Testing: not-one, not-two

There is a brief piece over at Tricycle talking about Martin Seligman’s test for Authentic Happiness at UPenn.

I think this is all well and good, except for the fact that happiness is a state that ebbs and flows in time and because of this it is by nature temporary. So an “authentic” state, be it happiness or something else, appears to be merely a feeling to which the mind attaches.

Instead of looking to be perpetually and “authentically” happy, wouldn’t it make more sense for us to focus attention on our ability to stay present with whatever our state is, thus increasing an authentic awareness of what we might be experiencing at any given moment? This way we evolve and grow in ways that go beyond states. Additionally, our increased awareness can also include any state we might be in as our awareness becomes more acute, thus generating an ever-deepening presence. Presence isn’t a state, and therefore can’t be bound by time. Put simply, this means that the more aware we become, the more present we can be. The more present we can be, the more that freedom can spontaneously inform whatever state we might find ourselves to be in. From this presence practitioners can see that the most basic and ordinary of all states isn’t the temporary state of happiness, but the the timeless spaciousness of complete joy.

And there is a test for this that doesn’t require a registration of your email: simply look for resistance in your experience. If you’re feeling any kind of resistance, the mind is inhibiting joy.