Imagine Being Happy All the Time

According to Buddha, Ongoing Happiness is Our Potential

From many points-of-view, Buddha was revolutionary, especially with his explanation of how things exist and where our experiences come from.

Normally we think it is situations and people that are responsible for what we experience. Buddha taught that this view is completely mistaken, and that believing this mistaken view is what causes us all our suffering and pain.

In his book “How to Transform Your Life”, our founder, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso says:

“Inner peace, or mental peace, is the source of all our happiness. Although all living beings have the same basic wish to be happy all the time, very few people understand the real causes of happiness. We usually believe that external conditions such as food, friends, cars and money are the real causes of happiness, and as a result we devote nearly all our time and energy to acquiring them. Superficially it seems that these things can make us happy, but if we look more deeply we will see that they also bring us a lot of suffering and problems.

The real source of happiness is inner peace. If our mind is peaceful, we will be happy all the time, regardless of external conditions, but if it is disturbed or troubled in any way, we will never be happy, no matter how good our external conditions may be. External conditions can only make us happy if our mind is peaceful. We can understand this through our own experience. For instance, even if we are in the most beautiful surroundings and have everything we need, the moment we get angry any happiness we may have disappears. This is because anger has destroyed our inner peace."

Through correct meditation, we can come to know this truth through our own experience - that, in fact, it is our mind, not other people or circumstances, that creates every aspect of our life. When we recognize this, we'll appreciate the power of meditation to heal us and others at the very deepest levels.

Committing to change, committing to meditation practice

At Kadampa meditation centers throughout the world, we practice Modern Buddhism -- a modern presentation of Buddha's ancient teachings designed to help us solve all our daily problems.

The essence of Modern Buddhism is, as Geshe Kelsang says, about seeing the practice of Dharma and daily life as one. This puts the emphasis on integrating what we learn in meditation with what we do every day, so that every moment of our lives becomes meaningful and fulfilling.

Since everyone has Buddha nature - the potential to be completely free from all suffering, everyone is welcome to join us in learning and practicing the proven methods taught by Buddha for actualizing our potential.

Deep change takes commitment. For many Kadampas the pursuit of changing our mind becomes a long-term passion. If you come to our Center in Chelsea, you'll discover that there are many practitioners who have been immersed in these wisdom teachings for 10, 20 and 30 years or more. For them, the practice of Buddha's teachings have become their spiritual path. As Geshe Kelsang goes on to say in "How to Transform Your Life":

"If we want true, lasting happiness we need to develop and maintain a special experience of inner peace. The only way to do this is to train our mind through spiritual practice – gradually reducing and eliminating our negative, disturbed states of mind and replacing them with positive, peaceful states. Eventually, through continuing to improve our inner peace we will experience supreme permanent peace of mind, or ‘nirvana’. Once we have attained nirvana we will be happy throughout our life, and in life after life. We will have solved all our problems and accomplished the true meaning of our human life."