MyongAhn Sunim: 0:15

Welcome back episode 11 of the World Through the Eyes podcast. I'm Jan Sunin here with Dr Ruben Lambert and we are back for another fan mail. I'm going to stop saying fan mail.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 0:32

No, it's just great that people are really listening, participating and contemplating things and giving us some feedback. So again, thank you very much.

MyongAhn Sunim: 0:40

We really appreciate that Absolutely we do. It does make this something other than just the two of us having a chit-chat. It does feel like we're talking with. Hopefully it doesn't feel to you like we're talking at, but we're talking with the listeners, especially when these questions come in or these suggestions and in this case, questions, suggestions, but also a bit of a perspective already built into the question. So, anyway, this is what's on the table. Thank you for the gift of this podcast.

MyongAhn Sunim: 1:28

I'd like to suggest happiness as a topic In general. I think many people have high expectations about being happy. For example, in the context of the US, the Declaration of Independence refers to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable rights. However, by expecting or demanding happiness to be our default state of being, we can unintentionally increase our own suffering. What can we learn from Zen principles about developing a healthier perception of happiness? Does the alleviation of suffering mean happiness or something more like neutrality? Can we still pursue our own happiness and that of others without being attached to or clinging to the idea of happiness? It's a mouthful. It asks questions, but also answers questions from the Zen perspective as well. So the listener clearly has an understanding of Zen, at least its larger principles and happiness and things of that nature. So, as per usual, I think it always calls to the need to define terms If you have not listened to the very first of our podcast episodes.

MyongAhn Sunim: 3:08

First of our podcast episodes, which ended up sort of being a general disclaimer perhaps for the podcast in general, words on words, and we talked about words and meaning of words and how words have been either weaponized or kind of defanged. And anyway, throughout the, throughout the podcast, we've weaved this idea of words having a meaning. That's assigned to them by, say, the websters, but they also have a meaning assigned to us by an individual right and it's which word, which definition are we working with?

MyongAhn Sunim: 3:49

I mean, we must forget, we mustn't forget that the Tower of Babel is a real thing.

MyongAhn Sunim: 3:57

We are in it, not in the fact that necessarily you speak Spanish, I speak Polish, know polish, let's say and this and that, but in the sense that we could speak the same language and yet just can't get an idea across because and and this could, this could get you know we can't do it in the day-to-day conversations, I think, because the conversations would get very technical and this and that.

MyongAhn Sunim: 4:27

But when it comes to discussing a point, I think it's a good idea to get some bearing as to what in fact it is that we're discussing. And arguments, interpersonal, intersort, of ideological, political, religious, whatever are frequently hinged on the fact that it appears that the two parties are talking about the same thing. But when you listen a little bit closely, you realize that they're talking about their individual definition of the word and the concept of the word, and they're arguing up on it as if they're talking about the same thing, which they're not. So the arguments made for or against an idea from one perspective, who, who are a person who's working with a different definition than the other person, it's what are we talking about? What are we arguing about? There has to be some ground rules, in a sense, of what it is that we're talking about, and so I think things like, for example, you mentioned, excuse me, definitions.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 5:39

right, there's a general definition for any term. Let's say, one thing that I was thinking about was temperature, and you could look up definitions of, let's say, hot and cold, right, and then you have the individual experience of those things. And it could be completely. I see this with like my parents, for example, when it comes to just hot and cold.

MyongAhn Sunim: 5:59

Who's hot? I'm hot, who's cold? What do you mean? You're hot, I'm cold. Who's cold? What do you mean? You're hot, I'm cold?

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 6:03

My mother's always cold, my dad is always hot. So when they ask each other that question, they're using the words and the terms to describe their experience.

MyongAhn Sunim: 6:12

But the person is perceiving it from a completely different angle. Yeah, it really, really is.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 6:19

My mom can ask my dad oh, is it going to be hot out there?

MyongAhn Sunim: 6:28

And my dad's like, oh, is it going to be hot out there? And my dad's like, oh, yeah, it's hot.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 6:28

And then my mother goes outside. She says it's freezing outside. You're like okay, what world bring your jacket? What world are the two you're living in? It's just, but they're using the words hot and cold yeah, that's perfectly, that's perfectly cool yeah people are, they're just yeah.

MyongAhn Sunim: 6:38

So let's, let's, let's kind of unpack a little bit the idea or the word happiness or the definition with which we're. You know, I think the biggest, or the first maybe, place to start is happiness versus pleasure. Yes, because happiness is frequently thought of as pleasure, right, and not always the case, not by everybody. All right is frequently thought of as pleasure, not always the case, not by everybody. All right, everybody. Put down your keyboards, don't clickety-clackety just yet. Not me, all right, let me put it this way Sometimes people, when they speak of happiness, it's synonymous with a state of pleasure, something pleasurable is going on, et cetera, et cetera.

MyongAhn Sunim: 7:34

So we have to consider that element. Also, we have to consider the nuance, spend the spectrum of contentment, satisfaction, happiness, excitement, elation and mania and ecstasy. Sure, right. So it could be that whole spectrum if your definition is wherever it lands. So I guess the whole thing will depend on what personal definition of happiness is going to be. Personal definition of happiness is going to be. The listener pens it against. Does the alleviation of suffering mean happiness? And we could say, yes, right, the absence or the alleviation of suffering is a happiness, or the alleviation of suffering is a happiness. But then consider sadism and masochism, right?

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 8:57

So again this thing. Well, I I think the sadism and masochistic ideas also fall in line with what you were referring to just right before that, where you have almost like this range of happiness and then if you cross a line or you go into an extreme, then you have some terms that even in clinical psychology we actually don't consider as adaptive or functional for daily life, which is states of ecstasy and states of euphoria, which are closely tied to the term that I use there, mania, which, if you look at the definition of a manic episode, you can see that a lot of the things that a person does in that state of mind doesn't lead to a happy life when they wake up out of their manic state.

MyongAhn Sunim: 9:40

But in that moment they're feeling that. They're feeling that they're happy, they're uber happy.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 9:45

Yeah, there's no sense of control there, there's no sense of limit, right. So, yes, they're happy. But then there's this endless pursuit of pleasure, soul pleasure. And then I think back to remember when we went to go see the Buddha play in New York, the one-man show. Ah yes, that was really nice. And one of the things that he said there is like he was playing the role of the Buddha. And I think Mara comes and says to the Buddha, who was Siddhartha Gautama at the time. He tells him to stop his pursuit of enlightenment and he says I believe something like that. I will grant you one mountain full of gold or something. And then in the play, the gentleman playing Suddathagottama responds and says no, I would not want that because I know the human mind.

MyongAhn Sunim: 10:35

After you, give me one mountain full of gold after some time. Yeah yeah, if the rain were thrown to gold, even then our greed will not be satiated. So, yes, an element or or control is always a thing, so we could tie that to wisdom. Sure, happy, how happy, is happy enough. Enough and because one could be happy. And if your happiness is dependent or built on the backs and necks of others, is it happiness? You know it's happiness for that person, right?

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 11:14

it's their own personal happiness and somebody else's personal at the cost of what right I mean then, right there, when you describe it like that, then I just think ebenezer scrooge type of happiness, right, right until he gets I'm happy but taking away from somebody else does that bring me happiness, right? So that means their dissatisfaction, their pain is my pleasure, and of course, uh, grapes of wrath, if I must.

MyongAhn Sunim: 11:40

Uh, tom is having conversation with someone and the person goes well, you know, you just got to make a living. And Tom says, yeah, I wish one could make a living without taking it away from another. And so this idea of happiness, from the Zen perspective, or psychological perspective too you mentioned mania and this kind of extreme it's, it's a hostage situation. In a sense it's a blackmail situation. The happiness is dependent on unhappiness for its very existence and vice versa. It's this yin-yang, the um-yang element that we cannot have one without the other. You cannot enjoy a meal if you don't know hunger. And this goes with thirst and any form of joy and happiness, and they are codependent in that sense. So the very pure approach is to want one thing without understanding that the other, its shadow, is. This is the sort of building blocks towards one's suffering. Is this is the sort of building blocks towards one's suffering?

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 13:08

Ultimately yes.

MyongAhn Sunim: 13:08

It's going to build you out of your happiness if you're expecting happiness and happiness only, and also forget the fact that happiness, like I said, is the other side of the coin of suffering the other side of the coin of suffering, and so this happiness is a slippery, slippery fellow.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 13:32

I think that's a very good point understanding it with the yin-yang perspective, keeping that in mind, where there's night, there's day, where there's day, there's night. Where there's light, there's shadow. And there's a very good point that you make there it's human beings want half the equation only. And just by wanting half the equation, right there alone, you're already causing so much suffering, because, as the Buddha says, all things are impermanent. That includes happiness too.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 14:00

And one makes the other. So the absence of sadness makes happiness. But then the absence of happiness makes sadness. And if you, let's say, just look at those individual parts and you become attached to that, so you, let's say, are eating your favorite slice of pizza and you're very happy, what happens after that last bite? You're full, but automatically now you're left wanting more. And it's in that wanting more and that craving more that you might feel disappointed.

MyongAhn Sunim: 14:35

But that automatically came. What is enough?

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 14:37

How do you find that state of being full enough and understanding that, yes, this happy moment, surely, will now come to an end?

MyongAhn Sunim: 14:47

and that's okay. What do you do with that one hill? That's uh, uh. You know, one of one of uh big players in korean zen has a list of these things and one of the one of these little short statements he makes, a statement akin to contentment is the highest, either riches or satisfaction, something to that effect and contentment?

MyongAhn Sunim: 15:18

right, because now we have, we have the satisfaction, you have the thing you wanted, you got the thing that you wanted. How do you hold on to the contentment with it? And contentment could be, you know, across the board right. But so this last element of the question from the listener can we still pursue our own happiness and that of others without being attached to or clinging to the idea of happiness? This is a very important point that we can absolutely pursue and we ought to, and in fact, yes, we can, so long as it's not this rigor mortis attachment. I mean the Four Noble Truths clearly pin these things the building blocks of existence and happiness, and dissatisfaction, or the unhappiness and the suffering, if you want to call it that. You know we see it there and that the fundamental prerequisite for suffering is attachment and clinging Right.

MyongAhn Sunim: 16:33

So again, we could go so many ways with this, because the nuance then would suggest that there's nothing wrong with happiness, there's nothing wrong with suffering, there's nothing wrong with anything, there's nothing wrong with suffering, there's nothing wrong with anything, there's nothing wrong or nothing right. It's the attachment and the not knowing what is enough and where is enough.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 16:52

That that is a that is a problematic situation here humans don't know how to balance the scales, so we're constantly chasing. When you're working, and working hard, sometimes, uh, your mind becomes exhausted and naturally, what comes next is what you complain. I just or I just can't wait for the weekend, and we've talked about this right you work for the weekends yeah hump day and all of that yeah.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 17:19

So then you work really hard, you suffer in your mind working, and then the weekend comes, you're happy. But then Sunday nights, the misery starts again, in anticipation of Monday. And if you continue down this endless cycle, it's this emotional roller coaster that, by the time you're 50 years old, your heart will be ground down to a pulp.

MyongAhn Sunim: 17:38

Well then, we've invented for your further carrots to the donkey a thing called retirement.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 17:48

Oh yes, so many people suffer in retirement.

MyongAhn Sunim: 17:50

So many people suffer the retirement and the pursuit of retirement.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 17:55

As when I retire. I can't wait to retire.

MyongAhn Sunim: 17:57

I can't wait to retire when I retire. If you haven't it organized and you retire, it's a premature death. I've seen people retire and within three years the cognitive and physiological deterioration is so severe that it's a death.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 18:22

It's a death, it's a death sentence.

MyongAhn Sunim: 18:23

I? I know people who have retired and within six months, went and got a some menial job somewhere just to stay active, and you know. So retirement is what do you do with it, firstly, but also to live the entirety of the life for the retirement and, god forbid, you drop dead 10 minutes before it. How many years do you retire?

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 18:47

for.

MyongAhn Sunim: 18:50

Mini retirements. You drive and derive joy and fulfillment from your momentary things and the smaller things, and it is, I think, more fulfilling than this kind of promised land which you may not see, because that's the reality of it.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 19:12

And what a sad life you know. You work 60 years to look forward to your retirement and then you're old, you're sleepy, you're grumpy, you're tired, you know, and then you suffer then.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 19:22

So that means your whole life you suffer, right? Yeah, that's why I think some sort of a resolution is yes, happiness and sadness does exist. They're almost like siblings, right, one makes the other From one the other one is born and they're impermanent. Right, you will cycle through that. There's nothing wrong with experiencing happiness, but know that your happiness shall pass, the same way that your pain and suffering shall pass, too right, and then we get into this great human contradiction that, again, we've spoken about many times is when happiness comes. We're human beings, we love loopholes. Right, when the when the happiness comes, you want it to never end. But when the bad stuff comes, you're like make it go away right away, right so it's like pick one.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 20:07

Is it either one or the other? Yeah, you know, and that's why I think one hill solution there is, almost like the, the yumju, which no one has one on right now, but it's like the string with the beads on it, right, the changing moments in life. But you have the string. The contentment can almost be the string, and I think that'll grant you a better way of living your daily life. Yes, you're gonna have to. There'll be times when you'll work and you'll suffer and the dissolvement of that will come and you'll experience pain. I'm sorry. Happiness, but then that happiness too, those things are conditional. That can fade also. But then what do you plunge right into? Like depression and darkness and my life is over.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 20:42

No, but see if you have that string of contentment throughout then I think I think that can, that can provide you a formula where you can live your life with more meaning, but, yeah, contentment is very close to, we're getting there, we're working towards it.

MyongAhn Sunim: 21:00

Actually, the, the, the experience in life is going to be what, what life presents, and what life presents is this, um, young, this happiness and unhappiness, the pain and pleasure, the suffering and and the absence of suffering, and and this is this, is the state of reality, right, and so understanding it as such, this idea of happiness, in a sense, is, to a certain degree, delusional, and what the listener is suggesting is that exactly that. However, by expecting or demanding happiness to be our default state of being, we can unintentionally increase our own suffering, and it's absolutely the case, but, again, it's the expectation that makes it.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 21:58

It's not the fault of happiness.

MyongAhn Sunim: 22:00

It's the fault of the expectation of happiness. So what is enough? How much is enough? We have to understand, and yes, absolutely it is not the default state of being. Happiness is not the default state of being. War is closer to the default state of being, unfortunately, right. But having said that, understanding that it is not the default state of being also, then must bring with it the idea that no one in this world or the world to get into Diamond Sutra Asang In, sang Chung, sang, sang Suja Sang. You know these things, that not the other persons or your, frankly, even your families. No thing outside of yourself is required or saddled with the responsibility of your individual happiness. So the expectation of someone else as being the one who furnishes happiness, who makes me happy, is unfair.

MyongAhn Sunim: 23:19

It's unfair and it's not real. So this idea of expectation of life and it's as the listener puts it the default state of being, it is not. Happiness is not the default state of being. The expectations cannot be put on the world, people in it, to to furnish me with happiness. It's unfair to to to burden someone in that way I kept thinking burden, yeah, relationships do it. You know family, ship and you know we have all those things.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 23:55

But that we're talking kind of well the extreme to be the sole source of my happiness.

MyongAhn Sunim: 24:01

You put in so you could have a family, you could have a loved one, you could have all those things and they can make you happy. You could have them and be miserable.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 24:10

That happens all the time, I wouldn't be out of business if that wasn't the case.

MyongAhn Sunim: 24:16

So what responsibility lies with the individual? This is something that must be understood. It is my personal responsibility. Not only is it the responsibility, but the reality of the fact. It is the only way to be happy. It is the only way to be happy is to make yourself happy.

MyongAhn Sunim: 24:42

You could bring in people to participate in this, but with every degree of participation and involvement, you surrender to another person, remembering that that person is a person and a human and not perfect. With every degree of that, what we get is the degree of control that they are given, and therefore, the greater the degree to which a person can make you happy equates to the greater the degree to the person can make you miserable or hurt you. We are more hurt, and we are hurt more so by those who are closest to us, who we let into our hearts. Right, yeah, and that's the kind of thing. So, yes, do not expect the world around you to make you happy. You can make out of it happiness, and only you can do it.

MyongAhn Sunim: 25:45

Right, and other people could participate et participate, etc. But at the bare bone minimum. That's the thing. Now, having said that, we also have to consider that that happiness is an emotion, and so right it's, it's just one of life's experiences. You know, I tell this to parents frequently in terms of protecting children from emotional experiences upon them. But the simple experience of life being and having to be really this kind of broad plethora of human experience, from moments of sadness, to god forbid boredom, boredom is the new devil right.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 26:41

No one knows what to do with their boredom nowadays it's.

MyongAhn Sunim: 26:44

it is worse than pain, it is worse than suffering. Suffering, I mean, we've talked about that and we don't even want a kid to spend like two seconds in boredom.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 26:50

Heaven forbid. We bombard them. Well, because this is the thing Blinking lights. They can't, they don't know what to do with it.

MyongAhn Sunim: 26:59

Because we don't provide tools and equipments as much as we sort of used to. You know, this isn't to say that old ways were like gods I don't play, and you know, if you break a leg, walk it off.

MyongAhn Sunim: 27:11

That's not what I'm suggesting that's not the way but the point is it's you know, and I've, I'm still searching, and perhaps there's a listener out there who could come up and help me. Help me, because I have yet to come up with a better image for this than the old computers. You remember defrag, defragmenting your computer, where?

MyongAhn Sunim: 27:32

you had to defrag your computer for, and you had more space to get more space right and you had this yeah, you had this grid right and you had these little little bars and lines of different files and stuff, and when you defrag you compress all of that stuff into one side, so you you squeeze out the useless empty spaces and that space then is transferred to a broader empty space in a sense. So now you make more room, work space. I I can't come up with the, with the imagery of modern day that is akin to that, because it was perfectly exemplifies the need for boredom as a as a means to expand the mind, like if you, if your computer hasn't enough memory and you want to open a program, it takes so much energy and so much space for the program to initially just open and then it collapses and it no longer uses so much energy. But the opening needs space, and if we haven't that, how then is the mind going to kind of open up?

MyongAhn Sunim: 28:35

But, anyway, that's another thing. What I did want to bring up is this idea of emotions, and we could kind of dive back into the principles of real medicine. Happiness or joy is we're talking about it as the highly coveted emotion to have, emotion to have, but from whether it's the five element principles of oriental medicine or the sasang Korean medicine system, right, emotions and we've talked about this briefly when uncontrolled, and here's that word again right.

MyongAhn Sunim: 29:29

What do you do with it? How much is enough, what is sufficient, et cetera, et cetera. Emotions, when uncontrolled and I've mentioned that famous, I don't know famous, but quote by Igema, who said that if you let your emotions run rampantly, you know they damage your five viscera, means your lungs, your heart, and it takes, you know when the damage is done, it could take 10 years for you to fix it. It really kind of drives that. It's the same thing as stabbing yourself in those organs with a knife, organs with a knife.

MyongAhn Sunim: 30:05

And so this idea of emotions as experiences, but an extreme end of it, right? So with children, as I said, this idea of like a multivitamin, emotional multivitamin, right, and boredom is just one kind of vitamin. You need it, right? Sadness too is a needed emotional experience because they will go out into the big wide world and they will experience sadness and etc. Loss.

MyongAhn Sunim: 30:36

And so this idea of emotions as a necessary experience is one thing, but this idea of them being uncontrolled and within the sasang principles of oriental or the Korean principle of sasang medicine. We have four makeups of the body, in a sense, and out of these four, two the um, soum and taum work with initially, there's this thing called the nature, that a person has a certain nature and then the nature expresses itself in its kind of opposite ways. So you have, you know, calmness and joy, and they play these kind of games within one person and too much of one or the other right. So too much calmness, right which on its extreme end is laziness and kind of uh, you know, inactivity, and too much joy on and on the other end is is, we said, like elation, and then mania, yeah, hysteria, you know those kind of things. So this idea of, of these emotions, running a mac, a muck that's the english word running a muck can damage your physical health, so happiness yeah

MyongAhn Sunim: 31:57

right. And then we see the same thing in in the five element, uh, principles, whether avoid or missing, or the philosophy right happiness, too much happiness is damaging to the heart. Too much happiness is damaging to the internal organs. So too much happiness is what we may seem we want, but if you get enough of it, or not enough, if you get too much of it, then, like anything else, too much of anything too much. Anything else too much of anything too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. So if we look at it from this experience of emotional state and things I'm happy with and unhappy, and if we pair that with absolving the world around us of the responsibility to furnish this upon me, then we have some, you know, control panel that we could work in within oneself.

MyongAhn Sunim: 32:55

Which thing do I surrender the power to if I choose to make me happy? From which thing do I withdraw the power for it to make me happy? And happy, you could substitute any emotion for it. And so this simple idea that an emotion arises and then we are there, just kind of at the mercy of it, it's not the healthy way to look at it. It's not. We want to have the kind of multivitamin you know, the nice bouquet of emotional experience in life. It makes things, for you know, interesting. If it's just roses and roses and roses and roses, yeah. And if it becomes roses and then it becomes damn roses, and then goddamn roses, and then, ah, roses, right, and then you get jaded, and then roses are no longer roses, they're now be you know, murderous demon thing you try to get rid of out of your mind so it is.

MyongAhn Sunim: 33:59

It lies between this idea and and you know, we even have, with an oriental medicine, you know, by, by means of diagnosis, right, the sound of a person's voice, right.

MyongAhn Sunim: 34:10

So we have a thing called the laughing voice, for example, and the laughing voice is an expression of the fire and it's damaging to the heart, etc etc so by means of diagnosis, listening to the sound of the voice of the person, um, and there's an emotional element to it, and that emotion then suggests an excess. And this is again the thing what is excess, what is too much, what is not enough. And so we have to remember that we have this ability. Now, I do have to absolutely bring in the idea of the fact that we use the word happiness interchangeably and frequently, within Zen tradition also. Why? Because the word peace is boring. Contentment is boring, peace is boring, satisfaction is boring. It's this theater, the assumption is, because there'sisfaction is boring, it's this teeter, this kind of seesaw.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 35:09

The assumption is because there's no change.

MyongAhn Sunim: 35:11

There's no growth or no development in that.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 35:14

When people use that term.

MyongAhn Sunim: 35:16

It's stagnation.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 35:17

It's viewed as stagnation.

MyongAhn Sunim: 35:18

You know. And boredom, and we know boredom is the new devil. You don't want to go there, but it's the seesaw thing, right? And if we consider that the absence of suffering equates to joy, right, or the absence of joy or happiness equates to suffering, then, like I said, it's a hostage situation. It's a see-saw thing, yeah, and they're fizzy. I like to say that they're fizzy. So you have, your happiness is fizzing but it's fizzing upwards, and your suffering is fizzing but it's fizzing downwards. So there's a fizz, there's an activity, there's a happening, there's an evolution, there's a living thing that is assigned to, you know, there's movement and life, to happiness and to suffering, too, sure. And so when we consider the idea of calmness or tranquility, of peace, or what, the Korean term that we frequently use, koil, which simply means kind of stillness, it's unappealing to the general mind.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 36:28

It's unappealing to the general mind, but I think, maybe to give a practical metaphor, I like the concept of the seesaw. So if you look at the seesaw, the seesaw is plastered into solid ground and then so you have the ups and downs which can represent the day-to-day changes in the emotions. But you always come down onto solid ground and maybe this can be the contentment or the satisfaction, and you always come back to solid ground and from there you're going to have the changes, the emotional states that come and go, the things that you have to work towards, the things that you have that you lose. But if you have this common ground throughout, that you return back to, that is a state of peace, a state of contentment. Then I think when the ups and downs happen, you'll be able to tolerate and endure them with a more clear mind, a more. You'll come out of that with your heart intact yeah, it is you know it's not.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 37:35

I think it's sometimes people. We want to create this vacuum with these terms. Right? Oh yeah, koyo, it's, you know, just complete peace and silence. Well, that that sounds boring. What do we do? And so I think, when you launch from there, when that becomes your launch pad and again the actual term, what it really is, this is just a practical metaphor that people could apply for their day-to-day living, because some people you have the ups and downs in life and they're entangled in that, but then when that stuff ceases, they don't return back to solid ground. No, theirs is a deep, dark cave that they plunge into, or they plunge into murky waters, and then they feel like they're drowning and they cannot swim and stay afloat.

MyongAhn Sunim: 38:30

Yeah. I like the imagery of the sky.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 38:32

Yeah, the sky sure.

MyongAhn Sunim: 38:33

You know, and contentment and peace, and that coil you know without getting too deep into it. You know the nature of our true self, if you will. There's a self that is unchanging. And again, when we say unchanging, our conscious mind goes man, that sounds boring, man, that's just what do you do? It's just unchanging.

MyongAhn Sunim: 39:06

But if we inspect one's own life's experience, I think most people will find somewhere in their life experience a moment where things were just right, right, and it wasn't on the account of happiness. There's a happiness, if you want to call it that, that arises from that contentment, peace, and that stillness. Happiness is for the birds, happiness in this idea of some, you know, it's a nice thing, but it's trash really when we consider the bliss, if you want to layer that in that way, the bliss of peace. And it is not boredom, it is not some kind of death, because this is the thing. We view it through the lens of our sensory perception, in the grossest of ways. And and then we say you know, I, there's a. So this idea of the sky, the vastness, the prodigious vastness of it, and it's, it's clear we're talking about and then clouds of various shapes and birds and such and such and such.

MyongAhn Sunim: 40:32

All there experienced seen, there they are, but not, for lack of a better word soiling the firmament itself. And perhaps even better still is this idea of a projector screen and a thing being projected onto the screen, and if it's, you know, you project a scene of a fire or you project a scene of a flood. The scene of a flood is flood, the scene of the fire is fire, but the screen itself is neither burned nor made wet. Scene of the fire is fire, but the screen itself is neither burned nor made wet. Yeah, and so that is the actually thing we're after within the zen principles, right? We sometimes call it happiness because, like I said, it's. We avoid then this, uh, having to define the terms every single time, and people like it. So, so you know, pursuit of happiness or the absence of suffering, and things like that.

MyongAhn Sunim: 41:35

So, to go back to the way that let's see, this question was does the alleviation of suffering mean happiness or something more like neutrality? This is, and this is where I'm kind of driving at. Neutrality can be seen as this kind of boredom, and then why you live, what's? You know there's no kind of woohoo or boohoo going on in your life, and neutrality seems boring, and neutrality seems boring. And so the Zen, pursuit of peace, is what we're after.

MyongAhn Sunim: 42:15

On the firmament of it there will be happiness, and there will be unhappiness, etc, etc. And those are experiences, valued, informative, as we said from last episode. But they are also not the entirety of the sky, the entirety of the prodigious vastness of the firmament of self. And when they are viewed that way, then the smallest of sufferings become sort of insurmountable, and then we collapse under the weight of it. You know, and and and happiness then becomes the only soul thing that one pursues. And when that's the case, then one will pursue happiness, no matter what the cost your own, your body, your mind, your spirit or other people. And so, yes, they it is. It is what that, what we are after within the zen principles is. We could say I'm just going to say coil, I. I like korean terminologies because they are not well known and and I could kind of preserve their integrity in a way that I mean the word.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 43:33

They're not tainted and sold by other people's ideas.

MyongAhn Sunim: 43:36

And it's not that I mean it that way. That's what it is. So this idea, you know. Now comes to mind this brief line from somewhere that if paradise was my prison, I shall still want to leap that crystal wall. Yes, if paradise was my prison. Yes, and so we could say if happiness was my prison, right, I shall stay. So we could build absolutely out of the bricks of the pursuit and the manic or the attached and fixed and fixations on pursuit of happiness is absolutely a remedy for disaster.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 44:16

And I think Zen always offers us this resolution with many of the things that we talk about.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 44:21

We talk about balance, right, and we talk about not getting lost, being aware of what you're experiencing, and you stay in a state of control where you experience that that doesn't become a wave that consumes you, and now it's like a parasite that's now, you know, pushing the buttons inside of your brain and steering you in directions that you don't want to go in, because it's very easy to understand how happiness can become very quickly reckless.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 44:49

I just want to give you the metaphor of teenagers living in a home where their parents decide to go on vacation and they leave them there and the teenagers have a pool party and then, all of a sudden, they're so super excited and they invite all of their friends and and they engage in underage drinking and reckless behavior and they're so happy and free Until somebody decides to jump off the roof because they're happy and free and excited and then now people are getting hurt.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 45:19

So it's always what is the cost? That's the wisdom that needs to be always taken into account, and you can also look at many cases of movie stars that have gained all this wealth and fame and then they experience this emptiness and then they go and take the things that they think are happy and then they engage in this endless, nonstop pursuit of pleasure and you can very quickly see that all of their fortune whether it be reputation fortune, financial fortune and what we see right up front is that their health is just washed down the drain because they didn't take into account what is the cost right. So some people are happy and they think, let me drink now and let me drink for endless hours, endless amounts, or let me engage in endless amounts of sex with endless amounts of people, or or drugs, and I'm so happy because I'm I have the money and the resources to do that.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 46:20

But when the storm, when uh, leaves and the dust settles, what was the cost of it? And oftentimes then the harsh reality sets in is you lost many things that were valuable to you in that process. So wisdom always needs to be taken into account, balance and an awareness as to well what is the healthy use of this emotion and when is it becoming something that is a obstacle or a hindrance in my life.

MyongAhn Sunim: 46:53

Yeah, it is, I think, a good kind of way to summarize this whole thing, yeah, yeah, let's go through this.

MyongAhn Sunim: 47:07

so, no, happiness is not the default state of being. Defining the terms is a great way to start or a great place to start. Know what that means to you? You've mentioned, you know, people with sort of affluent and and fame, and, and if, and if you define the fame as your happiness, then that's your definition of it, right, um, fame is granted, right, your fans make you famous in a sense, and when the fans stop making you famous in a sense, and when the fans stop making you famous and the fame goes away, have you any happiness then? And wealth, this being so, etc. Etc.

MyongAhn Sunim: 47:57

So, to whom do you surrender this power over you, unless the other party is conscious and conscientious participant in this communal happiness, which is what, hopefully, people close to our hearts do for us? So, knowing, to where do we surrender the power? To, like we said, and the degree to which a person can make you happy or a thing can make you happy is also the degree to which they can take that happiness and turn it into suffering. So, no, life and its sheer default state is not responsible, nor does it suggest that it will furnish you with happiness. Yeah, that really could. It's your work.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 48:59

Yeah, that makes me feel when someone thinks that way. I feel as though someone has a sense of entitlement so it can breed arrogance, or life is supposed to give me happiness. I also feel as though that can plunge a entitlement so it can breed arrogance, or life is supposed to give me happiness. I also feel as though that can plunge a person into a state of laziness, like I don't have to do anything because the inherent nature of life is just things are gonna come to me and make me happy.

MyongAhn Sunim: 49:17

Or depressive states or somehow, when life doesn't give you that yeah, then there's something wrong with me, right? Life is supposed to be happy for everyone.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 49:32

And this is the thing. What is your?

MyongAhn Sunim: 49:34

self-worth. Your self-worth is this how much are you worth? You're worth this understanding of the power that you have, which is in fact your godlike power, and we forget it and we don't utilize it properly. And when you buy, entirely and wholeheartedly, hook sinker and line or whatever, however the saying goes into, let's say, hook line and sinker.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 50:08

What is it? Hook line and sinker? Hook line and sinker.

MyongAhn Sunim: 50:11

And if you buy to that degree to, let's say, advertising industry, you're done for Sure, because the amount of truth that is in advertising is dismal.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 50:23

It's half the story. Half, maybe less. I wish it was half, maybe less.

MyongAhn Sunim: 50:28

I'm going to venture against 90% of advertising thing is lie.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 50:32

I've yet to find a Coke bottle that has glistening pearls perfectly round glistening pearls of sweat, just designed to make you thirsty by coke.

MyongAhn Sunim: 50:43

But so yeah, if you, if you really subscribe to to these, uh, fairy tale yeah that that advertising industry presents before us. If you buy this car, you will be like this If you buy this thing, you're they purposely pair and make an association right.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 51:04

Yes, this thing will make you sexy To speak to what you want. That thing will make you lean.

MyongAhn Sunim: 51:07

This thing will make you smart.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 51:08

You have these shades on and you get the girl and.

MyongAhn Sunim: 51:10

That's it. Right, Someone's thinking, you know let me get these shades so I can get that. I was. I was behind a bus this is years ago and and it had a woman's butt in a bikini and a bottle of vodka, and I don't remember what the juxtaposition was, but that it was like that. So it's sort of saying you either get when you get this, you get that. I don't know, I don't know what they were selling the butts or the vodka, but they're suggesting us. You know they're synonymous.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 51:36

It's actually the opposite you drink too much, you're gonna not have that but right you're gonna be in the gym. Well, that's the thing it's. It's. They make you think right, that sure that this will get you that yeah, that the beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

MyongAhn Sunim: 51:50

Right, right yeah, that's a whole other thing right and so if you subscribe to that, the the fact that what is advertised is advertised as the gift of happiness then you've lost your own magic of making a thing into happiness. Kids in their early lives at least have it. They find a rock, and it's the best thing that happens. In sliced bread, by the way, as a bread maker of sorts, sliced bread is not the best thing.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 52:38

I like to see a nice solid loaf that looks hearty right, it's like that came out of the oven right.

MyongAhn Sunim: 52:43

That's right, somebody's hand was touching that right yeah and so kids have it, they find the leaf and they make that leaf into the Holy Grail Museums, have the leaf, like this leaf leaf, right, and and so they have the power to make contentment and satisfaction and joy and to make the mundane and too special and too beautiful. And we grow smarter, and the smarter we grow, the dumber we grow, in a sense. And then we think, oh no, no, it must be complex. And if my I don't know phone doesn't have 78 cameras, then satisfaction and happiness is not going to be found there, because I need all 17 cameras. And to hold on to that is to hold on to a real power and not to surrender. That is to hold on to self-worth and the ability to overcome and do anything you could imagine. It is a godlike power, it really is.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 53:50

Well, it gives you freedom, right, freedom to make a choice again, something we discussed in a prior Well freedom.

MyongAhn Sunim: 53:56

Freedom is the topic we ought to do. Freedom again, something we discussed in a prior Well, freedom. Freedom is a topic we ought to do freedom?

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 53:59

Yeah, we should, but I think to that state that you're talking about. If a person is filled with hunger for and that gets an omanipadmehum too right For something I think somebody is desperate, then they can be very easily sold. Any kind of advertisement that comes your way, you're easily sold and you lose your, your ability to have wisdom, to understand what's truly there. You well what are you desperate?

MyongAhn Sunim: 54:22

you get sold the story.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 54:24

Well, people could be desperate for fame and money and things like that, because they think this, they're in this, you know reckless pursuit of those things, because they think once I get there, it's's the promised land, all of my suffering will just wash away and I will finally, finally be happy. And, man, all you got to do is turn on the news, because I'm just saying I think we talked about in the patience episode, patience with happiness, and that's also a thing to consider right.

MyongAhn Sunim: 55:00

And I believe I've conjured up this memory of a football team winning a game, and this was recently. I think you said it was Super Bowl, super Bowl, right.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 55:16

And people took the seat. They're so happy, yeah, so happy.

MyongAhn Sunim: 55:21

And we saw this at Rutgers years ago. Right, there was a couch on fire because the team won or something or other. So happiness.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 55:31

Or you see some actors they make it big, they get money and then they buy a Ferrari or a Porsche. There's actually one famous one from uh, fastest and the furious, who passed and the same thing that you thought was your happiness was your downfall, and you, they died there. Right, you could look at charlie sheen. He was a guy that was desired by many women women and then you know he engaged in reckless drugs and sex and he now got, a few years back, diagnosed with hiv, so that the same thing that you thought was your pleasure or your happiness actually now became your downfall, so we need wisdom, yeah at all.

MyongAhn Sunim: 56:08

So, yes, pursue, pursue happiness. Know that definition of what that means to you, right, right, pursue it. Know to the which degree you are pursuing it, to which end you are pursuing it, right, what is it costing you, right? What is it costing you or someone else, right, or someone else? You know, we mustn't forget the karmic element.

MyongAhn Sunim: 56:31

If you pursued, if your happiness is built like we said, none, the necks and heads and backs and the stepping stones of human beings and people and animals and things of that nature, and if you take that to the extreme, your happiness will end with this life and the collection of the just principles of existence, that one thing, like you said, night and day, et cetera, et cetera, that happiness is a. There is always a price somewhere, paid by somebody. And so let's see, I think, yes, manage your expectations about being happy, define the terms, pursue it to a healthy degree. That gets you a nice sort of healthy perception of happiness. And then, if you want to go with the Zen route, know that the pursuit of koyo, of stillness and peace, does not fly in the face of pursuit of happiness, it doesn't leave you some kind of emotionally castrated kind of cow and it doesn't mean that you're of emotionally castrated kind of cow and it doesn't mean that you're not going to experience suffering.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 58:21

Absolutely.

MyongAhn Sunim: 58:22

You know there's a lot of fairytale thing of like, oh, enlightenment, and then you're not what. Your nervous system just evaporates when you reach enlightenment, right.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 58:33

No, you don't.

MyongAhn Sunim: 58:37

So it is a good topic, yes, it paired with the nice, healthy dose of wisdom and understanding of life. And, as it is not as we would like it to be, and you're going to be doing just fine, being happy, be happy.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 58:59

Absolutely and search for happiness within your life, not in a fairy tale, not in a movie, not in social media. Find it in your life.

MyongAhn Sunim: 59:13

Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other. I'm Milan.

Dr. Ruben Lambert: 59:16

Sunim, I'm Dr Ruben Lambert. If you like what we said today, subscribe and like and pass it on to somebody else.