Outer Happiness, Future Happiness, Inner Happiness
True happiness is inner happiness, which arises the moment the mind is good, unlike outer happiness tied to things or future happiness tied to goals.
Key points
- Outer happiness depends on things from outside, such as a house, a car, money, rank, fame or a partner.
- Future happiness is pinned to goals and must wait until they are reached, such as finishing school or succeeding at work.
- Inner happiness uses mindfulness to make happiness arise within, through virtue, concentration, wisdom and other wholesome states.
- When a good state of mind arises, happiness arises at once, giving a mind with quality, capability and happiness.
- Inner happiness bears fruit at the level of the mind, personality, family and society.
This is an English translation of the Thai original. Where they differ, the Thai text is authoritative: อ่านต้นฉบับภาษาไทย
Most people in this world seek only outer happiness and future happiness, and forget “the happiness within.”
Outer Happiness
Outer happiness is happiness that depends on things to enjoy from outside: having a house, a car, money, and then I’ll be happy; gaining rank, fame, a partner, and then I’ll be happy. It is happiness that lies outside oneself.
Future Happiness
Future happiness means setting goals, pinning hopes, planning one’s life, and being happy only once the goal is reached: finishing school, succeeding at work.
Most people in this world seek only outer happiness and future happiness, and forget “the happiness within.”
Inner Happiness
Inner happiness means using the ability, the potential of “mindfulness” to take whatever happens and make happiness truly arise from within oneself. For example: training to have confidence in one’s own potential; training one’s conduct, mind and wisdom; bringing about virtue, bringing about concentration, bringing about wisdom; bringing about faith, a sense of shame and fear of wrongdoing, non-greed, non-anger, creative effort and so on.
When a good state of mind arises, in that very moment happiness arises at once.
Courage and boldness dispel dejection and discouragement; mindfulness is steady. Whatever we are doing, when mindfulness arises and wisdom knows and understands, we gain a mind with quality, capability and happiness.
A mind with quality: for example, one with mettā and karuṇā (loving-kindness and compassion). A mind with capability: courage, patience, steadiness of mind, able to calm evil, to feel shame about and fear of wrongdoing.
A happy mind: joy and rapture arise easily, and one becomes a person happy from within. Instead of putting happiness outside or putting it in the future, happiness comes at once, whenever one does something good and useful, for one’s own benefit, for others’ benefit, or for shared benefit.
The Results of Gaining Inner Happiness
- At the level of the mind: the mind has no sickness, nothing spoiled; it moves with wisdom. Wholesome goodness bears fruit at once at the level of the mind.
- In personality: body and speech become gentle; one’s face and eyes are bright, cheerful and radiant.
- At the level of the family: father, mother, grandparents, children and grandchildren, those close to us, all receive good results, because we are a good environment for them.
- At the level of society: one is honored and praised.
This is when we push the goodness within outward until it benefits a wide circle, from the community up to the nation, and so on.
Seeking happiness outside may bring the mind suffering.
Seeking happiness in the future means only waiting for time, waiting for the future.
Inner happiness is the true, peaceful happiness, and it arises at once.
Source: ธรรมดี ชีวีมีสุข (Good Dhamma, Happy Life) by Phra Ajahn Somthop Parakkamo, First printing, February 2023, ISBN 978-616-8325-05-6, pp. 33–36.