fear not getting it, and having got it, we fear losing it. And by all counts IT will probably be derived from our concept of a state of enlightenment, i.e., a state of limitless possibilities and unending happiness.
The baseline assessment that “something is missing” is cyclically displaced by the feeling that “This is it.” For a time we validate that things are going well. We figure that we are getting it, or have got it-this is how things should be. We might even convince ourselves that we have arrived at the long sought-after goal of our spiritual endeavors. However, the belief that we have got it sets up the possibility of losing it, as we reconstruct that we don't have enough of it, that we could use more of it. We also question if this really is IT and even if it is, whether we now want it.
The core assessments that “this is it” and “this isn't it” spawn innumerable secondary fixations.”
Whoa, in clicking over to find Bryon Katie's website, I see the quote:
”I don't let go of concepts. I question them. Then they let go of me.”
I think that's it. I frame this as a question, and leave it open-ended and allow it to stay open. Well, just thinking aloud in case this is useful to anyone else as it's easy to fall from blessedness to hell with just one thought, just one story.
Evelyn said (first quoting my post):
“When viewed with detachment, the same feelings are clearly seen as an ineffable, invaluable part of the unblemished suchness of each moment.”
Ah, that's the trick. I'm not too sure that many people know what detachment means though. Would you like to expound on that?
————————-
Detachment is the world seen from the perspective of the spacious unconditioned awareness we already are - I can hear somebody thinking “Whaa?” We've talked before about looking at the sensory world, including our own thoughts (the Buddhist' 6th sense,” as if they were on a screen in front of us. Where does that screen end around its periphery? What is going on out at its extreme edges? What is between the screen and us, the observers? What is behind us? And crucially, what is looking, feeling hearing, smelling, tasting, thinking? Does the “space” behind us penetrate everything on the screen, does it extend in front of us, beyond the screen? Where are we in this, and just what is at the very center, close, closer, just here?
Adyashanti speaks often of what in Zen they call “the backward step.” When we view the world of form, the mass-of-all-that-is, everything “on the screen,” from the depth of the infinite spaciousness, then, though we are intimately connected with everything (what separates us?), we are yet utterly free of the sticky quality of identification with the imaginary self which arises when we “put on” the thoughts that are actually an integral part of the unitive sense of the world, believing them and the story they tell, so that everything that would otherwise at worst be mere pain nested within the infinite space of boundless joy, love and gratitude, then becomes suffering. It is being resisted and clung to at one and the same time. Then it is, as you said:
“easy to fall from blessedness to hell with just one thought, just one story.”
As Peter Fenner said in what you quoted:
“We feel that “This isn't it” - where IT represents our particular version of how things should be. We are sure that something is happening that shouldn't be happening, or that something that should be happening, isn't. Either view is a fixation which throws us into emotional confusion as we struggle to gain whatever IT is. We fear not getting it, and having got it, we fear losing it. And by all counts IT will probably be derived from our concept of a state of enlightenment, i.e., a state of limitless possibilities and unending happiness.”
What helps to be seen is that the “we” that is fixated and isn't “getting it” is entirely the “optical illusion of consciousness” that Einstein spoke of. It is the main character in the story, born out of a lifetime of misapprehensions and mistaken assumptions made under stress and at moments of helplessness (without going into the past lifetimes thing). Looking calmly into the center with open mind and heart will reveal exactly what is there. The tendecies to fall back into trance states of fixation lose their hypnotic power. We release through finesse, and move toward liberation.
Let me know if this makes sense… Namaste, B
Thank you. I may not understand, but something infinitely greater does. And that was the crux of the issue yesterday, I imagined stirring up the pond might clear its muddy reflection. (Not.)
Your words, ”Detachment is the world seen from the perspective of the spacious unconditioned awareness we already are…” reminds me of this quote I read yesterday:
“If a grain of salt would like to measure the degree of saltiness of the ocean, it drops itself into the ocean and becomes one with it, and the perception is perfect.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
Thank you, my kalyana mitta.