11 Jun How wonderful it would be

What are the conditions for becoming happy? That’s the question posed by the “Podcast of Hope,” for which I’ll be interviewed in February. My first reflex in response to this question is: seeking happiness makes you unhappy. That’s a bit bold, of course, but there’s a Buddhist truth in it: desire is the cause of suffering. If you want something other than what it currently is, or even if you want something that isn’t there (Trump), that causes suffering. Does this mean it’s actually better not to entertain desires, a kind of fatalism?

What you’re doing now
I prefer to put it this way: fully accept your current situation and simultaneously formulate wishes or desires, but see them as options. You don’t need fulfillment to experience peace in this moment. That’s a subtle yet difficult distinction. How do you let go of those desires now? The answer is: by finding satisfaction in the present! If you enjoy moving from one action to the next, experiencing satisfaction each time, it doesn’t matter so much what you do. This is precisely what the 7 steps of Time Surfing offer the practitioner: they guide you back to accepting what you’re doing now as the most important task of the moment.

That’s not the only thing that influences the moment. In the theme of emotions, we’re talking about returning to “The Sea of ​​Peace and Confidence”. The initial task is to acknowledge the existence of this sea, familiarize yourself with it, and find it easier to return to it. This happens when you feel your emotions fully and then let them resonate.

Floating in the sea
How wonderful it would be if, when your worries have vanished and nothing particularly positive happens that you really enjoy, you feel yourself floating in a sea of ​​peace and confidence. And that’s quite pleasant! Because if you simultaneously accept everything you encounter as the most important thing of the moment, you live “fulfilled”. You constantly have the pleasant feeling that you’re doing something fun or important. And that could indeed also be cleaning the kitchen.

Everything included
There’s a third insight that’s crucial for experiencing inner peace: accepting yourself, everything included. This includes the aspects you find challenging, such as being a people-pleaser (it’s okay!), not liking certain parts of your body, or not being able to control yourself as well as you’d like. Including all of that. That’s your starting point. From there, you can evolve. These three aspects: 1. Accept what you’re doing now, 2. Recognize the sea of ​​peace and confidence, and 3. Accept yourself, everything included, are the foundation of a harmonious life.

*This post has been automatically translated from Dutch