The Simple Teaching of Happiness

The basic teaching of the Buddha is very simple: if you want happiness, don’t chase after the things you want or like, and don’t push away the things you don’t like. It is the chasing after what we want and the resisting of what we don’t want that creates suffering.

The Buddha taught a very simple truth: if you can stay present in this moment and accept what is here, happiness naturally arises. In many ways, this is counterintuitive—almost preposterous. We usually believe that happiness comes from getting what we want and avoiding what we don’t want. Yet when we follow that strategy, we often find that it leads not to happiness, but to suffering. This is the heart of the Buddhist teaching.

The strategies we normally use to find peace and happiness actually make our situation worse, not better. So don’t take the Buddha’s word for it, and don’t take my word for it either. Investigate your own life.

What happens when you chase after what you like? What happens when you resist what you don’t like? This teaching is not about intellectual understanding. It’s about discovering, in your own experience, what truly works and what does not. What brings love, peace, and joy? What brings hate, suffering, and despair?

You find your own way. The real gem is in the investigation you do for yourself. You can approach this from a Buddhist perspective, a psychological perspective, or through another religious tradition—it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you look for yourself.

The Buddha taught, “Don’t take anything on faith. Don’t take anything for granted. Find out for yourself.” What distinguishes Zen—and Buddhism more broadly—is that it offers a concrete practice to help you discover your own truth. You don’t have to accept anyone else’s ideas or beliefs. But to do this, you must be willing to understand yourself.

By Zen Master Bon Soeng