Happinessfeb1

2/1/2011

1. What is the distinctive character of Christian conceptions of happiness from early through medieval Christianity? How did Hellenization affect the Christian appropriation of Judaic "happiness"?

2. What is the structure of Yogic thought on happiness, according to Patanjali?

3. How do Buddhist analyze the causes and remedies of suffering?

4. What is the basic psychology of the Brahmahivara and Kleshas?

5. To what extent might increasing mindfulness or stilling the mind lead to insights that would promote happiness, as Yogics and Buddhists claim?

2/1/2011

Early to Medieval Christian Conceptions of Happiness

• Roman cultural decadance!
• Roman thought on living well: Horace
• "Asher" and "makarios" and "felicita" -- Hellenizing the judaic term, but not Romanizing it. Beatitudes.
• St. Perpetua and Felicitas -- Greek/Judaic advice to avoid suffering is radically reversed in Christian injunction to suffer with others.
• Augustine - Happiness as experience of God in the soul, resisting the Pelagians
• 9th - 13th centuries - John the Scot -- develops theme of presence of God as source of joy.
• Pseudo-Dionysius and mystical theology
• Aquinas and the distinction between perfect and imperfect happiness

Yoga Philosophy

Miller on Patanjali's Yoga

• "The aim of yoga is to eliminate the control that material nature exerts over the human spirit, to rediscover through introspective practice what the poet T. S. Eliot called the "still point of the turning world." This is a state of perfect equilibrium and absolute spiritual calm, an interior refuge in the chaos of worldly existence. In the view of Patanjali, yogic practice can break habitual ways of thinking and acting that bind one to the corruptions of everyday life."

• Patanjali's method - analysis of thought process (citta), freedom from uncontrollable thought, p. 15. succinct presentation of how "turnings of thought" are generated, seeds again, "In Patanjali's analysis, the aggregate of impressions that expresses itself in thought (citta) and action (karma) also accounts for subconscious predispositions that condition the character and behavior of an individual through many reincarnations. Thought and action thus become involved in an endless round of reciprocal causality. Actions create memory traces, which fuel the mental processes and are stored in memory, which endures through many rebirths."

Farhi on the Brahmavihara

5 kleshas:

1. Avidha: Ignorance of our eternal nature

2. Astnita: Seeing oneself as separate and divided from the rest ofthe world

3. Raga: Attraction and attachment to impermanent things

4. Dvesha: Aversion to the unpleasant

5. Abhinivesha: Clinging to life because we fail to perceive theseamless continuity of consciousness, which cannot be brokenby death (Yoga-Sutra 2.3)

Brahmahivara -- attitudes

cultivation on the brahmahivara are seen as preparatory to overcoming the 5 kleshas

1. Friendliness toward the joyful

2. Compassion for those who are suffering

3. Celebrating the good in others

4. Remaining impartial to the faults and imperfections of others(Yoga-Sutra 1.33)

Buddhism on Happiness

Siderits on the Basics of Buddhism

• 4 Noble Truths -

• doctrine of dependent origination

• Impermanence of the self
• Paradox of Liberation

Pali Canon -- Mindfulness

• How does mindfulness help with the process of liberation?