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16 EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS
Happiness Is an
Arm of Resilience
By Sharon Salzberg
Many years ago, a friend of mine, For the sake of resilience, we not only
someone very committed to need to learn to relate to suffering
self-awareness and passionately with compassion instead of disdain;
committed to social justice activism, we also need to be able to accept
said to me, and absorb pleasure. If we can’t, we
will burn out. There’s an awful lot
“You know, I feel so guilty all of the of suffering around, and trying to be
time for the suffering of this world, fully awake to it demands energy,
the suffering that I haven’t been able balance, perspective, and the ability
Sharon Salzberg is one of the to ease. Knowing the likely conditions to let go of attachment to results.
original three young Americans in which it was harvested, I can’t even There’s a lot of bad news out there,
who traveled to India in the let myself enjoy eating a banana.” but there is good news too, if we stay
1960s and ‘70s and introduced open to it.
We all make personal ethical choices,
Buddhist meditation into
of course, but at the time, my friend A few years ago, in the heart of
mainstream Western culture.
was in a pretty deep depression. winter, I was on the island of Maui
She is a globally renowned
He wasn’t at all claiming that the leading a retreat alongside my old
meditation teacher and co- sacrifice of enjoyment was the friends Ram Dass and Krishna Das.
founder of the Insight Meditation cause of his depression, or that the I found myself feeling bad when I
Society in Barre, Massachusetts. depression prevented him from told people where I was going. The
Her books include Real enjoying the banana. He knew, with weather there was glorious, and
Happiness, Lovingkindness, and his keen self-awareness, that he it felt almost too good to be true.
most recently, Real Change: tended to push away pleasure. He When friends would write and
Mindfulness To Heal Ourselves sensed that he was more attuned to ask how it was, something funny
and the World. suffering than joy. He also sensed happened again: I would tell them
that he was bone-deep tired. how humid it was, implying that
it wasn’t as nice as I anticipated
American society by and large can — disowning the deep pleasure of
be suffering-phobic. We are taught my experience. I spent a great deal
to be ashamed of our pain, our fear, of time in Maui preventing myself
or our difference. We are taught from connecting directly to the
to avoid the suffering of others as pleasurable experience, and instead
though we will somehow become distracted myself with feelings like
tainted if we witness it too closely. guilt and self-deprecation. Perhaps
We’re taught that we’d do better to I assumed that by distancing myself
hide the suffering away. from pleasure, I would protect
other people from getting jealous.
