One conception was common to all the philosophical schools: people are\u00a0unhappy because they are the slave of their passions. In other words, they are\u00a0unhappy because they desire things they may not be able to obtain, since they\u00a0are exterior, alien, and superfluous to them. It follows that happiness consists\u00a0in independence, freedom, and autonomy.<\/strong> In other words, happiness is the\u00a0return to the essential: that which is truly \u201courselves,\u201d and which depends on \u2013 Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life<\/a>, p.102, writing about ancient Western schools,\u00a0emphasis added.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It has been a running theme of this blog, and my studies for over a decade now, to examine the fundamental theme of the human search for happiness. The word \u2018happiness\u2019 has become a bit abused in recent decades, much like \u2018spiritual\u2019, but it can perhaps still be saved if we keep asking: what does it really mean to be happy<\/em>?<\/strong> The happiness industry has its answers, mostly revolving around \u2018think happy = be happy\u2019; consumerist society has its ideas, mostly, unsurprisingly, revolving around buying things. And philosophy \u2013 including Buddhism<\/a> in this case \u2013 has its answers as well. To borrow again from Hadot:<\/p>\n The practice of spiritual exercises implied a complete reversal of received\u00a0ideas: one was to renounce the false values of wealth, honors, and pleasures,\u00a0and turn towards the true values of virtue, contemplation, a simple life-style,\u00a0and the simple happiness of existing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And, finally, before moving on to my own thoughts (emphasis added<\/em>),<\/p>\n \u2026the Stoics did attach a great deal of importance to words, and carefully distinguished between hedone<\/em> \u2013 \u201cpleasure\u201d \u2013 and eupatheia<\/em> \u2013 \u201cjoy\u201d.\u201d\u2026\u00a0they refuse to introduce the principle\u00a0of pleasure into moral life. For them, happiness does not consist in pleasure,\u00a0but in virtue itself, which is its own reward.<\/strong> Long before Kant, the\u00a0Stoics strove jealously to preserve the purity of intention of the moral consciousness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For Kant, in many ways following the Stoics, happiness is something we make ourselves\u00a0worthy\u00a0of by following the moral law<\/strong>.\u00a0That moral law, importantly (and oft misunderstood) is\u00a0not\u00a0something \u2018out there\u2019 \u2013 as in religious or political laws or rules.\u00a0The moral law comes from us.\u00a0But it is also not\u00a0subjective, it is objective (and universal) because it is based in what we all share as humans: reason. Reason for Kant is a term of art. It isn\u2019t used as we use it today, in the\u00a0instrumental\u00a0sense: \u2018he reasoned his way through the situation,\u2019 or \u2018accountants are very reason-based people.\u2019 There, reason can be replaced by \u2018calculate\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n In Kant, reason is the faculty which takes us beyond ourselves as subjective, limited beings.\u00a0It is what compels us to\u00a0do the right thing\u00a0even when we cannot explain this to others.\u00a0It is the faculty by which people saw that slavery was wrong even when religion and politics sanctioned it.<\/strong> It is the faculty through which we see the dignity and irreducible value of every other human being (and, some would say that it eventually reaches to non-human animals as well).<\/p>\n You can see why Kant is so easily and often misunderstood. It is easy to read him without understanding his use of terms.<\/p>\n In any case, that is Kant on Reason (in a nutshell).\u00a0By employing our reason we learn to see things from others\u2019 perspectives, we learn to see the good and dignity in others, in short, we quit being so selfish.\u00a0For Kant it is our selfishness, and our selfish use of reason (here as mere calculation) that is the main cause of suffering in the world.<\/strong> The second cause of suffering is merely following the dictates of others. (read his popular essay on the topic, What is Enlightenment<\/em>, here<\/a>)<\/p>\n The \u2018good Christian\u2019 for Kant was the one who,\u00a0using his reason, determined that there\u00a0must\u00a0be a God and that one really\u00a0ought\u00a0to act for the benefit of all people as much as possible, utterly regardless of whether this will bring you benefit or not.\u00a0A good Christian was\u00a0not one who worked to please or impress the priests or fellow parishioners or to merely master the dogma.<\/p>\n Similarly, a good citizen realizes,\u00a0through his or her reason, the importance of a flourishing and stable society and the danger of revolution. The good citizen is\u00a0not\u00a0the one who carefully or mindlessly follows political rules. Sure, impressing people and following rules have their place, but for Kant,\u00a0doing the right thing (morality) would always trump either of these \u2013 and\u00a0morality\u00a0is the proper aim of all of us.<\/p>\n It is in this fathom-long carcass, (which is) cognitive and endowed with mind, that, I declare (lies) the world, and the origin of the world, and the stopping of the world [nirvana<\/em>], and the way that goes to the stopping of the world (S.I.62). {in Harvey, p.75}<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Harvey comments on this thus:<\/p>\n Within the confining parameters set by a certain meaning-world, one has some freedom of action in accordance with one\u2019s degree of awareness and reflection. A more full and accurate meaning-world, closer to seeing things as-they-really-are and thus less affected by ignorance, opens up new possibilities, which are closer to the experience of nirvaana<\/em>-the unconditioned (asankhata<\/em>).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n My Kantian-Buddhist angle on this would say that our\u00a0degree of awareness\u00a0and reflection can be understood as analogous to Kant\u2019s use of Reason (in the non-calculative sense).<\/strong>\u00a0The more irrational we are, the more we are slaves to a very narrow meaning-world, generally determined by our religion or political persuasion and the people we have regular contact with.\u00a0Our use of reason (generating awareness) allows us to\u00a0rise above\u00a0this, giving us a \u2018more full and accurate meaning-world.\u2019<\/p>\n Our suffering is so much a result of our concepts \u2013 our attempts to box in the world and make it predictable. And where do we get these concepts? From other people and social, political, and religious institutions.<\/p>\n But this is not to deny the importance of institutions and other people. We need both of these.\u00a0The problem only arises when institutions and people claim to give us some sort of certainty, or we seek certainty in them.\u00a0This is a problem because change or flux is fundamental to reality. And flux (anicca<\/em>) is fundamental to seeing-things-as-they-really-are (yatha-bhuta<\/em>).<\/p>\n Nirvana, it would seem, is the fullest acceptance of flux \u2013 or fullest recognition thereof.\u00a0It is a rising above the happy-one-moment, sad-the-next that dominates samsaric existence. This is a true happiness, one unconditioned by the vicissitudes of daily life, one which runs much deeper.<\/p>\n So for both Kant and Buddha it seems that happiness is a result of disentangling ourselves with the ways of the world around us in search of something deeper.\u00a0This \u2018something deeper\u2019 was for Kant the \u2018moral law\u2019 and for Buddha the\u00a0Dharma.<\/strong><\/p>\n For both this was the goal of a good life. For both, bad things could still happen \u2013 living morally or according to\u00a0Dharma\u00a0is no guarantee that things will be just fine from that time forward. The Buddha still had to confront angry elephants, a serial killer (Angulimala<\/a>), and his jealous and murderous cousin\u00a0Devadata<\/a>. In recognizing this, Kant was quite clear that living a moral life is no guarantee of happiness \u2013\u00a0stuff\u00a0will still happen \u2013 but it does guarantee that we are\u00a0worthy\u00a0of happiness, that is, we can rise above the\u00a0stuff as it assails us.<\/p>\n
\nus.<\/p>\n![\"Kant](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/83\/2013\/06\/Kant-Buddha-300x161.jpg\" "\\"Kant-Buddha\\"")
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