{"id":445,"date":"2016-01-10T05:31:12","date_gmt":"2016-01-10T05:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceandmind.org\/?p=445"},"modified":"2017-12-21T23:00:52","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T23:00:52","slug":"is-the-mind-or-is-the-world-the-source-of-happiness-and-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/2016\/01\/10\/is-the-mind-or-is-the-world-the-source-of-happiness-and-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the mind or is the world the source of happiness and pain?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We all seek genuine happiness, but appearances are deceiving and we end up searching where it&#8217;s not. Some of us believe that if only we had more money, health, a family, children, power, fame, sensual pleasures, etc., we would be happier. But we don&#8217;t realize that all these things are impermanent and lack the ability to give us lasting happiness. The only thing that can give us that happiness is training our mind to:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>1. \u00a0Live an ethical life that benefit those around us.<br \/>\n2. Develop mental calm, presence and single-pointed attention.<br \/>\n3. The cultivation of emotional balance and the development of deep wisdom.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/emotional-balance2.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-446\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-446 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/emotional-balance2.jpg\" alt=\"emotional-balance2\" width=\"560\" height=\"747\" srcset=\"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/emotional-balance2.jpg 768w, https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/emotional-balance2-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h6 style=\"text-align: center;\">Photo: \u00a9AlmaAyon<\/h6>\n<p>Therefore, it is important to be aware of what motivates our actions. To the extent that our motivations focus on ourselves and are\u00a0selfish, the result will be our suffering, why? If we analyze this, we realize that when we want something for us, we get attached\u00a0to it and begin to defend ourselves, to compete with others to get it, and once we have it we are afraid that it will be taken or lost,\u00a0so we take a defensive attitude.<\/p>\n<p>To the extent that our mind attaches\u00a0to ideas, desires, things, people, situations, etc., and as you feel aversion for all that stand between its\u00a0desires and their\u00a0objects, the result will be mental afflictions such as anger, jealousy, selfishness, etc, and an afflicted\u00a0mind is an unsatisfied unhappy mind.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Mind is the Source of Happiness<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>To the extent that we desire\u00a0fewer things and appreciate what we have, and as we release the attachment and aversion, and dedicate ourselves to cultivate a peaceful mind and emotional balance, to that extent we will find true happiness that doesn&#8217;t depend on external stimuli or objects, situations, praise or recognition.<\/p>\n<p>And how do we achieve this? Training our mind gradually. To begin, take a tour of this site, explore and put into practice all the tips, advice and strategies I have shared in previous posts. Also sign up to receive tips and resources on your email.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Your Turn<\/h3>\n<p>Do you have any examples that\u00a0have given you certainty that the mind creates our experience?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We all seek genuine happiness, but appearances are deceiving and we end up searching where it&#8217;s not. Some of us believe that if only we had more money, health, a family, children, power, fame, sensual pleasures, etc., we would be happier. But we don&#8217;t realize that all these things are impermanent and lack the ability [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,26,41],"tags":[40,28,30],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-emotions","category-reflections","category-wisdom","tag-emotions","tag-reflection","tag-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448,"href":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contemplarte.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}