because of X, Y, and Zen

TheNowSeeker

There was a piece on 60 Minutes last Sunday about a study showing the Danes to be the happiest people in the World. (also, see the excerpt below).

Perhaps this research offers some hard evidence supporting

Buddha's Noble Truths.

First, can we agree that having expectations is a form of desire? This study on the happiness of Danes supports the Buddhist point of view in two ways:

1) Seeing that 'life is suffering' from the get-go lowers one's expectations of life's rewards. (i.e., The First Noble Truth is the existence of suffering… ) The study attributed the Dane's greater degree of happiness to lower their expectations.

2) Seeing that ‘desire is the cause of suffering’ points the finger at us. We are the cause of our problem, not something ‘out there’. This results in less playing the blame game and passing of the buck which, I contend, only fans the flames of our expectations and frustrations. (i.e., The Second Noble Truth is the cause of suffering. The cause of suffering is lust...)

Naturally, besides the lower expectations, the decent living standards in Denmark plays a significant role in Danish happiness. Both factors appear essential.
Why Danes are smug: A comparative study of life satisfaction in the European Union

Introduction
Danes are unrivalled in satisfaction with life. The University of Leicester recently published the World Map of Happiness with Denmark as number one. For more than 30 years this country with five million inhabitants has ranked first in Eurobarometer surveys (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm). More than two thirds of Danes are "very satisfied" with their lives according to these surveys. In no other Eurobarometer country has this proportion exceeded a half, and for most of the countries the proportion is less than a third. To explain Danish contentment we sifted through literature, statistics, and common knowledge.

(One of the researcher’s most plausible hypotheses for Danish happiness had to do with their expectations.)

Expectations—The Eurobarometer surveys also contain a question about expectations for improvement in the coming year. It has been argued that great expectations of favorable life circumstances in the future should be associated with life satisfaction, but if the expectations are unrealistically high they could also be the basis of disappointment and low life satisfaction. The Eurobarometer data on expectations go back to 1980 and show that while Danes are very satisfied, their expectations for the coming year are rather low, ranking among the bottom half. In contrast, Italy and Greece, which rank lowest on life satisfaction, rank high on expectations for the year to come; together with Swedes and Finns they rank at the top.

(The following are also interesting:)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5224306.stm

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2006/gb20061011_072596.htm

http://www.physorg.com/news73321785.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9642.html

TheNowSeeker

A dear friend of mine has an internal monologue that never shuts up.
She finds it impossible to ‘have’ even a moment of quiet.
The closest she seems to be able to get is when that internal monologue is explaining to her over and over that ‘to dwell on these imagined worst case scenario thoughts is irrational, they are simply caused by *x, y and z.. so stop it and just relax” She even recognises that if she could choose to ‘just relax’ then she would. But like a twig entwined with countless others offshooting from other branches, its tricky for her to see how some of them are connected to the root, that each of these symptoms all issue forth from the same source.

Tetris! i exclaimed. When these thoughts have been piling up on her, she sometimes finds how one or two ‘fit’ and these worries that flash in her awareness can then disappear as they melt into the [chref=42]one[/chref]. (see where im comin from?)
The more we see that indeed everything has come from the same source we further realise more and more similarities between all things, opposite’s distinction blurs and the sharp, complex angles of our myriad worries soften and start to become shapeless and indistinct, and they all seem to fit. The more often we surrender to the moment the more we can deal with a thing while while it is still small, and the less we worry about the issues stockpiling that we cant presently do anything about, until we’re playing the game like expert Tetris players and the lines disappear as they fall.

*x, y, and z - she agrees with what is often highlighted here, that towards the core of these symptoms are:
Need/fear , illusion of self/free will, and tribal instincts.

If anyone doesn’t know what Tetris is.. this person is rather good at it!!
Talk about ‘if you would have a thing laid aside it must first be set up!
(skip about 4mins in towards the end something even more eyebrow raising happens)

Carl

Wow, that was some tetris. Fascinating. I guess this shows what having too much time on one’s hands can lead to. Of course, typing away here - ‘blah blah blah’ - I’m no one to talk. :oops:

What an odd animal we are, and how ironic the flattering view we have of ourselves as a species, e.g., most evolved, most intelligent, Homo sapiens (Latin: “wise human” or “knowing human”). How about changing our ego centric self description with something more down-to-earth like, Homo temerarius (Latin: “foolhardy human”).

[cite] TheNowSeeker:[/cite]A dear friend of mine has an internal monologue that never shuts up.
She finds it impossible to ‘have’ even a moment of quiet.
The closest she seems to be able to get is when that internal monologue is explaining to her over and over that ‘to dwell on these imagined worst case scenario thoughts is irrational, they are simply caused by *x, y and z.. so stop it and just relax” She even recognizes that if she could choose to ‘just relax’ then she would…

Any attempt at behavior modification that aims to reduce negative behavior is doomed to failure, in my experience. The secret to ‘change’ lies in mustering the courage to give up the positive and pleasurable side of that behavior. It is right there plain as day, yet we turn a blind eye to the connection. We want to have it both ways, i.e., have the pleasurable side without its painful underbelly. In doing so we increase life’s sorrow and decrease its joy. Now truly, that’s natural justice!