Happiness is not the satisfaction of selfish desire, it is the absence of selfish desire; not the absence of will, but the absence of desire.
It is a mistake to think that one can be happy in the endless cycle of desiring. It is incorrect to say that one is happy when a desire is satisfied, for is it not usually, if not always, the case that one is never fully satisfied, that there is always another, or further, desire in need of satisfaction? And along the way, most of our desires will go unsatisfied, to which our reaction is unhappiness and suffering.
Rather than saying that one is happy when a desire is satisfied, it would be more accurate to simply say that one is satisfied, to one degree or another, though never completely. In this way we can see that one cannot win the game of desire—for one is never happy whether his desires are (partially) satisfied or unsatisfied—he will always be dissatisfied to a degree, and suffer accordingly either way. Desire—>satisfaction or dissatisfaction—>more, or another, desire—it is a process, a cycle. This is why desire is a never ending torture test; like Sisyphus—if he desires to get the stone to the top, he will never be happy—he may achieve a semblance of satisfaction as he nears the top, but he is never really satisfied, let alone happy, if he still desires to reach the top, which, of course, he never does, and thus will suffer and be unhappy when he fails and must start again. It is an endless cycle of dissatisfaction, of suffering. The moral of the story is not the test itself, but his attitude. Indeed, the only way for him to be happy is to not desire reaching the top. He is only doomed to unhappiness if his attitude is conducive to it. If he does not desire (or feel the need) to reach the top then he cannot be said to be doomed to unhappiness. As is so often the case, the answer to the riddle is to escape the trap of the riddle, to escape the riddle itself. The way to be happy is not to satisfy the desire, it is to not have the desire in the first place. Without the desire—which is, to be honest, born of ignorance in the first place—there can be no dissatisfaction, no suffering.
This point of view, it can be argued, would necessarily lead to sloth and torpor, but this is not the case. In fact, it is more productive, and healthier for the person, and thus the whole. For if the motivation is reward, if the motivation of life and work is desire for reward, then one will always suffer, and suffering leads to stress, ultimate unproductivity, and ill-health. It is the wacky idea, so foreign to Western, individualistic ideology, that the reward for work is the work itself, that there is no reward, that one should be mature enough not to need/want a reward, that the joy in a journey is the journey itself, not getting to the top, or end, or goal. This is the lesson of process, and it is one that takes practice, effort, and training (self- or otherwise), to learn and realize.
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From my personal notes, 11/16/99.
