Today ,a neighbor emailed me an entry to her blog talking about happiness, which got me thinking about the topic: does Buddhism, Zen or otherwise, contain the secret to happiness?
The Buddha's great counter-intuitive realization was that happiness is not found in getting what you want, it's in losing the desire. Happiness, then, is not something that's acquired, it's something we always have but that sometimes gets obscured or covered by other emotions and feelings that we ourselves generate, like desire and longing and jealousy, but mostly by clinging.
As long as we picture ourselves as "over here" and happiness as something "over there," we're always going to be missing the mark. Like enlightenment, happiness is already here, at hand, and totally accessible.
Right now, at this very moment, what's shielding you from your happiness? Whatever it is, get rid of it. If it's nothing, then get of that, too.
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