by Rev.Kate Lore

A sermon given August 31, 2008
First Unitarian Church
Portland, Oregon

Let me start with a story:

There was once a good and sincere woman who—like many of us-- was searching for the way to happiness.  One day, she went to seek out a wise old man who, she’d been told, would be able to point her in the right direction.

The wise old man lived in a tent high on a hill.  When she got to the door of this tent, he received her warmly.  After serving the seeker a glass of tea, the wise old man readily revealed the secret of the route to happiness.

“It’s a long way from here, to be sure,” he said. “But you can’t miss it. You will come to a village that I will describe to you, and right at the heart of that village, you’ll find 3 little shops.  There, the secret of happiness will be revealed to you.”

It was indeed a very long way to the village.  The seeker passed along many valleys and across many rivers.  Eventually she arrived at her destination, where her heart told her,
“This is the place you are seeking.”  And sure enough, there in the heart of the village were 3 little shops.  But when she went inside them, the seeker was deeply disappointed.

For in the first shop, all she found were some reels of wire.  In the second, there was nothing more exciting than a few pieces of wood.  And in the third, there was only some roughly shaped metal.

“This is IT?!” she wondered. “This is the secret to happiness?!  I don’t get it!”

Weary and discouraged, the seeker left the village and found a resting place for the night in a little clearing not too far away.  Night fell.  The full moon filled the clearing with a gentle glow.

And then, just as she was on the point of falling asleep, she heard a sublime melody
coming from the direction of the village.  “What magical instrument could be giving rise to such perfect harmony?” she wondered.
Quickly, our seeker rose to her feet and walked towards the music.  And there, to her amazement, she discovered a man playing a zither.  And the zither, she could plainly see, had been made from the wire, the wood, and the metal pieces from the three little shops in the village.

At that moment, she realized the profound truth that she was now facing.  She understood that the wise old man had sent her on this long journey to undercover this remarkable insight: that happiness is the union of everything that has already been given to us.  So ends the story.

So happiness is the union of everything that has already been given to us?  Hmmmm.  That’s a pretty abstract message; what could it mean?

I am going to share my view of the significance of this story this morning, but let me begin by defining the term “happiness”.  What IS happiness?  Well, it is not that euphoric rush that accompanies landing a hot date or winning the lottery.  No, I prefer the definition listed in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which states “happiness is a state of well-being and contentment.”    It is deeper and more sustainable than euphoria.
And why do so many of us feel that happiness is vital to our lives?  The pursuit of happiness is even written into our Constitution.

Well, according to Aristotle, happiness to so important because it is the very “…meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”   

The Dalai Lama agrees.  In his book, The Art of Happiness, he says:

” I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness… Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So, I think the very motion of our life is towards happiness.”

Now, if you are like me, you may now be wondering, “If this is true, why does the opposite condition appear to be the case?”  Take, for example, these statistics, quoted by Marci Shirmoff in her latest book, Happy for No Reason:  Less than 30 percent of people report being deeply happy. In fact, 25 % of Americans and 27% of Europeans claim they are chronically depressed. And most surprising of all: the World Health Organization predicts that by 2020, depression will be second only to heart disease in terms of the global burden of illness.

So if is indeed the purpose of our life to be happy, we clearly need some help on this front – which is why I am preaching on this subject this morning.  I want all of us to be happier and healthier people.  Yes, research also demonstrates that there is a correlation between being happy and being in good health.

Now perhaps you’ve noticed that some people simply seem to have an easier time being happy—no matter what happens to them.  While others can’t find anything more than fleeting moments of happiness no matter how hard they try.  Why this disparity? 

One explanation is that researchers have found that each of us has a “happiness set point.”  Like your weight set point—which keeps the scale hovering around the same number no matter what you eat—your happiness set point will remain the more or less the same throughout your life unless you make a very concerted effort to change it.  There are only three exceptions to this phenomenon: losing a spouse, chronic unemployment and extreme poverty.  These experiences are so difficult that they can permanently lower the level of anybody’s natural level of happiness.

“Okay,” you might be thinking, “if my happiness level is set at a certain point—how did it get there?”  Dr. David Lykken, a scientist at the University of Minnesota, had the same question.  After extensive study Lykken and his team came to the following conclusion:  50 % of our happiness set-point is genetic and the other 50 percent is learned.  So one half of the reason you walk around generally cheery or perennially dreary is that you were BORN that way.  The other half is determined by your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that have formed in response to your life experiences.  It is this second half of the equation—the half dealing with your thoughts, feelings and beliefs—that I will be addressing today.

Now let us return to the wisdom of one of the happiest persons alive at this time: The Dalai Lama.  The Dalai Lama believes that happiness can be best achieved through training the mind—which is in sharp contrast to the other messages we so often hear about happiness, isn’t it?  We are constantly bombarded with the idea that we can find happiness outside of ourselves.  If we just had the right house, the right car, the right job, and the right friends, THEN we would be truly happy.  Yes, in our culture we spend much of our time and energy adjusting the external world, trying to make it conform to our wishes.  But still that yearning for a deeper happiness continues to beckon us.  We can’t seem to stop the yearning for deeper level of contentment.

So, if looking outward can’t bring happiness, what would we need to do to nurture happiness from the inside?   According to the Dalai Lama, we must begin with the deliberate cultivation of compassion and loving-kindness.  He explains it this way:
“If you maintain a feeling of compassion, [and] loving kindness, then something automatically opens your inner door.  Through that, you can communicate more easily with other people. … [And then] you'll find that all human beings are just like you, so you'll be able to relate to them more easily. That gives you a spirit of friendship. Then there's less need to hide things, and as a result, feelings of fear, self-doubt, and insecurity are automatically dispelled.”

Ah, it sounds so easy, doesn’t it?  But it isn’t.  Cultivating compassion and loving-kindness takes years of practice—and sometimes one lifetime isn’t even long enough to master them.  And while it is true that the door to our inner self can open (like when we’re feeling safe), there are other times when it tends to slam shut (like when we’re not feeling safe).

Yes, and there are so many factors that lead us to shut that inner door, aren’t there?  Exposure to criticism, judgment, job stress and relationship insecurity—just to name a few.  Yes, life is difficult at times and our first response rarely involves beaming compassion and loving-kindness towards others.  Rather, according to Shirmoff, we tend to complain, to blame or to shame—none of which lead to happiness.

Now please don’t get me wrong: there is certainly a time and place for complaining, blaming and shaming but only on occasion—such as when injury and/or oppression is involved.  But I’m talking about when complaining, blaming and shaming are always our first responses to stress.   Let’s look at them one at a time.

Let us begin with complaining (as we often do).  We like to share our woes with others, feel sorry for ourselves, amd try to garner sympathy.  Being a martyr can feel really good in the short term.  We all need to vent with friends now and then.  But let us be honest with ourselves, complaining generally leads to self-pity, not happiness.

And then there’s blaming.   Again, it can feel really good to blame all our problems on people and forces outside of ourselves.  In the end, though, blaming ultimately weakens us.  Why?  Because in playing the victim, we end up giving our power away.  And, think about it: how many happy victims do you know?

Third and last, let us examine shaming—for this is perhaps the most destructive behaviors of the three I’ve mentioned.  When we feel shame about things that have happened to us or about who we are, when we feel guilty about something we’ve done (or not done), we stunt ourselves.  Why?  Because shame usually leads to the suppression of pain and uncomfortable feelings, and to the burying of our authentic selves—all of which ends up using a lot of energy and blocking the flow of happiness in our lives.

So if you remember nothing else about today’s sermon, remember this: if you want to be happier, stop complaining, blaming and shaming.  Although letting go of these unhealthy habits is difficult, it will be well worth the effort.

Don’t let me give you the impression, however, that I am so enlightened as to be free from these unhealthy habits.  I am not.  In fact, even as I was writing this sermon, I encountered a stressful situation and slipped into engaging all these behaviors!  It happened a little more than a week ago; on the day I helped move my youngest child, Everett, to Eugene—where he is about to start college. 

It’s never easy to have the last child leave “the nest” and it was admittedly a day of mixed emotions for both my son and I.   Up until the point where I had pulled away from his driveway, however, I had managed to put on a brave face for Everett.  It wasn’t until later, when I was driving back to Portland that the tears began to roll down my check.  Then my cell phone rang. 

It was Everett, calling to tell me that he couldn’t find his wallet.  “What?” I exclaimed. “You just used it last night, for goodness sakes.  How could you have lost it already?”
But it was true.  Gone were his driver’s license, his student card, his bankcard and his cash.  So there was my son, starting this new chapter in his life in Eugene without a photo ID, without access to money or an ability to legally drive his car.  And me—not enough time left to return to Eugene to help him out, barely enough time to get back to Portland for a church meeting.

Any feelings of well-being and contentment I possessed at that time suddenly drained from my body and the three happiness robbers reared their ugly little heads.  I put down the phone and started complaining wildly to my husband.  “This was all just so unfair!  I had already taken too much time out of my very busy schedule to get Everett fixed up in his new apartment.  Oh, WHY did life always ask so much of me?  Why couldn’t I ever get a moment’s rest?  Blah. Blah. Blah.  The laments of a martyr.  It wasn’t pretty.
Then I transitioned to blaming.   How could Everett be so irresponsible?  And why does he always expect me to drop everything and rescue him all the time?  When is he going to grow up?

Shame quickly followed.  My heart constricted as I considered my fault in this situation.   Did all those years of catering to his every need contribute to his lack of responsibility?  Could I have guided him through a better transition from dependency to self-reliance?  Did the trauma of my divorce from his father lead him to be disorganized?  And at that point, FINALLY, I realized I had just come up with a perfect example for this sermon I was writing at the time.  I had to laugh at myself!  Yes, life has a way of keeping us humble—which is a good thing, I think.

Well, I will spare you the details of how we were finally able to reunite Everett with his wallet 7 days later.  The important thing to note is that he is fine and I am, too.  Hopefully, we’re both a little wiser, too.

Now I realize that the lost wallet is really pretty minor compared to many of the big struggles we face in our lives.  Yes, I temporarily lost and regained my happiness.  But now let’s talk about what we can do on a daily basis to cultivate a happiness deep enough and lasting enough to sustain us when those bigger hardships inevitably arise?  Let me leave you with something very concrete: seven suggestions for greater happiness.  This is my own summation of what the Dalai Lama says about the art of happiness:

1. Make it a priority to know yourself.  Know your strengths, skills, and weaknesses.  To be aware of a single shortcoming within oneself is more useful than being aware of a thousand in someone else.

2. Remember that the more we care for others, the greater is our own sense of well-being.  “Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease.  It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter.”

3. Be of service to other people or at least refrain from harming them.  Remember: we are all connected—in ways visible and invisible.  If you help another, we all benefit.  If you hurt another, we all suffer.

4. Being concerned about something is okay but try not to worry so much.  To quote the Dalai Lama directly, “If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether or not there is anything you can do about it.  If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry.” 

5. Understand that suffering is a part of life and is to be accepted.  Life is suffering, or so we perceive it, because of the cycle of birth and death, the rising and falling, appearing and disappearing of all things.  Everything that comes together in this world must ultimately come apart.  Physicists call it entropy.  There is no escaping it. 

6. Cultivate ways to talk back your negative thoughts.  For example, when you find yourself complaining, blaming or shaming—stop and chuckle at yourself.  It’s more than just positive thinking, it is positive “being”. 

7. Be here now—in this moment.  It is all there is.  Don’t regret the past or be anxious about the future because it hides the gifts of the present moment.  Yes, by being present to the gifts of this  moment, we can experience for ourselves the lesson that was taught by the wise old man in my story at the beginning of this sermon.  Yes, it is by being aware of and grateful for the gifts of this moment that we recognize that happiness is indeed the union of everything that has already been given to us.

So there is have it: the route to happiness.  It sounds so easy, but surely it is not.   Do you still need help figuring out the map?  I am happy to report that you don’t need to take this journey alone.  In fact, we will be offering several classes for adults this fall that can help you, including one called the Tao of Now, but that’s not the only one.  Come check it out yourself.  Information and registration for all our classes will available beginning next Sunday at the Program Fair.  I hope you will make use of these resources.  After all, since we are all connected, this means that if you grow happier, I grow happier, too.  May it be so.

PRAYER
Holy One, Giver of Life and Source of all Joy, we pause this morning to reconnect to you, to each other and to the deep well of happiness at the core of our being. 
Help us love each other well.  Help us be sources of support and nourishment to one another—especially those among us who are suffering today.  Let us be reminded that by practicing compassion and loving-kindness, we bring ourselves back to you. 

Amen.

Copyright 2008, Kate Lore. All rights reserved.