The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness

What’s interesting is that none of the possible interpretations invalidates any of the others. They simply represent different levels of meaning based on context, which, in turn, is based largely on experience.

Through retraining, the brain can develop new neuronal connections, through which it becomes possible not only to transform existing perceptions but also to move beyond ordinary mental conditions of anxiety, helplessness, and pain and toward a more lasting experience of happiness and peace.

So, whether we’re analyzing material objects, time, our “self,” or our mind, eventually we reach a point where we realize that our analysis breaks down. At that point our search for something irreducible finally collapses. In that moment, when we give up looking for something absolute, we gain our first taste of emptiness, the infinite, indefinable

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Modern physics has indicated that our understanding of material phenomena is limited to some extent by the questions we ask of it.

The teachings of the Buddha— and the lesson inherent in this exercise in non-meditation—is that if we allow ourselves to relax and take a mental step back, we can begin to recognize that all these different thoughts are simply coming and going within the context of an unlimited mind, which, like space, remains fundamentally unperturbed by whatever

The only difference between meditation and the ordinary, everyday process of thinking, feeling, and sensation is the application of the simple, bare awareness that occurs when you allow your mind to rest simply as it is—without chasing after thoughts or becoming distracted by feelings or sensations.

Put very simply, the results of an experiment are conditioned by the nature of the experiment—that is, by the questions asked by the scientists who set up and observe the experiment. If you consider this paradox as a way of describing human experience, you can see that just as the qualities ascribed to a particle are determined by the particular ex

sentient beings, including ourselves, already possess the