With all the buzz about 'The Secret' lately, I thought I'd add two cents. Last night I heard an interview with Brian Dennehy. He said the best moments in acting were when an audience of a thousand people were utterly silent -- they were listening so intently. When an audience is happiest with what they hear, they listen deeply. Surely this is not different from other things that please us. When the dinner taste wonderful, we lose ourselves in the flavors. When the view is awesome, we lose ourselves in the view. When the massage is soothing, we lose ourselves in tactile feeling. In this way, sex carries us away more than most things; that shows where nature's priorities lie. All in all, we ceaselessly chase that next immersion experience in which to lose ourselves. (Or rather, seek that next immersion experience in which Nature intended our distant hominid ancestors to 'chase' for optimal survival. Civilization has thrown Nature's plan a little out of whack.)

This process is a 'pursuit of happiness', not happiness itself. True happiness, in a Taoist view anyway, is contentment, plain and simple. And contentment never comes through action. Rather, in the pursuit of the way one does less every day. One does less and less until one does nothing at all, and when one does nothing at all there is nothing that is undone.

That's easy to say, and perhaps even easy to understand. But, how can we put this knowledge into practice? There is a secret! Although, I'm not sure why it's such a secret. Perhaps because it's so obvious? For example, if everything we saw was tinted with the same color, would we see that color? No. Perception requires contrast - Something and Nothing, etc. With this difficulty in mind, I'll now reveal the 'secret to true happiness' .

As we know, the more we are enjoying something, the more immersed we become in it – we feel the peaks of happiness. Peaks of joyous pleasure, being what they are (neurologically speaking if nothing else), are fleeting and we return again to valleys of the mundane. The key to the happiness we feel rests in the immersion, not in the pleasure. Normally, this is a one way street with the object of pleasure drawing us into our happy immersion state. But, this need not be a one way street! That is the secret. It is possible to approach it from the other direction – if we truly want and remember to. Remember and truly wanting to? Truly wanting makes remembering possible; desiring not to desiremakes truly wanting possible. Alas, I suppose 'desiring not to desire' helps make 'truly wanting' possible. Therefore even the sage treats some things as difficult. In doing so, it naturally becomes easy. Now there is a good example where straightforward words seem paradoxical. But I digress...

Just as pleasure immerses, immersion pleases. The former is mostly an external stimuli dependent situation. The later, immersion pleases, is where free will applies. Just kidding... kind of. Think of it as 'pseudo free will', where an honest self knowing of life's dynamics guides behavior, i.e., wisdom remembered! When we know and remember that listening immerses, we are able to listen 'now'. When we know and remember that watching immerses, we are able to watch 'now'. Likewise with taste and touch. The difference lies in the path versus by-paths. When pleasure immerses us, we are 'taking from the outside', and this often leads us onto by-paths. When we immerse ourselves in moment to moment awareness, we are 'giving to the outside'. Only then can we know contentment. And, in being content, we will always have enough.

Note: I should add that this 'giving' of watchful mindness works best when 'given' to the mundane. An awareness of less-stimulating perception plunges us deepest into impartiality. Simply put: Watch for what you have yet to see; listen for what you have yet to hear, and so on. It cannot be seen, it cannot be heard, only so long as we are going with the traffic down that one way street. Only by turning back, moving 'against the traffic' so to speak, can we successfully watch and listen for it. The arousing 'fun' side of perception that keeps the multitude joyous falls under the category of always allowing ourselves to have desires in order to observe its manifestations. And this usually takes care of itself naturally... as he goes to make a cup of hot chocolate . On the other hand, always ridding ourselves of desires in order to observes its secrets? Only when we remember what we truly want of life are we able to accomplish our private ends.

I'd like to bring everyone's attention to this video.
A psychologist makes a speech on the subject of what makes us happy and why. The section about 'synthetic happiness' is quite interesting and quite true.