Q. If searching for happiness doesn’t bring happiness, then why should we seek answers in the first place?

A. All that we human beings do is to pursue happiness, to meet our desires. Even reading this writing is also a kind of act to search for happiness. Buddhism doesn’t discourage people from pursuing happiness but encourages them to do it in the right way.

In order to search for happiness, we should at least know what happiness is first of all; what it is like and where it is. However, unfortunately we don’t know what it is like and where it is since we have never seen it before. In other words, we are struggling in vain to attain something we don’t know. This is why we don’t succeed in achieving happiness.

Buddhism says that prior to searching for happiness, we should attain the way to recognise happiness, which is to see things as they are. When we can see things as they are, we can realise that we are happiness itself. Buddhism encourages people to realise this truth by seeing things as they are, instead of searching outside for happiness in vain. That is why it is said that searching for happiness doesn’t bring happiness.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway