Buddhism in Atomic Habits

I've always struggled with the Buddhist principle that desire is the source of suffering - take for example:

The Buddha believed that most suffering is caused by a tendency to crave or desire things. A person might crave something nice to eat or desire to go on a nice holiday or earn lots of money. Buddhism teaches that through being dissatisfied with their lives and craving things, people suffer.

source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zd8bcj6  

In James Clear's Atomic Habits he talks about happiness in a way that I think illuminates this Buddhist principle:

Happiness is not about the achievement of pleasure (which is to say joy or satisfaction), but about the lack of desire. It arrives when you have no urge to feel differently. Happiness is the state you enter when you no longer want to change your state. 

however, happiness is fleeting because a new desire always comes along. As Caed Budris says, "Happiness is the space between one desire being fulfilled and a new desire forming." Likewise, suffering is the space between craving a change in state and getting it. 

Atomic Habits, p 260.  

This interpretation helps me understand the Buddhist principle. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bailey's Irish Cream Brownies!

Image
  It was Saturday, and Saturday is a day to celebrate food. And since this week was St. Patrick's Day, I made Bailey's Irish Cream Brownies! I went looking for a good recipe online and kept finding recipes like this one that provided instructions for making a cream with Bailey's, but then using store-bought brownie mix. I was not going to go half-way. So I found a nice fudgy recipe for the brownies themselves. Not hard to make. I was a little worried about the ganache, but as long as you take your time and use low heat, you won't burn the chocolate. Decadent!
Read more

corn bread recipe

Image
OK - I improvised this corn bread recipe a bit. I'm writing it down mostly for my own purposes, but hopefully you might try it as well.  (this is not a pic of this recipe - it's from a previous version) Ingredients: 1 cup corn meal 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/3 cup sugar 3 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 1 cup heavy cream 1 egg (beaten) 1/4 cup oil 1 small tin of diced chili peppers 1 cup whole kernel corn 1/2 cup shredder cheddar Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Blend corn meal to salt in a large bowl. Whisk together the egg, cream, and oil in a separate bowl, then blend into the dry ingredients, and add the peppers, corn, and 1/4 cup of the cheddar.  On the stove, melt 2 tbsp of butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet, just until the butter melts. Swirl it around to coat the bottom of the pan. Then pour in the mix. Top with the remaining 1/4 cup of cheddar. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until top is golden.  Slice and serve. 
Read more

un-becoming

Image
  I came across this Paul Coelho quote last week and I have been thinking about it because it reflects some of what I have been thinking about this year: “Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” ― Paul Coelho I enlisted in the Massachusetts National Guard in April of 1989. I did so for a number of reasons - some of them financial - but also because I really wanted to be part of something that I thought was admirable, and to go through training that I thought would improve my character. I wasn't wrong. It was financially beneficial - I have been largely financially independent since that decision - my folks still helped me with school, but I reduced their contribution by about 90% - and then I went on active duty as soon as I graduated in 1992 and never looked back.  But something I learned fairly early on was that I was not going to be a great
Read more