Sukha at Christmas

 Happiness does not depend on what you have or who you are. It solely relies on what you think.

The Buddha

It is so beautiful out there...in the part of the world this clump of flesh and busy mind I call "me"  is on. There is a fresh covering of pristine white snow over everything.  The landscape offers  the perfect Christmas card, expressing "Peace on Earth" . That is a fitting reflection since this time of the season is where I tend to find what I was looking for in the holiday...when it is near its end lol.  Ironic eh? Everything just seems to be perfect as it is right now...no need to change anything. What is is good enough.  This feeling experience is what, in Sanskrit, would be called Sukha. 

Sukha

Sukha, of course, is related to and, at the same time, the "opposite" of Dukkha.  In simple terms...(as long as we do not get stuck on the terms, concepts, language choices)...Sukha or happiness is simply the absence of Dukkha or suffering.  Dukkha is the absence of Sukha.  They are interrelated in the sense ...we cannot even begin to understand or experience happiness unless we understand and experience suffering. Just like we cannot understand or experience darkness unless we understand and experience of light.  Darkness is simply the absence of light. Suffering is simply the absence of happiness and happiness is simply the absence of suffering. 

The Unconditioned

I listened to another lovely dharma talk today ( see it listed below) and these words resonated in me:

Touching happiness means touching the unconditioned. 

After hearing those words, I immediately found myself going back to Joseph Goldstein's, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

When the Buddha speaks of the end of dukkha, he is not simply talking about being in a good mood. The radical, uncompromising freedom of Nibbana [Nirvana/End of suffering] is not dependent on conditions being favorable; it is not dependent on conditions at all. page 315

Three Cravings that Take Us From Sukha

The dharma teacher in the below video did say that there were three types of cravings responsible for our sense of suffering.  We have a tendency as human beings to look for happiness in our sense pleasures, in becoming a certain someone, and in not becoming a certain someone.  Yet, as long as that is our goal, we will not find the sukha we are looking for and without sukha we have suffering.  

During this season, I often find myself  going back and forth between the experience of happiness and the experience of suffering. I am still dependent on conditions to bring me peace and I have a craving to please my five senses, to be a "good"  person and refrain from being a "real" person who is imperfect in their evolution away from attachment and aversion....I do not want to be a person who is still "suffering" at a time of year they believe they should not be suffering in. ( How many thousands of people are like that, I wonder?) . 

We look to bring pleasure in through our five senses and when we do not succeed at doing so...we suffer. Christmas represents and fosters a certain type of expectation on conditions. We look to Christmas to bring us pleasurable sensations through what we see (lights, decorations, landscapes), hear ( Christmas carols, laughter, warm wishes etc), taste ( all the food we tend to over consume), smell ( Christmas trees, turkey coking etc) and feel ( hugs, warmth of a fire, "Jack Frost nipping at your nose" lol)  

No Conditions

Yet, true happiness is not dependent on conditions being favorable. It is not dependent on conditions at all. 

Without expectations or attachment to these conditions...be they related to Christmas or any other time of the year...we all have what is needed for Sukha within us. Conditions will be what they are in Life...sometimes they will be favorable and sometimes they won't be.  Sometimes they will be wrapped in darkness and sometimes in light.  True happiness is being able to sit with it all, embrace it all and even smile through it all.

So the scenery I see now, though very favorable, is not why I feel peace.  Christmas is not why I feel peace and happiness. I feel peace and happiness becasue I know there is a way through suffering that has nothing to do with the conditions that surround me. That is Sukha!

All is well.

Joseph Goldstein (2016) Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening. Boulder: Sounds True

Deer Park Monastery (August, 2021) (Class # 17) The Third Noble Truth Can be Called the Truth of Happiness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfFvGsmMcKU