In "Reminder of Happiness," the woman writer says that our ancestors always warned us of possible disasters, which always made us pass by happiness. "When the golden carriage of happiness passes us by, we suddenly realize, ah! It has come already."
"To be reminded of happiness is to celebrate the joy that comes from a good harvest with song and dance, instead of always thinking of the calamitous years that may come."
The importance of "reminding happiness" is that it is for us to live the present moment without thinking about the past or fearing the future. This, of course, relieves us of a lot of anxiety, and allows us to escape from the misfortunes that may come our way for a while.
But there is one question that always makes me think: does happiness come from a feeling in the mind or from a physical experience? If happiness is just a feeling of happiness, just a spiritual experience, then what is the need to remind?
The Rockefeller family was the richest in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, and they monopolized the U.S. oil industry, and even Wall Street had to look at their faces. Unfortunately, Rockefeller himself suffered from major depression, exhausting the world's most advanced medical equipment and the best drugs are not helpful.
Suddenly one day, he went to a Buddhist temple in China and stayed there for one night.
The next day, he took off in a hurry to return to the United States, disposing of all his possessions.
One wonders what he saw in China. Instead, they saw him at work on the docks, and saw him delivering fresh food to the orphanage ......
To their surprise, he was cured of his illness.
Later, he was found dead in the countryside at the age of 92, penniless, with only a scripture and a parchment scroll by his side.
That sutra was Chapter 22 of the 42nd Sutra, and one of the passages said, "A person who desires to think is like a person who walks with a candle against the wind, and there is no hand that does not burn."
On that parchment scroll was written his reading of the scripture. Mind: All happiness comes from the feelings of the heart.
It was then that people came back to their senses and realized why he had dissolved his business empire, why he had abandoned all his possessions, why he had gone to work on the docks, and why he had to die a guest ......
So the question is, since happiness comes from the feelings of the heart, is there any need for a reminder? I think the answer is yes, the feeling in the mind will come anytime, anywhere, there is no need to be reminded.
So what is the happiness that the woman writer wants us to be reminded of? According to our current understanding of happiness, she said "reminding of happiness" is actually a comparison. It is the comparison of happiness to misfortune, and the comparison of minor misfortune to major misfortune.
For example, the comparison between a good harvest and a bad harvest, and the comparison between a bad harvest and a bad year, will produce a certain sense of "happiness". However, I always feel that this kind of "happiness" through comparison and reminder is not solid enough, and it comes in a passive way. The first thing I'd like to say is that I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to do this, but I'm sure I'll be able to.
There's a phrase that doesn't sound very nice, "Schadenfreude," but it happens all the time in real life. For example, as the writer said, don't think of the possible disaster year after the harvest, but when we celebrate the harvest with songs and dances, the neighboring counties or villages have floods or locusts, and we are glad that we don't have a disaster at the same time, other people will think that we are in the happy disaster.
The real "happiness" is neither a reminder from the outside to the inside, nor an appearance in the eyes of outsiders, it should be emanating from the inside to the outside, and it is a very strong feeling of the heart. It is a very strong feeling of the heart. This feeling of the heart from the inside out not only pulls the self positive, it is also like a beam of light for others to provide a kind of positive energy.
Writer Zhou Guoping said: In fact, there is still happiness to be found, that is, those things we have lost. In the eyes of those who have encountered disaster, peace is blessing; in the eyes of the sick, health is blessing.
What he means by happiness is also a kind of comparison. Compared with Bi Shumin's emphasis on living in the present and not thinking about the future, Zhou Guoping's comparison is with the past self that has not encountered disasters, and with the past self that has not been sick.
From this, we can see that happiness as a spiritual experience can be not only in the present, but also in the past, when we constantly remember the past, and in the future, when we look forward to a better future.
There is no doubt that many elderly people live their emotions in memories, and all the good things they did when they were young make their old age full of happiness, and even their confidence to live with their injured and sick bodies.
Undoubtedly, many young people's emotions are living in the future, once someone has done a questionnaire survey, young people's happiness index is generally higher than the elderly. The reason for this is that young people's expectations of the future are generally much higher than those of older people, and the age advantage allows them many options, while older people can only rely on memories to pursue happiness.
Of course, in real life, there are many children born in wealthy families who do not know the blessings of happiness, and need to be reminded of happiness. In this regard, parents often take the children of those poor mountainous areas to compare with them, but this simple comparison and reminder is often rarely persuasive, and not as good as comparing him with the outstanding children of people who live in the same class of people to be more persuasive.
I once read a parable in which a poor man complained that God was unfair to him. When God realized this, he immediately promised to make him a rich man because someone was willing to trade with him. The first person who was willing to trade places with him was a billionaire who was willing to give the poor man his entire fortune in exchange for one of the poor man's eyes.
The poor man thought about it and did not agree, because the pain of losing an eye was too much for him to bear.
The second person who was willing to trade places with him was a multimillionaire, who was also willing to give all his wealth to the poor man in exchange for one of his legs.
The poor man thought about it and did not agree, as the pain of losing his leg was also too much for him to bear. At this point, the poor man suddenly realized that although they have a lot of wealth, but they do not have health; I do not have wealth, but I have health. It turns out that everyone's happiness is relative.
I can't help but think that happiness is not something you need to be reminded of, but you need to feel it with your heart. This kind of enlightenment is a gradual enlightenment, which takes time, just like the Lei Feng Tower's fall, every day to move a few bricks down, after moving to a certain number, the tower naturally fell. Another kind of enlightenment is an epiphany, when one wakes up from sleep and the Leifeng Tower suddenly falls. It is like the poor man who resented his poverty and neglected his health. After meeting the two rich patients, he realized that health is priceless.
I often think that we often feel unhappy, it is because we expect too much of life, most of us can not be like Rockefeller to abandon all the property of all the desires, but we can adjust our desires a little bit lower, and then a little bit lower, and never let it more than the ability to survive, in this way, many of the expectations will be easy to realize, happiness will always be there.