The Transcendence of Happiness
So what can I say about what’s really in my heart tonight—the terrible mourning, the depth of sorrow. How can I possibly sit here and write that I’m happy when I’m wrapped in such a profound sense of tragic loss?
How can I say that I’m happy when so much that gives life meaning and joy is fading into oblivion? When I see freedom giving way to tyranny, and truth undermined by lies, is it not the height of hypocrisy to claim that happiness abides in the center of my being?
I can say it because when you get to the core of happiness, you discover it both transcends life’s dualities and encompasses them. I can say it because authentic happiness isn’t a mood. It’s a state of being. It doesn’t depend on the play of events. It’s the luminous screen on which they dance, and they are merely its shadows.
Genuine happiness isn’t about what you think or feel. It’s not about your judgments or opinions. It’s the flow of being on which all those things ride. It’s the release of the need for anything to be different than it is, because everything you need is already within it.
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