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Happiness
The Dog-Eared Page
The Facts Of Life
The Buddha taught that there are three principal characteristics of human existence: impermanence, egolessness, and suffering or dissatisfaction. According to the Buddha, the lives of all beings are marked by these three qualities. Recognizing these qualities to be real and true in our own experience helps us to relax with things as they are.
April 2010Poetry
In The Third Century B.C.
I’m growing fatter at each winter’s coming. / My wineglass filling up again / As I sit behind the wall of my garden.
November 2009Poetry
Delayed Reactions
After the hammer slams down on your thumb / or the hurtful word penetrates, / a stunned moment follows.
October 2009Quotations
Sunbeams
May 2009I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I thought: What the hell good would that do?
The Sun Interview
The Science Of Happiness
Barbara Fredrickson On Cultivating Positive Emotions
In general the epidemiological data show that only 20 percent of Americans are flourishing. The rest are either languishing or just getting by. Maybe they remember a time in their lives when things were coming together easily; there wasn’t a lot of self-concern, self-scrutiny, or self-loathing because they were focused outward and contributing to the world. But now they’re just doing the minimum necessary to get by. This “just getting by” mode is not depression or mental illness. It’s merely people living lives of quiet despair. Upwards of 60 percent of the adult population feel like they’re going through the motions. It makes me want to share the news about this work and get people back to those times when they were flourishing.
May 2009
Quotations
Sunbeams
February 2009The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness.
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Baggage: A Love Story
I have never understood those personal ads that specify the seeker is looking for a person with “no baggage.” What does that mean, exactly? Who hasn’t accumulated regrets and scars — not to mention a storage unit’s worth of junk — by middle age? Show me someone with no baggage, and I’ll show you someone who forgot to pack.
January 2009
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Since You Asked
Cary Tennis has been called the “Walt Whitman of advice columnists” by one of his regular readers. His daily column “Since You Asked” has been a hallmark of Salon.com since 2001. Tennis offers frank and sometimes pointed advice, and he reveals his own struggles with refreshing candor. He is part spiritual advisor, part fellow flawed human, part friend who’ll give it to you straight. He can also craft a mean sentence.
January 2009Quotations
Sunbeams
September 2008The ideal of happiness has always taken material form in the house, whether cottage or castle; it stands for permanence and separation from the world.
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