Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

The inability to manage our thoughts proves to be the principal cause of suffering. Learning to tone down the ceaseless racket of disturbing thoughts is a decisive stage on the road to inner peace.

When a painful emotion strikes us, the most urgent thing is to look at it head-on and to identify the immediate thoughts that triggered and are fanning it. Then by fixing our inner gaze on the emotion itself, we can gradually dissolve it like snow in sunshine. Furthermore, once the strength of the emotion has been sapped, the causes that triggered it will seem less tragic and we will have won ourselves the chance to break free from the vicious circle of negative thoughts.

anger, for instance — what normally occurs? We are very easily overwhelmed by this thought, which multiplies into numerous new thoughts that disturb and blind us, and prompt us to utter words and commit acts, sometimes violent ones, that can make others suffer and soon become a source of regret. Instead of unleashing that avalanche, we can examine the angry thought itself and come to see that it has been nothing but smoke and mirrors from the start.

Thoughts emerge from pure consciousness and are then reabsorbed in it, just as waves emerge from the ocean and dissolve into it again.

From that moment, our thoughts have lost much of their power to disturb us.

To familiarize yourself with this method, when a thought arises, try to see where it came from; when it disappears, ask yourself where it went.

EXERCISE Resting in awareness Look at what is behind the curtain of discursive thoughts. Try to find a waking presence there, free of mental fabrications, transparent, luminous, untroubled by thoughts of the past, the present, or the future.

We must therefore broaden our inner horizons to the point where there are no walls for negative emotion to bounce off of.

It is essential to develop and sustain this broadening of the inner horizons.

When you feel overwhelmed by emotions Imagine a stormy sea with breakers as big as houses. Each wave is more monstrous than the last. They are about to engulf your boat, your very life hangs on those few extra yards in the rushing wall of water. Then imagine observing the same scene from a high-flying plane. From that perspective, the waves seem to form a delicate blue-and-white mosaic, barely trembling on the surface of the water. From that height in the silence of space, your eye sees these almost motionless patterns, and your mind immerses itself in clear and luminous sky.

The waves of anger or obsession seem real enough, but remind yourself that they are merely fabrications of your mind; that they will rise and also again disappear. Why stay on the boat of mental anxiety? Make your mind as vast as the sky and you will find that the waves of afflictive emotions have lost all the strength you had attributed to them.

Systematically blaming others and holding them responsible for our suffering is the surest way to lead an unhappy life.

We should not underestimate the consequences of our acts, words, and thoughts.

“A single dog barking makes more noise than a hundred silent dogs.”

“One moment of anger can destroy years of patience.”

I came to see how destructive an emotion anger really is, reducing our clarity and inner peace and turning us into veritable puppets.

never underestimate the power of the mind, which is capable of reifying vast worlds of hatred, desire, elation, and sadness.

anyone can get angry. That’s easy. But to get angry “on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner and at the right moment and for the right length of time” — that’s not easy.

the immediate identification of an angry thought as it arises, and for its deconstruction the next instant, the way a picture drawn on the surface of water melts away as it is sketched.

Merely eliminating sadness and depression is no automatic guarantee of joy and happiness. The suppression of pain doesn’t necessarily lead to pleasure. It is therefore necessary not only to rid oneself of negative emotions but also to develop positive ones.