The pursuit of happiness: gold is gold

“If we turn our gaze inward and examine the mind at length, we can recognise that its primal nature is the basic cognitive faculty that ‘illuminates’ in the sense that it sheds the light of awareness on outer phenomena and inner mental events. This faculty underlies all thoughts but is not itself essentially change by them, as the surface of the mirror is not intrinsically modified by the images reflecting in it. We can also recognise that the negative emotions - anger for instance - are more marginal and less fundamental than love and affection. They arise mostly in reaction to provocation or some other specific event, and are not permanent states of mind. Even if we are constitutionally cranky or easy to anger, the latter is always triggered by by a particular incident. With the exception of pathologies, it is very rare to experience a prolonged state of hatred that is not directed at a specific object. Altruism and compassion, on the other hand , are much more fundamental states that can inhabit our mind as a way of being and endure independently of particular objects of specific stimuli...

Destructive mental factors are deviations that gradualy distance us from our true nature, to the point that we forget its very existence. And yet nothing is forever and irreparably lost. Even buried in filth, gold remains gold in its essential nature. The destructive emotions are merely veils, superimpositions ...”This article is extracted courtesy of HAPPINESS: A guide to developing life’s most important skill by Matthieu Ricard, which is published by Atlantic Books and is available on SPECIAL OFFER to Yoga & Health readers. See page 11 of the May 2007 issue for further details.