#platform/youtube #channel/bodhi-light  Happiness, I submit to you, is who you really are. You are fundamentally happy. When people talk about happiness, they're approaching it the wrong way. They talk about what they like, what they appreciate. Happiness is your natural state of being. The better way to describe it, happiness, is a lack of unhappy thoughts. I'm telling you, you, deep down inside, you are happy already. What happened is that you allow yourself to become unhappy. How? By allowing unhappy thoughts to arise. Does this make sense to you? Think about it. When you wake up in the morning, are you unhappy? Very simple test. For most of you, when you wake up in the morning, you are what? Not unhappy. Can we agree on that? Think about it. When we wake in the morning, your mind is blank. Yeah? And then, naturally, what happens? Notice it. Observe that yourself in the morning. You're not unhappy. And what happened? You said, "I want a cup of coffee. I am hungry." See that? You allow unhappy thoughts to creep in your life. We welcome these unhappy thoughts subconsciously. You accept it as natural. But it's not. It's not natural for you to let unhappy thoughts arise. And this is where meditation training comes in. You train, and we teach you to cross your legs. And what happens when you cross your legs? Unhappy thoughts arise. You say, "I don't like this." Right there is unnatural. Easiest way to recognize those unhappy thoughts is I don't like it. I hate this. I wish things were different. That's the majority of the thoughts, the types of thoughts that make you unhappy, let your unhappiness build and increase and increase. So, the meditation training is what makes you unhappy. This training is very, very special, is counterintuitive because you're trained to endure it. So, the first skill you need to learn to do is endure. Because in the end, you develop the ability to neutralize them or not be affected by them anymore. And ultimately, not allow them to arise anymore. But that's not the complete picture for happiness, is it? What you don't realize that your state of what you call happiness, liking, enjoyment is built on this layer of what you don't have. It's called bliss. You would have this state of bliss, you cannot have a like. It's a deeper level of happiness. Happiness is sensual, sensory. It based on your senses, your six senses. Hearing a praise makes you happy. Notice that? Eating something makes you happy. Smelling something makes you happy. Your happiness as we know it is based on the six sense organs. That is based on something deeper. We call it your nature, your happy nature. Your true nature is happy already. And it through your sense organs, it manifests itself as oh, I like this fragrance. Oh, oh, I like Chinese food and so forth. So, this is why it goes back to happiness is we experience happiness when mm, you don't allow unhappy thoughts to arise. If you don't allow unhappy thoughts to arise, meaning that the deepest highest level skill level is you have no thoughts. No thoughts arises at all because if even if you allow a happy thoughts to arise, then unhappy thoughts will also arise after that. That's the pattern in your lives. So, the constant state of happiness is when you don't allow thoughts to arise. That's all. That state there is a state that's very blissful. That's your natural state. So, the simply put, you the more you practice meditation, the more you're able to advance your meditation skills, you'll be happier. Simply put, you experience more bliss, you experience what is a lack of unhappy thoughts. We call it peace. Historically speaking, the last 20 years, the more our students become more skilled in Chan meditation, they happier. They can experience more peace and bliss. regardless of what happens outside of them, around them. No matter what people do to them, they're still happy. Their happiness does not depend on others. So, intrinsically, you're happy inside.