Buddha's insight on western language

Buddha was a person some 2 000 years ago who found constantly happy life and great compassion from widened awareness. Buddha means enlightened. He and others with roughly the same insight founded the philosophy of life called Buddhism. Buddhism teaches the art of happiness and masterful skill coming from a natural wide awareness.
On western language buddhas found healthy happy life according to the human nature. A wide landscape like awareness is a part of that and gives wisdom and solves problems on the way. Healthy happy stimuli of healthy happy natural life according to feelings and with wisdom, give content to life and make one happy.
Even though not equally happy at all times but with variation from moment to moment, but with wisdom of life can one live with integrity also moments of sorrow and suffering which great skill and wisdom of life lessen noticeably, and so be continually almost happy or in a quite good mood and satisfied with life.

Buddhist meditation with healthy ways of living

Buddhism is an oriental philosophy of life that gives advices for reaching happiness, kind human relationships and high level of skill. The basic advice of Buddhism is the same as of all skills: attentin. In Buddhism one should have a wide awareness that includes the present moment, one's own life, one's social relationships and one's relationship to the wide world. This is called meditation and should bring happiness. Compassion is encouraged and said to make one's awareness better, more meditative, i.e. widely aware and living the present moment with the senses. Awareness brings skills and wisdom with which life becomes easier. Awareness of the senses, of one's own feelings, of wise ways to live and be a member of the society bring content to life and wisdom to meet life's challenges wisely.
These work best with an emphazis on naturality. That is why the basic Buddhist exercise, sitting meditation, consists of letting go and just sitting, enjoying the senses, the present moment, following one's breathing. Naturality also means following one's feelings fully and compassionately. It also appears to mean healthy natural ways of living, at least that cures the course to something more familiar and surely healthy in psirit. Poems seems to have this kind of mixture of awareness with one's feelings too and healthy wise things to do.

Keep personal space around you for the comfort of feelings

Like when you sit with a blanket around yourself or put on a woolen shirt when it is cold, you kind of emotionally reserve some space around you for yourself, for your emotions' comfort. Likewise your emotions typically need a large sphere around you and in front of you, to allow yourself to tune emotionally into the things you do and associate with, and to allow yourself personal freedom to be emotional in ways that are healthy and natural and good for you. A kind of protection space for your emotions and for your wish to also feel about the things in life. (For me that space is over a meter in my front side and maybe 30cm to the sides and my back, and half a meter up and down from me.) You do not need to keep that space empty, you just need it in your mind for your emotions, you need to dominate the emotional side of that space sociually in what comes to your own emotions only.

Do not describe yourself detailedly

The things that you do should TASTE LIKE LIFE, not like written text. So do not describe your self too detailedly. What is your work, do you like it and one or two or so (if you know people better) major hobbies and something about what those hobbies are like, a thing or two about your daily life and that's it! The rest gets classied as your personality. For example unmentioned skills create charm which makes social relationships work better.
Goodwill and good moral leave room for freedom. Wisdom of life is important but it is more like a characteriustic of deciding about things than a wordly description of your life.

Choose among many possibilities

The very best sounding choices are often somehow sabotaged and many are made to fit for all and especially the negative people with lots of money. What is best for an ordinary person, are often ordinary choices. It is also things valued that have some sound of work, so that when you have them in your life, you tend to pick the best things in them and if they do not work out you drop them away for that day. Being picky and opportunistic makes you choose the best parts but that demands that you have something to choose from, which should be healthy parts of the daily life and not just somethings sold extra which often deteriorates to a good meal, which is good for the hungry but not the key to happy life.
Of course some things are really good and have the reputation of being such, like religion, the beauty of nature, sports, music and arts at large and a little piece of life in the country side with it's practical chores.But for many of these too it matters to not to place your happiness on one card only but to have many friends and like-minded people, many kindsof things to do for a short while and many interesting things in life, many sources of happiness.

Find your own mixture of nice things to do

Happiness seems to demand at least a little bit of many fullfilling things and many kinds of exercise in life but mostly does not bear overly much of them. So 15 minutes of something each week is often much better than nothing at all, if it is a thing that brings more happiness to just you or some incredient of the healthy natural ages old ways of living, but anything more must be decided according to what feels good for you. You have to find a way of living that is right for just you.
If you try somebody else's clothes or some opinion of theirs, it is most likely that it suits just their character but not yours. Similarly with things to do it is best to stick to your own likings and to those things that are healthy and suited to most people.
What you need varies from one day to another and from one moment to another. So do not make rigid rules of something that was once a good choise. Instead allow variation.

Solve life's problems solution centeredly

Each way of looking at things is like building from certain kinds of building blocks: certain things you can so build but others not. Similarly in solving life's problems you need a better perspective, a better way of looking at things and better values and way of living to succeed in problem solving. Using the ways which brought the problems just gets you jammed in the same trouble - until you change your approach profoundly.
Women's cultural ways and values, poetry and music, religions and healthy ways of living on all areas of life bring a better understanding and solve many of otherwise unsolvable big problems in life.
If you take a not-so-wise perspectiva too seriously , you drown to it with it's shortcomings and probems. School is not a wise perspectiva but some elementary things that kids need to learn to begin with, with age one should aim higher! If yo wanna solve problems, you should take life lighter and invest enermously in wise perspectives, wisdom of life and glimpses of better life.

Some observations about who is happy

Those whose lives lack music are not happy, professional musicians and music students are not happy either, and those who study music as a hobby in school like ways are not happy. But those who have the freedom to have a music hobby just as they like, are happy: listening to radio, and CDs, singing, playing in a band, learning to compose, having fun and a fullfilling time, finding expression for emotions and room for them in life, using the perspective of wisdom of life in living ióne's life, not exactly just music but something for which music finds room and an expression, trusting emotions and travelling one's own roads in life.
Dream job, something that one likes doing and values in the world, makes one happier.
Birds are not so happy, cat owners are not happy, dog owners who practise agility or spend time in garden or go to summer cottage are happy, horse hobby makes happier. Bees are happy.
Ones who can enjoy greenery are happy. Ones who make an obligation or rigid rule about it are not. But of course one can have a dream job with animals, the nature or agriculture. Ones who do not admire the nature,pets and natural things are not happy.
Ones who do not practise sports are not happy. Ones who practise sports in rigid robot like ways or without fun are not happy. One who practise varied enjoyable sports are very happy: see the advice on moving near the beginning of this blog.
Ones who cunn in sociual relationships are not happy. Ones who make obligations out of friendship and love are not happy. Malicious persons are not happy(?). The rule "Live and let others live!" make social tangles open and social life friendly and rewarding, see http://Finnishskills.blogspot.fi for learning it.
Rigid habits make one tired and miserable, while extra exercise adn unusual thing to do every now and then make one strong and agile and so much happier.
Ones who are food-centered in their lives, either because they are thin and hungry or fat and without other content in their lives, are not happy. Ones who eat according to their wishes but are not food-centered are happy.
Ones who keep their body rigidly and artificially are not happy. Ones with relaxed reactive atmospheric emotional way of keeping the body are happy.
In cool or cold weather active and sporty eyes open leisurely enjoying beauty are happy while flegmatic and too plannedly moving are not.
In conversations those who get to talk about things close to their heart in a way that touches the way they experience them, feel happy and with connection to like-minded others, while thoe who get lost in an attempt to communicate their perspective without getting anywhere near it at all. feel frustrated and down.
People who concentrate on thinking while doing practical things are not happy. People who drown in the level of experience while doing positively emotionally motivated practical things are happy.
One who can live according to one's full understanding, also philosophical and emotional wisdom of life, is happy. One who is forced to live according to much more stupid views than one's full understanding and wisdom of life, isn't happy.

So happiness demands many things as part-time activities in daily life, but does not bear them as full-time endeavours, unless they are your very favourites and maybe not even then. How much of each and of which types exactly, varies greatly from one person to another, and should be decided by the individual himself/herself, according to what feels good and makes life better.
If you have a hobby and in addition lots of lazy time, that is pretty much the same as doing the same thing full time, since you need variation, rest, new approaches, variations in rythm, attitude, company, things to do, and new stimuli. Many things that are something on top of your everyday life, do not work alone without some such everyday basic level of work, hobbies, places to go, meeting different kinds of people etc.

Different people like different things

Some likings are a question of having enough skill, like enjoying sports, but skill may take years to achieve if at all. And in any case many likings are so intertwined with one's character and whole way of life and the level of skill in each thing, that in practise different people just like different things. Take care to notice what you yourself like and find happiness from just those3 kinds of things and not from the things that others enjoy but you cannot enjoy. If you are a sovinist or a feminist, there is a huge difference in what kind of life and values you like. Also many other things matter: sporty or liking a slow rhtyhm and peace, emotionally warm or intellectually interesting, etc.

Find enjoyable ways of doing

Different ways of living produce a widely different kind of life.
Find enjoyable things to do, enjoyable ways at looking at things, enjoyable ways of doing things and enjoyable ways of living!
A good enjoyable way of doing typically has the senses open enjoying beauty and variation, a rich atmoshpere and a feeling heart guiding and enjoying the things done.

Practise arts yourself

Arts give room to your personal wisdom of life, to your feelings, emotional wisdom and sensitivity with which to understand more about life.

Read books about wisdom of life

Wisdom of life, and consequently happiness, is something that one can learn from others. There are lots of great books about wisdom of life. There are for example quotations of wise words about love, sorrow, etc. and about famous authors (I have liked quotations of Kahlil Gibran). There are words of wisdom about healing, personal growth, human relationships and religions. New Age books are worth taking a look at. Also poetry teaches wisdom of life. Wisdom of life is a perspective that you can get used to and learn about as the time passes and you dedicate time and interest to it. The best books about personal growth, wisdom of life, etc. are very wise indeed.

Basic skills in searching for happy life

Pick things that make you happy and things that make your life happier at large, to be your choises in your daily life.
Avoid things that ruin your happiness, even if they are your habits or recommended by others who live such a life. (People's needs differ greatly!)
One can walk through one's daily life by investing only or almost solely on things that make you happy, like someone who crosses a stream by sptepping on the stones in the river. Flowers, a candle, reading a wise thought or quotation from some book of wisdom, prayer, looking at trees and enjoying the feel of the weather, spending time in the nature, associating with animals, exercising, choosing healthy food that makes you feel good afterwards, spending time with friends, starting new nice hobbies, doing the things that you love, listening to music and singing, playing an instrument, painting, doing whatever you like,... Pick things like this to make your day better. Find wisdom to avoid the nastiest happenings. Learn across time what brings you happiness and how to grasp those things to your life.

Choose wise ways of doing

Maybe happiness isn't so much a goal in life, something to achieve by doing, as it is a characteristic of one's way of doing while one reaches for other healthy and natural goal in life. So instead of an achievement, reaching happiness is a question of choosing your way of living and your ways of doing wisely, with wisdom of life.

Get a dream job

It matters greatly, what kind of job you have.
It is possible to develop new talents and skills and change so what type of person you are. You can this way get a dream job that is like your biggest dream of what life ought to be like. Please watch my video that teaches this:

More about this in Finnis language at http://nopeaoppisuus.blogspot.fi . Please try your browser's translation feature from the Finnish language to English.

Avoid a rigid body

Avoid tensing your body to a rigid posture or a rigid man like style. Such tension makes your body less lively and breaks your experiences to nasty and even slightly painful feeling in your being even when you otherwise with a lively relaxed body would feel happy and satisfied with life. Such tension also destroys your social eye and your quick-wittedness. LIVELY RELAXATION that is versatile and natural, reactive in many ways, brings you happiness together with a better understanding and skill.

Your idea of each situation, your feelings and state of mind are all reflected in your body's posture and gesture langauge. If you keep your body fixed and unreactive, your state of mind gets fixed too and so it isn't the best possible for each situation but a kind of kkrrrrhhhhhh non-working, agitating, non-comfortable which makes things in life feel like a burden and which makes your feelings largely negative.
Instead let your body find it's own comfortable yet lively position each moment. Follow your feelings, be social in natural instinctive ways, enjoy the practical sensed side of life: of feelings and sensations.
In social life being relaxed and lively makes you copy from others and makes you so understand their perspectives better. And it makes your cooperation much better. Similarly with all views and all things that you come across in your life, you can choose a perspective that is suited for just those things - but you can do so only if you are bodily relaxed and lively. So you can meet the things in life in wisest possible ways and so you are continually happier.

Keep your body all the time nicely pleasantly like in a sofa, so you feel much better all teh time.

Leave thoughts etc. without artificial edges

What people do not ordinarily consider to be of any signifigance but which still matters a lot for their happiness, is that square lines, boxes and rigid forms of thoughts and action make life much harder to bear and prevent happiness and contentment. Try to leave thoughts and your picture of your own body and of your feelings and actions without edges, just like they are in your sensations. Let the things themselves carry you and remove weight from edges and from rigid unreactive patterns.

Look at trees

Look at trees in the direction that they have grown. Emphatize with the atmosphere of that imagined movement. Try to see what kind of way of living would be expressed as such movement.
Also, look at trees in any way you want while you ponder about your social tangles, and you will find natural solutions. Always use the form of your thoughts that comes to your mind when looking at trees, and not the memorized familiar stuck indoors thoughts. This is good for all kinds of important thoughts in your life!
Look at trees as parts of the city landscape as if they saw the landscape and understook the life in it. That way trees look wise in the art of living and one can learn wisdom of life by being social with them.

Enjoy the senses, experience strongly

Our forefathers lived in the wild nature and got much more sensory stimuli every day than what we nowadays get. They needed all their senses to stay alive, and that is what we too are adapted to. Instead of the simple city houses we need the complexity, health and variation of the wild nature. Instead of eating too much, we should enjoy using our eyes all the time, to enjoy the emotional beauty of colours and structures, of understanding roles and uses, a meaningful contact with the concretical practical action. Sensations tell us wisdom of life about ways of doing, emotional meaningfulness of goalsettings and emotional observations of side effects of routes chosen, states of mind reflecting situations on a personal level, etc By taking them properly into account we can improve the quality of life. Sports make philosophy of life easier via increased physical variation that via the ties with gesture language makes it easier to change ones viewpoints and one's ways. Read John Steinbeck's books.

Be social with wild animals

Be friendlily social with little wild birds and copy from them good ways to do things. Birds live healthy natural life and are because of that good models to learn from anything from singing to healthy kind of social ways and wise ways to do things. Emphatize with the atmospheres of trees and wild flowers and wild plant's ways of growing: that is the natural stimuli that supports our social eye and our wisdom of life.