The Happiness that Comes from Goodness
October 05, 2014

Close your eyes and watch your breath.

Any little thought that comes in, you’re not going to get involved with it. You’re going to make up your mind to stay right here.

This quality of determination is what leads to special good things in life. Like last night’s ceremony: You had to be determined if you were going to stay because it wasn’t easy. Because you did, you’ve got something you’ve learned from it. You learned how to stick with a determination.

Whatever extent you do things that take a little bit of extra energy, take more thought, more effort on your part: If there’s something that’s really good in life, then that becomes a memorial in your life.

You see those advertisements that your memorial is that stone they put on your grave. But that’s not the memorial you want. The memorial you want is the good things you’ve done, because that gets engraved in your own heart.

Then every time you think about the times you did something specially good or took more effort than normal or took more thought than normal, that’s a memorial for your life. It’s something really good in your life that you can keep in mind and you gain nourishment from it. The happiness that comes from goodness is special in this way.

The happiness that comes from indulging in your desires is there and then it’s gone. And the memory of that happiness is not always a happy thing. All you can think about his how it’s not there anymore, and sometimes you did some unskillful things in order to get it.

But the memory that comes from doing good: When you think about doing good, the mind is happy. When you’re doing it, your mind is happy. After it’s done, you’re happy. That kind of happiness lasts for a long time. And it gives you energy. When you’re meditating and things are starting to get dry, you can think about the good things you’ve done in life. That gives you energy; it gives you an uplifting feeling inside.

So try to make sure that your life has some good memorials: the good things that you’ve done out of the ordinary. They enable you to look back on a life well-lived—a life that’s had meaning, a life that’s had purpose.