18 Jun Happiness Lessons – From the Happiness & its Causes Conference
Last week I attended a wonderful conference at which a range of incredible happiness speakers presented from a variety of perspectives. Over the next week or two I’ll try to summarise and share with you some of the happiness lessons I learned.
One of the most interesting aspects for me was the buddhist teachings that permeated the conference and within this, a particular happiness message – that happiness is like a bird with two wings.
One wing is wisdom. The other wing is compassion.
Compassion is a very important part of buddhism and as I understand it, one can only experience happiness and one can only be compassionate if one first has wisdom.
In this context, wisdom refers to knowledge of one’s self, one’s thoughts and emotions, one’s being. Without this knowledge, it’s argued, it is hard (if not impossible) to experience happiness. With a greater understanding of these variables, one can target the causes of suffering and enhance the causes of happiness.
I’d love to know your thoughts on this so feel free to respond to this happiness posting if you have something you’d like to add.
Again, I’ll be posting more thoughts and summaries from the conference over the coming days so keep your eyes open and keep in touch.