A pertinent question from any reader who will have read the previous articles in this series would be its very title. What is the Buddha’s guide to happiness? This question could be based either on curiosity or even confusion: Curiosity to understand what His guidance was, and confusion stemming from preconceptions about the Buddha’s most fundamental teaching of Suffering. After all, it seems that the Buddha spent more time and energy talking about suffering and what to do about it than he did about happiness. In fact, the Four Noble Truths are that of Suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation. So, what about the happiness that Buddhism supposedly offers? One could question why the Buddha did not simply lay down the truths of Happiness instead of Suffering: namely, the truths of Happiness, its cause, its achievement and the path to its achievement. If you happen to be a Buddhist and a non-Buddhist were to ask you this question, would you have a reasonable answer to offer? It seems that Buddhist philosophy deals, by and large, with the paradigm of suffering rather than happiness. Essentially, what is the purpose of Buddhism? Is it to free oneself from suffering, or is it to achieve happiness? Does one lead to the other? Or are they one and the same?

In today's modern age, where our human civilisation has become saturated with the means of technology and science, we might also ask whether there is still a need to ask these rather profound questions and if the problem that the Buddha speaks of, the problem of dukkha, which we usually refer to as the “suffering we encounter in our life,” but which, just like Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, can be interpreted more profoundly, is still relevant or not, to our own life especially.

The pursuit of Science and technology has made the lives of many of us very comfortable and enjoyable, so we might rightfully ask whether we need to concern ourselves with “suffering” since the many inventions and technologies have been able to help us tackle most forms of hardship in life efficiently. Today, most illnesses can be cured. Although unnatural, due to medical intervention, our average lifespan is extending, and the comforts of modern life are accessible to more and more people. When we fall ill, there are medicines and painkillers to comfort us. There is more than enough food for people on Planet Earth, and at every street corner, we can find Pizza, Sushi or Coffee outlets to comfort us and our bodies.

On the other hand, when we look into the worldly events unfolding day by day, we might also quickly get the feeling that not everything is quite right. There is a plethora of perennial issues prevailing on a global scale, depending on what concerns people have from time to time. For some, it might be political confrontations, for others, it might be economic uncertainty, environmental or human rights issues, etc. Human cognitive advancement and the resultant rise of Science and human ingenuity have allowed us to live both a comfortable life and created new dangers and weapons that were unthinkable in the time of the Buddha, at least to the mind of an average citizen.

Whilst we are inevitably confronted with living in this world, dealing with people of different attitudes, opinions and aims – both professionally as well as in personal life, I invite the interested and open-minded reader to contemplate these articles in their own ways and use these ideas solely as inspiration to sharpen their knife of wisdom and the qualities of the human heart.

To find answers to some of the questions raised in this article, it is helpful to separate between the two kinds of both happiness and suffering that we are accustomed to. This will help us see both the vices and the virtues of modern science and technology and the relevance of Buddhist teachings in the modern era.

The Buddha never denied the various forms of happiness we are presently well aware of. He also never rejected these enjoyments as long as they were not based on immoral behaviour, which would later bring about more conflicts and problems than the temporary happiness gained by engaging in them. His only purpose was to show us the path to the ultimate destination of Nibbana and inspire us to awaken to the reality of conditional happiness. He proclaimed a form of happiness that we cannot perceive, experience or attain without the instruction of a Tathagata.

The reader might ask themselves this question: Is Nibbana a destination that is only relevant to Buddhists? Why would I want to strive to reach the destination of Nibbana if I am not a Buddhist? This is a pertinent question. Notably, the Buddha himself did not advertise or expound the doctrine he discovered exclusively to what we would call “Buddhists” but rather to seekers of the Truth. This statement does not need much convincing to the keen observer as many of His sermons, including His first and single most popular Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, “The Setting in Motion of the Wheel of the Dhamma” discourse, were not delivered to Buddhists. Agreed, many decided to renounce their worldly lives and go forth upon hearing them, but one cannot deny the fact that His sermons were not targeted exclusively to those of the Buddhist faith. Moreover, he repeatedly asked his listeners to critically examine any teaching on account of its coherence with the Truth and, therefore, its ability to offer us rest and refuge amidst the wilderness of life. 

The happiness and hardships we know about can be broadly classified into two categories: physical and mental. While hunger is a physical ailment, there are also mental hardships, such as loneliness, disappointment, sorrow, etc. In other words, we need things in life because they either help us deal with one of our four physical needs, viz hunger, shelter, clothes and medicine, or to satisfy a mental need. 

To take a simple example: We might eat the same piece of food either because it satisfies the nutritional and energy requirements of the body, or because we like how it tastes. For example, in a normal luncheon situation, most of the rice and vegetables would be eaten because that is what the body needs to keep functioning. In contrast, we eat dessert mostly to please our mind by enjoying its taste. Remarkably, the colour and presentation of our food have become important factors when it comes to our choice of food. Ask yourself what relevance such characteristics have to the purpose food is supposed to serve, and an honest answer is bound to give you an eye-opening glimpse into how much we crave mental satisfaction from things even when it has no direct bearing on its intended natural purpose. 

Let’s take another simple example – a piece of furniture – say, a couch. Our bodies require something to sit or rest on, but this does not suffice for the mind. But when one chooses a couch to sit on, it tends to seek something beyond its intended functional purpose. Consequently, even its colour, an attribute which has absolutely no relevance to the purpose of a couch, becomes a significant property when making this choice. In this regard, we have assigned the four bare necessities of food, clothes, shelter and medicines the task of not only alleviating our physical deficiencies but also assuaging our mental inadequacies.

With this simple distinction, we can now understand that most of us in today’s age and time are not so much struggling to maintain the needs of the body but rather to maintain and fulfil the needs of the so-called “mind”. It is not essential at this stage to understand in detail what we refer to here as “the mind,” as this will become clearer as we go along.

While the bodily needs are rather limited in nature, the mental needs can be limitless. For example, rice and vegetables could satisfy our hunger and provide our bodies with essential nutrients, even if eaten every day of the year. However, most of us would start feeling a sense of disapproval with that choice sooner or later, as it lacks diversity of taste. We would prefer another dish. We like to experience different cuisines and dishes; we thrive in diversity of flavour just like we do when it comes to other sense inputs. We would not want to listen to the same song over and over for a long time because that song becomes rather unexciting after a while. In other words, we are either busy looking for more of the same, or we are looking for something new and different. Either way, we are always busy looking for happiness. If we are always busy looking for it, when are we really enjoying it?

We have grown up learning that our economic systems have to be perpetually growing since it is growth that brings about wealth and the feeling of a fulfilled life to most of us. Social experiments such as Communism or Socialism have proven that point rather clearly, as it was (at least partly) the economic stagnation that made its citizens feel unhappy about it and built up resistance movements. 

However, has there been a point where we consider growth to have reached a state of saturation, where we can consider a long-term equilibrium, a condition where change is not necessary anymore? I invite the reader to ponder this question: Is the growth of economic systems not intimately linked to the needs of individuals, especially mental needs, as bodily needs are rather limited in their extent?

And has anyone found a way to truly satisfy and fill these mental needs once and for all? Is that even possible? Or is the growth of mental needs an inevitable fact of human nature that evolution has pre-programmed in us to ensure the survival of the fittest?

If we can see the connection between our personal lives and these events and circumstances on an individual level, we can begin to understand the value and meaning of Nibbana, the ultimate destination, and its relevance to our own lives. 

It is simply to attain a state of mind that does not feel the necessity to look for more, that does not need to do anything to remove mental hardship and achieve a state of happiness, as it is an unconditional state of mental bliss. Taking aside the bodily requirements mentioned above, anything else becomes an option rather than a necessity; it does not need to happen, and there is no further necessity to satisfy something. 

Has humanity, through its scientific endeavours, been able to accomplish such an unconditional state of happiness? Do you think it ever will?

If so, such a person or nation should not feel the need to fight and get into conflict with anyone else to defend something deemed valuable or try to acquire something or someone being contested by someone else. Why so? This is because if such a person is genuinely unconditionally happy and free from suffering, they would not have to defend something to sustain their mental happiness. Protecting something for peace of mind means that it is still important for us in the future when a need arises or when hardships are faced so that we can use it to maintain our level of happiness or regain it. It is baffling why most people do not realise the paradox of having to stress and strain to protect and maintain their mental happiness. It is counterproductive. Juxtapose this position with an Arahant, who has found a state of happiness whereby he does not fear that his happiness can be taken away from him even if he is deprived of the very thing that once (before achieving Arhathood) made him happy.

Here is another example: If the consumption of a Pizza would give us, or instil within us, a truly lasting state of fulfilment, then it would not be any problem if the first Pizza we have is also the last Pizza we will ever be able to have. We would not need to have another one, and any additional one would be entirely optional and not for the sake of defending or maintaining our happiness level. We invite the reader to think about other examples and to ask themselves whether they have found anything that belongs to this category – something that provides happiness once and for all – as this would make a Buddha and His path to Nibbana redundant. 

At this point, it might sound rather high-fetched and improbable that such a state of mind is even possible, as we have grown up to accept that these traits, just like our desire for more and more, are emotions which are an inseparable part of human nature. This is certainly understandable, and I invite the reader to apply the same scientific method and critical thinking to these concepts as we have been used to in the sciences we have learnt. These sciences have made significant progress in understanding physics, chemistry and biology, but many mysteries still surround the mind and consciousness. Only if we can appreciate the profound wisdom and Truth taught by the Buddha, the greatest scientist there was, will we be able to realise that such a state is, in fact, possible and achievable. This can even be done while remaining a layperson in society, as the many examples in the scriptures have shown us, at least when it comes to the initial stages of that state of mind.