Happiness is overrated. Instead, aim at being in peace.
Shi Heng Yi, belongs to the 35th Generation of Shaolin Masters and is the headmaster of the Shaolin Temple Europe located in Germany
In a 2016 interview, he speaks about the relationship between happiness sadness and inner peace.
The “Buddhist way“ as he refers to, helps to reach inner peace. All the circumstances around you are a reminder that nothing in this world is permanent, everything is changing, meaning that no matter how your life circumstances look like you will feel good.
if you have just lost your job, somebody just scratched your new car, in the lifestyle of Shaolin will help you to have some inner peace all these circumstances around you, it will help you to understand that nothing in this world is permanent everything is changing, so now the new car has aged a little bit faster than expected, changed from new to scratched, time just went a little bit faster
The practice for yourself is, you need to learn and embrace change. Embrace will come if you want it or not but if you are able to go change, the faster you are able to adapt the fewer problems you will have. The more you hang on to the idea something should be and stay like it is, the more problems you will have because sticking to a fixed idea is not a concept of nature
Shi Heng Yi
We generally say when things go well, we are happy and when things go bad we are unhappy, we rarely discuss the idea of being in peace. Shi Heng Yi explains how it’s not possible to only stay happy or unhappy but to have peace means being okay in a state of happiness and unhappiness, feeling in peace or feeling balanced.
If you work for a long time under stress it’s not a natural state, if you are for a long time relaxed, you sleep all day, is also not the natural way
in Buddhism you’re always in the middle, we don’t live in extremes, the middle way is not going in between the extremes, the middle way is the way which is embracing both of the extremes
As the Dalai Lama points out
“We are all the same as human beings and I am trying to educate people in understanding that the ultimate source of happiness is a warm heart and a calm mind. We need to pay more attention to peace of mind.”
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