Happiness, Sadness And Peace

Happiness, Sadness And Peace : 

It is commonly projected in spiritual teachings that the objective in this life is to be happy and keep other beings around us happy. Well, in Buddhist teachings the approach is a bit different.
Take any two situations in your own life. One that has been a pleasant one and the other which has caused you pain and unpleasantness. The reactions to both these situations by a siddha (accomplished one) and an ordinary being will be different. Whilethe ordinary being will sway between the extremities of being happy in one situation and sad in the other one that has been unpleasant, the accomplished one will be at peace in both the situations. Herein lies the fundamental difference.

While peace is a constant state of being, having almost no contrasting opposite, happiness is subjected to a contrasting dual state viz. sadness. While the nature of peace is unchanging, the nature of happiness is subject to forces prone to change hence making it a temporary or transient state. Happiness also has the great possibility of being contaminated by desire, not so is the case with peace.

To understand the difference better, let us take an example of a mother who has just lost her child. It would be foolhardy to expect the traumatized mother to be ‘happy’ in a heart—rending moment such as this, however accomplished a yogin she may be! However, if the same woman had even the basic understanding of the teachings on impermanence, she would certainly be at ‘peace’ with the given extreme situation. And this approach can be applied in several circumstances with us in day to day situations.

Om Namah Shivay.