The illusion and liberation from it.

 For many people, the ultimate goal in life is simple: to be happy. But what actually happens after you attain that happiness?

The pursuit of happiness is considered absurd. It’s actually the product of a false premise that it’s possible to experience only the good, with none of the bad.

You might compare the pursuit of happiness to turning from left to right on a hard bed. You’re uncomfortable on the right side, so you turn to the left. That feels good at first, but then, the left starts to feel exactly like the right. In fact, the only reason you can understand the feeling of comfort is because you first understood discomfort.

So, discomfort is not only inevitable, but simply another aspect of comfort. This might lead you to the belief that we have no free choice, that we’re resigned to whatever fate awaits us. But that idea is based on another false premise.

It’s  impossible to be a helpless victim of your circumstances. In fact, you and your circumstances are actually inseparable.

Picture a sweltering day in midsummer. You’re dripping with sweat. You aren’t sweating because it’s hot outside. Rather, the sweating is the heat. And you are responding to that heat.

You can think about your mind and body through this same framework. Your mind-body can’t be given a set of circumstances. Instead, the circumstances exist because you possess a mind and body that can perceive them.

You might be inclined to call this perceiving entity, this mind and body of yours – your self. But the self is yet another illusion that we can help ourselves to shatter.

When asked to describe yourself, you might list several adjectives. Or maybe a few past experiences that seem to define who you are. But are any of these descriptors real in the truest sense of the word? In short, answer is no.

Our minds are powerful, and they allow us to construct a symbolic version of our self that doesn’t actually exist. But this idea of our self is not tangibly connected to what our minds and bodies are experiencing right now.

Therefore, the real you is simply the sum of all the things of which you are aware at this very moment.