Ep. 11 - The Happiness Trap: Your pursuit of happiness might be causing your suffering

The World Through Zen Eyes Podcast

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What if our relentless pursuit of happiness is the very thing making us miserable? This thought-provoking conversation between MyongAhn Sunim and Dr. Ruben Lambert dives deep into our complicated relationship with happiness, challenging the notion that it should be our default emotional state.
Starting with a listener question about happiness as an "inalienable right," the hosts unravel how our definitions and expectations shape our experience. They draw clear distinctions between fleeting pleasure and deeper contentment, explaining how happiness and suffering exist in an inseparable relationship – like yin and yang, day and night. One cannot exist without the other, yet humans persistently try to have just half the equation.
The dialogue takes fascinating turns through Eastern medicine principles, where excessive happiness is understood to damage the heart just as other emotional extremes harm different organs. Using vivid metaphors like the sky with passing clouds or a projector screen displaying changing images, the hosts illustrate how our true self remains unchanged beneath the emotional weather patterns of daily life.
Perhaps most powerful is their examination of how we surrender our power to external sources – relationships, possessions, achievements – expecting them to deliver happiness. "The greater the degree to which something can make you happy equals the greater degree to which it can make you miserable," MyongAhn SUnim notes, explaining why we're most hurt by those closest to us. This perspective reveals the wisdom in cultivating "koyo" – a state of stillness and peace that serves as solid ground while emotions naturally rise and fall.
The conversation doesn't dismiss happiness as unimportant but reframes it as one of many valuable emotional experiences rather than life's ultimate goal. Through examples ranging from retirement fantasies to advertising manipulation, they show how attachment to happiness often leads to its opposite.
Whether you're struggling with emotional extremes, feeling pressured to be constantly happy, or simply curious about Zen perspectives on well-being, this episode offers practical wisdom for a more balanced approach to life's inevitable ups and downs. Subscribe now and join us in exploring what true contentment might look like beyond the happiness trap.

Support the show

Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com

Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org

Chapters

1. Welcome and Fan Mail Introduction (00:00:00)

2. Defining Happiness vs. Pleasure (00:01:22)

3. When Happiness Becomes Harmful (00:06:35)

4. Retirement and Life's False Promises (00:17:13)

5. Finding Peace Beyond Emotional Extremes (00:24:29)

6. The Power of Contentment (00:39:44)

7. Wisdom and Balance in Happiness (00:52:47)

8. Closing Thoughts and Farewell (00:58:13)