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Jittananto
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HAPPINESS IN THERAVADA BUDDHISM

What is happiness?

Happiness is a positive emotion that is experienced when one is pleased. It can be described as an emotional state accompanied by feelings of positive well-being, joy, pleasure, satisfaction, contentment and fulfilment. The Pali word for happiness is “Sukha” which means happiness, pleasure, ease, joy or bliss. All living beings have a natural tendency to enjoy happiness and reject unhappiness. Thus the Buddha has stated that all living beings prefer to experience happy feelings instead of unhappy feelings.

sabbe sattā sukha-kāmā, dukkha-paṭikkūlā”

“All living beings desire happiness and recoil from suffering.”

In the Mahā Satipatthāna sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya (collection of the Buddha’s middle-length discourses), the Buddha has described two types of happiness associated with feelings. The first is worldly happiness (sāmisa sukha), which is the happy feeling arising from the five sensory bases, and the second is unworldly happiness (nirāmisa sukha), which is the happy feeling that does not arise from the five sensory bases, but from the development of the mind. 

In the Nirāmisa sutta of the Samyutta Nikāya, the Buddha has described two levels of unworldly happiness. The first is the unworldly happiness experienced in the first, second and third fine material mental absorptions (rūpāvacara jhana) developed through concentration meditation. The other level of unworldly happiness is called the still greater unworldly happiness (nirāmisa nirāmisataraṁ sukha). That is the unworldly happiness experienced when an enlightened person looks upon the mind that is free from greed, hatred and delusion. 

The Buddha has described three unwholesome, unskilful and unprofitable roots of the mind which are the basis for the development of all types of mental defilements that lead to unhappiness and suffering. They are Greed (lobha), hatred (dosa) and delusion (moha). These three roots are deeply embedded in the minds of unenlightened beings acting as the driving force to make them perform unwholesome deeds. The three unwholesome roots which are also described as poisons, will cause one to perform unwholesome physical, verbal and mental actions that can result in unhappiness to the doer as well as to others. In the Kamma Nidhāna sutta of the Anguttara Nikāya (collection of the Buddha’s numerical discourses), the Buddha has stated how the three unwholesome roots condition the performance of the ten unwholesome deeds.

Wholesome or skilful physical, verbal and mental actions which are the opposite actions to the above ten actions, are performed based on the three wholesome roots of non-greed (alobha), non-hatred (adosa) and non-delusion (amoha) and will result in happiness to the doer as well as to the others.

In the Kālāma sutta of the Anguttara Nikāya, addressing a group of residents from the town called Kālāma, the Buddha has stated that a person who is not overcome by the three unwholesome roots will refrain from unwholesome actions resulting in well-being and happiness.

In the Ananya sutta of the Anguttara Nikāya, the Buddha has described four types of happiness that a householder can earn while still enjoying worldly sensual pleasures.

1. The happiness of earning wealth by just and rightful means (atthi sukha)

2. The happiness of using such wealth on the family, friends and meritorious deeds (bhoga sukha)

3. The happiness of being free from debts (anana sukha)

4. The happiness of blamelessness by living a pure life free from unwholesome physical, verbal and mental deeds (anavajja sukha)

The Buddha also stated that the first three types of happiness are not worth a sixteenth part of the happiness of blamelessness by refraining from unwholesome physical, verbal and mental deeds.

When one considers the circumstances of the arising of different kinds of happiness in the discourses discussed above and elsewhere in the Buddhist scriptures, happiness within the Buddhist teaching can be considered to be of three kinds.

1. Sensual happiness (Kama loka/all gratifications with a dense body or finer body like the devas)

2. Mundane spiritual happiness (Rupa and Arupa loka/ Anariya jhanas)

3. Supra mundane spiritual happiness (Magga Phala/ Nibbāna)

Those who have attained the first three supra mundane stages of Stream Enterer, Once Returner and Non-Returner can enjoy the Nibbānic happiness when they experience the fruition of those stages. For a fully enlightened Arahant, Nibbānic happiness is the natural happiness of the mind because an Arahant’s mind is free from any mental defilement. The aim of a disciple of the Buddha should be to cultivate the Buddhist spiritual path of liberation to attain the ultimate supra mundane happiness of Nibbāna, instead of indulging in transient sensual happiness or mundane spiritual happiness that can lead to craving, attachment and continued existence in the cycle of birth and death (samsāra).

  • This is a great post from Drarisworld. I didn’t include all the paragraphs because it would have been too much. For more information read the Yoga Sutta and the Nirāmisa Sutta.

 

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