停止寻求幸福，幸福不是一种感受或情感。Stop Searching for Happiness, It Is Not a Feeling or Emotion

• The pursuit of happiness is a lifelong journey for many.
• Happiness is not about feelings; it is the background of all feelings.
• Your true nature is happiness itself.
• The search for happiness turns into a journey away from your true self.
• Finding peace resides in the present moment.

I've been seeking happiness, peace through my whole life, tried a number of paths, serious about them, doing all that was asked or suggested, and noticing sometimes that some of the other folks, and I know we're not supposed to compare ourselves, some folks were kind of in a swoon in some ways and having this certainty about, ah, yes, I've arrived. I never quite had that to the degree I would like.

And you know, I, with all due respect to everybody and all the paths I've been on, I, you know, I feel gratitude toward them. I felt like, okay, I got what I got. I'm serious, I did what I was supposed to do, but never had the fulfillment.

And the other day you mentioned that this is not about feelings. Like feelings is not the goal of seeking. And in myself I went, what you mean it's not all about feelings? Oh, geez, I've got my reasoning back or something. I have been looking for that kind of peacefulness. Haven't quite gotten it yet.

So I, you know, it's an unfair question, but, you know, could you tell me that this is it, this is the last stop on the journey for me, or just address that sense of it's not about feelings. That's it. It's true. It is not about feelings. Happiness is not a feeling. It is the background of all feelings.

If you, when the sky is covered in clouds and the clouds open and there's a little blue patch in the clouds, you don't say, oh, there's a blue cloud. It looks like a patch of blue in the clouds. You could mistake it. A child could mistake it for a blue cloud amidst the gray cloud cover. It's not a blue cloud, it's a window in the clouds onto the ever present background.

What you consider to be the feeling of happiness, a temporary feeling of happiness, is this limited appearance, this limited window in the cloud cover of suffering where a little patch of happiness can be seen.

But what you're seeing is you're seeing through the cloud cover of suffering to the ever present background of happiness. Happiness is not a feeling or an emotion. That's the first thing. Second thing is, happiness is your nature.

The awareness of being as it is, that is, before it is qualified by experience, is the experience of happiness. You cannot take a journey to it. You can only take a journey away from it.

In other words, there are no true spiritual paths. There are no spiritual paths. You cannot take a path from where you are to where you are. If you think you are on a path, you are on a path away from yourself.

You can only search for what you are not. You cannot search for what you are. The path starts with what you are. It doesn't end with what you are. So understand this clearly and with this understanding, allow your search for happiness to come to an end.

If your search for happiness came to an end, you would very rarely leave the now. In your imagination, you would rarely visit the past, and you would rarely visit the future unless required to do so for practical or celebratory purposes. You would find yourself at peace in the now.

And one day, it would dawn on you. I have been escaping from the now, taking a journey away from the now all my life in search of happiness. Now I find that the very thing I was searching can only be found now. I was actually searching for misery.

I was not searching for happiness. You cannot search for happiness. It is your nature. Now you're not so young, Zydeck. Stop searching. You've tried. You've been on countless spiritual paths.

Take the lesson that you have been given. You cannot find happiness on a path. Path. Okay. Okay. I wish you the very best enjoying the rest of your life at peace in the now. Thanks very much, Rupert. I appreciate it.