Introduction: Applied entry · What happiness is: happiness is a state of balance; suffering is the raw material of happiness.
Core Idea: 幸福是什么。
Discipline: 心理学 / 幸福学、自我成长、人生哲学
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Have you ever had this experience?
You gave everything to achieve a goal—a promotion, a raise, buying a house, getting married—and you thought you would be happy from then on. But before long, that excitement faded, replaced by new anxiety and emptiness. You can't help asking yourself: What do I really want? Why, when I've gotten it, am I still not happy?
This is not your confusion alone. For thousands of years, countless people have asked the same question: What exactly is happiness? Some say it is pleasure; some say it is the achievement of goals; some say it is the satisfaction of needs; some say it is letting go of desire. Every claim sounds reasonable, yet when measured against your own real experience, it always feels like something is missing—they seem to explain only one side of happiness without touching the bottom layer.
What this book sets out to do is to re-understand happiness.
Happiness is not being happy forever, but learning to live with pain and make peace with yourself. It will not pump you up with pep talks, nor will it teach you to "let go"; instead, it takes you back to the most fundamental structure of human nature and lets you see clearly: happiness is not a feeling, but the state of a system in dynamic balance.
This book repeatedly stresses "being good to yourself"—preservation, care, enrichment, beauty, pleasure, compassion, reflection, confidence, strength, esteem, freedom. This absolutely does not mean encouraging selfishness or coldness. On the contrary, a person who cannot take care of himself, understand himself, and love himself has no energy to truly love others. Private good is the source; public good is the river. Only when the source is abundant can the river nourish all things.
Open any book about happiness and you will most likely see the following claims.
"Happiness is pleasure—do more happy things, do fewer painful things."
"Happiness is achieving your goals and realizing your dreams."
"Happiness is satisfying needs, from the physiological to self-actualization."
"Happiness is being immersed in something, forgetting time, forgetting yourself."
"Happiness is having positive emotions, good relationships, a sense of meaning, and a sense of accomplishment."
"Happiness is letting go of desire; desirelessness makes you strong."
Each claim has a large following, but each also has obvious counterexamples.
Why isn't pleasure happiness? Because either suffering all the time or being pleased all the time destroys the body's energy balance. Pleasure arises only in an instant or a brief span. If you let the same pleasure continue, it turns into pain—this is the physiological basis of "extremes of joy beget sorrow." The first sip of iced cola in summer: refreshing. The tenth sip: okay. The twentieth sip: you don't want any more. It's not that the thing changed; it's that your sensation adapted. Pleasure needs "non-pleasure" to set it off.
Why do you feel empty after your dream comes true? Because private-good desires change dynamically. Once a goal is achieved, if no new desire arises, a person enters a state of boredom and emptiness. Happiness is not "arriving at the destination," but "being in a continuous, meaningful process of acting."
Why is the "climbing the stairs" model of happiness wrong? Because human needs are not a linear ladder but a dynamic matrix. At the same moment, you may simultaneously lack health, respect, and freedom, and the most pressing one of these determines your current source of happiness. Today you have a cold, so health matters most; tomorrow you are publicly humiliated, so esteem matters most. Happiness is not climbing stairs; it is shoring up the short board.
Why can't "self-forgetting" explain everything? Flow is indeed a wonderful experience, but it only answers "how to obtain a happiness experience," not "why this experience is happiness." Moreover, flow depends on external activities. If there is no chess to play, no song to play, no code to write—can you still be happy?
Why is "the five elements" only a phenomenon, not the essence? The PERMA model describes common manifestations of happiness but does not explain the need structure behind these manifestations. Knowing the five elements, you still don't know why you have achievements yet remain empty. But once you understand the dimensions of private good, you understand: it's that your esteem is not satisfied, or your freedom is suppressed.
Why isn't "letting go" the only answer? Private-good desires are not the enemy; they are the source of the vitality of life. The problem is not having desires, but the way desires are realized—through plunder, deception, and control, or through creating value and serving others?
So, what is the bottom-line logic of happiness?
The core concept is the eleven dimensions of private-good desire: preservation, care, enrichment, beauty, pleasure, compassion, reflection, confidence, strength, esteem, and freedom.
Happiness is the temporary state of balance that body and mind reach at a given moment, under specific physiological, psychological, and surrounding conditions, when one or several items of private good have been benignly satisfied.
This satisfaction is temporary—because the environment and needs change; it is concrete—not abstract "happiness," but the happiness of "my cold got better today"; it varies from person to person—some people are happy if they eat and sleep well, while others need their thirst for knowledge satisfied to be happy.
Since happiness is a state of balance, the first question is: which needs participate in the balance? The eleven private-good desires are divided into four layers; viewed layer by layer, they form a complete checklist of happiness.
The three items in this layer are the foundation of happiness. If the foundation is unstable, anything built on top is futile.
Preservation is the safety of life, health without worry. Your body is not threatened; you feel safe. When you are running a fever of forty degrees Celsius, aching all over, would you be happy even if someone gave you a hundred million, the highest honor, and the person who loves you most? No—you just want the fever to break.
Care is smoothness of action, convenience of life. Doing things without interruption, without people putting obstacles in your way. What irritates you is often not the big things: you queue for ages and are told "the system is down"; just as you're about to leave work, your boss drags you into a pointless meeting. If a few of these "setbacks" pile up in a day, you feel "today is really bad luck."
Enrichment is abundant wealth, material plenty. Enrichment is the easiest to misunderstand; many people equate "enrichment" with "happiness," thinking the more money, the happier. But enrichment is only one of eleven items, and it has marginal effects—when money is scarce, each extra dollar greatly increases happiness; once money reaches a certain level, each extra million barely increases happiness at all.
The two items in this layer are the seasoning of happiness, giving life flavor and color.
Beauty is a decent appearance, an image that is recognized. Your satisfaction with your own appearance, and others' positive reactions to your appearance. Beauty is not vanity; it is common human nature. Wanting to look a bit better, wanting to be told "you look great today"—this is not a flaw; it is human nature.
Pleasure is sensory joy, spiritual delight. Eating good food, listening to music, seeing beautiful scenery, being hugged, laughing heartily. Pleasure is the easiest to mistake for "happiness itself," but extremes of joy beget sorrow; pleasure needs other items to balance it.
The two items in this layer are the lubricant of happiness, letting emotions flow and thought run smoothly.
Compassion is being understood, being sympathized with. When you are in pain, wronged, or sad, someone sees you, understands you, and comforts you; or you allow yourself to be sad without toughing it out. We were taught from childhood "don't cry" and "a real man can't say he's tired," with the result that countless people appear strong on the surface while being riddled with wounds inside. Their compassion was never satisfied, and in the end they became depressed or broke down.
Reflection is satisfied curiosity, figuring out problems. The "why" in your mind gets an answer and your curiosity is fed. Understanding something, thinking through a problem, learning something new—that feeling of sudden clarity is the satisfaction of reflection.
The four items in this layer are the pillars of happiness, giving you confidence, direction, dignity, and freedom.
Confidence is self-affirmation, being trusted. You believe "I can do it," and others believe in you too. Confidence is built by "doing," not by "wishing." You cannot become truly confident by telling yourself "I'm great" every day. Confidence comes from: you set a goal and you completed it. Again and again, you accumulate trust in yourself.
Strength is enhanced ability, overcoming challenges. You have become stronger than before—skills, mind, physique, willpower, growth in any one domain. Strength is often accompanied by hardship. Fitness is hard, learning is hard, overcoming fear is hard—but it is precisely these hardships that make the happiness of strength especially solid.
Esteem is being respected, having status. Others take you seriously; you have dignity and are not looked down upon. Esteem differs from confidence: confidence is "I believe in myself"; esteem is "others respect me." If esteem is lacking, you feel "I don't matter" and "nobody takes me seriously"—that feeling is worse than having no money.
Freedom is being unconstrained, choosing autonomously. You can act according to your own wishes, without being coerced, controlled, or held hostage. Freedom is not doing whatever you want, but the ability to "not do what you don't want to do."
After reading the eleven items, you may ask: with so much emphasis on "being good to yourself," isn't that selfish?
No. On the contrary, a person who cannot be good to himself has no ability to be truly good to others. A person who never takes care of himself—with what does he take care of others? A person who never understands himself—with what does he understand others? A person who never loves himself—with what does he love others?
"Loving yourself" is not selfishness; it is the source. Like a tree: first sink the roots deep and grow the trunk strong, then it can blossom, bear fruit, and give shade to others. A tree that has withered cannot say "I will give all my nutrients to the birds"—it has no nutrients left. Order matters: only by being good to yourself first can you be good to others.
Private-good desires answer "what is lacking"; the eight factors answer "why balance is needed." Besides needs, people also have eight basic aspects of body and mind, which together constitute you and together determine the difficulty of balance.
A person's body and mind are like a large cart pulled by eight horses. Each horse has a different direction and a different strength. If one horse is too strong, the cart overturns; if one horse is too weak, the cart veers. Only when the eight horses are comparable in strength and coordinated in direction can the cart move smoothly forward. This is balance.
Physical nature—your material foundation. The body needs food, water, air, sleep, and warmth; these are hard needs—lacking them, you die.
Suffering—your engine of action. The perception of pain. Without suffering, would you move? If your stomach isn't hungry, you won't look for food; if your body doesn't hurt, you won't see a doctor; if you aren't looked down upon, you won't strive to improve. Suffering tells you: something is wrong here, and it needs to change.
Pleasure—your reward system. The perception of joy. When you do something beneficial to survival and reproduction, the brain gives you a little pleasure so you are willing to repeat it. Without pleasure, living is like chewing wax.
Tranquility—your rest mode. No pain, no itch, no cold, no heat, no hunger, no thirst—nothing lacking, nothing to do, just existing. Tranquility is severely underestimated. Many people equate "stillness" with "laziness" and "busyness" with "being valuable," with the result that they keep moving but grow ever more tired and empty.
Privacy—your self-centeredness, the boundary of "I," the steering wheel of life. Without privacy, you have no goals, no drive, no individuality.
Benevolence—your capacity for connection, the willingness to give, help, care, and share. Benevolence makes you a node in the social network rather than an island.
Malignancy—your defensive capacity. When others invade you, hurt you, or take advantage of you, you can say "no," protect yourself, and strike back when necessary. Without malignancy, you are easily bullied, exploited, and trampled.
Reason—your navigation system, helping you analyze problems, find methods, assess risks, and make decisions. Without reason, you are like a headless fly.
The eight factors sound complicated, but in practice there is only one principle: suffer when you should suffer, enjoy when you should enjoy, be benevolent when you should be benevolent, be malignant when you should be malignant, move when you should move, and be still when you should be still. Your state must match the needs of the moment. When the body needs rest, be still—don't tough it out; when the goal requires hardship, bear it actively—don't avoid it; when others are good to you, respond with goodwill; when others invade you, protect yourself with malignancy.
This is not "doing whatever you want"; this is "following the flow of circumstances." True wisdom is not being happy forever, strong forever, or kind forever, but knowing when you should be in what state—and being able to do it.
Different people can have completely different feelings about the same thing. The reason is that everyone habitually uses a different level to judge "is this good for me or not."
Sensory perception judgment—happiness comes directly from the five senses: seeing beautiful scenery, happiness; hearing beautiful music, happiness. No thinking, recollection, or interpretation needed; stimulation directly produces happiness, but aesthetic fatigue comes easily.
Emotional judgment—happiness comes from memories of the past, empathy with others' fates, and immersion in emotional stories. Looking at old photos makes your heart warm; reading a novel makes you cry for the protagonist. Happiness does not need present external stimulation; it can arise "in the heart."
Rational judgment—happiness comes from "getting it," "thinking it through," "finding the method." The "aha" moment when a hard math problem is solved, the instant a project plan's logic becomes clear—happiness is directly tied to cognitive closure.
Reflective judgment—happiness comes from "I have become better" and "I have improved." You realize a past shortcoming and decide to correct it, feeling self-transcendence; you find the root of your pain through introspection, and find sudden clarity. This is the highest level of happiness.
Most people do not stay fixed at one level; you can switch among scenes. Such people have richer sources of happiness and greater resilience to setbacks: when one level cannot be satisfied for a time, they can still obtain joy from other levels.
Why is the first bite of watermelon especially sweet, while the tenth bite is not so sweet? Why, after a day of hunger, does a bowl of plain porridge taste like a delicacy, while a person just fed has no appetite even for a feast?
Because our senses and emotions work through "comparison." Any sensation, if it remains constant, gradually weakens until it returns to flatness—this is adaptation. Pleasure needs "non-pleasure" to set it off, and happiness needs "unhappiness" to activate it. This is why "being happy all the time" is not only impossible, but even if possible, would become hell—you would lose the ability to feel pleasure. And "suffering" is precisely that reference point of "non-pleasure."
Ask a very realistic question: when do you truly change? When you are perfectly comfortable? No—you lie there, not wanting to move anything. When the pain becomes unbearable. Yes.
Only when your tooth aches do you think of having it pulled; only when you have no money for food do you desperately look for a job; only when you are looked down upon do you strive to improve. Pain is the alarm your body and brain send you; its function is to force you to move. Without suffering, humanity would never have evolved. If our ancestors had not faced hunger, cold, and pursuit by beasts, they would never have invented tools, fire, or houses. Growth is necessarily accompanied by pain.
Have you ever felt this: things given for free don't taste good. A phone won in a lottery loses its novelty after two days; work someone else did for you gives you no sense of accomplishment; a relationship obtained too easily you don't treasure much.
But a phone you saved up for—you feel a pang even when it gets scratched; a project you stayed up nights to finish—you are moved to sighs at the celebration banquet; a person you only got together with after many twists and turns—you know better how to cherish. Because happiness comes not only from "what you got," but also from "how you got it." If the process of obtaining was too easy, the brain judges the result "low in value"; if the process was full of suffering—sweat, tears, ordeal, persistence—the brain says "this was hard to come by," and the happiness is multiplied. Suffering is the price you pay for happiness. Only when you have paid do you feel it's worth it.
Hearing this, you may ask: so should I endure all kinds of suffering? Of course not.
There is a kind of suffering that is "constructive"—it leads to growth, to the satisfaction of private good, to a higher level of happiness: the suffering of fitness, of learning, of creation, of raising children, of meditative practice. And there is a kind of suffering that is "consumptive"—it produces nothing but your pain: the suffering of being entangled with bad people and bad things, of enduring a job with no growth, of tolerating an unhealthy relationship because you fear change, of bearing the collapse of the final moment because of laziness and procrastination.
How to tell them apart? Ask yourself one question: after enduring this suffering, which item of my private good will be enhanced? If you can answer clearly, and the answer gives you motivation—this is constructive suffering; endure it. If you cannot answer, or the answer is only "to avoid something worse"—this suffering may not be worth enduring, and you should find a way out. The strong do not endure everything. The strong are those who endure what they should endure with a smile, and decisively go around what they should not endure.
First make a distinction: stillness does not equal laziness. What is laziness? Not doing what should be done, escaping responsibility, lying there while secretly worrying about unfinished tasks—that state of "can't lie flat, can't roll over and win." The lazy person's body is still, but the mind is anxious—that is not stillness.
What is stillness? It is body and mind both settling down. The body is relaxed but not slack; consciousness is clear but not tense. You are not chased by the thought "I must do something," nor tormented by the self-doubt "am I wasting time by doing this?" You are just there, like a pool of water—no wind, so no ripples.
Stillness is an ability, not a state, and this ability needs practice. A child can sit on the ground for an hour watching ants move their nest—that is innate stillness; an adult who has been bombarded by phones, tasks, socializing, and anxiety for a decade or two—ask him to sit quietly for ten minutes and he may go crazy. He has already lost the ability to be "still." The good news is that this ability can be trained back.
You may think stillness means "a blank mind." Actually, no. The accurate description is: your consciousness temporarily steps aside, but your thought is still there.
We normally live "full"—the body is feeling, emotions are fluctuating, the mind is judging. These are all "consciousness," like a crowd of noisy children taking turns yelling in your head. When you become still—for example, sitting by a lake, thinking of nothing, just watching the ripples—those noisy children gradually quiet down. You did not deliberately suppress them; they stepped back on their own. At this time, thought is still there: the ripples are reflected in your mind, like a mirror reflecting objects. You do not judge whether the ripples are beautiful, what the water quality is, or whether it might rain soon. You are just watching. Ripples are ripples, the lake is the lake, and you are you.
This state is itself happiness. Because your system is resting. Like a phone in airplane mode—no information to receive, no notifications to process, no tasks to compute, power consumption reduced to a minimum. You feel a deep, reasonless peace.
Movement is seeking outward, satisfying private good; stillness is settling inward, nourishing privacy. The two are not opposites but complements, like day and night, like the inhale and exhale of breath. Only inhaling without exhaling—you suffocate; only exhaling without inhaling—you also suffocate. The rhythm of movement and stillness is the fundamental rhythm of life.
A person who can only move and never be still: he will always be tired until he collapses; happiness becomes ever more dependent on external stimulation, and once that is absent, he is empty. A person who can only be still and never move: he may not suffer, but he does not grow either; he wastes his potential as a human being. The true master is one who can move and can also be still. When it is time to go all out, go all out; when it is time to rest, rest; when it is time to endure hardship, endure; when it is time to empty the mind, empty it.
Anything that makes you happy, after it lasts for a while, becomes "normal." You get promoted—excited for the first three months, then after six months you feel "it should have been like this anyway." You buy a new car—you take an extra look at it every day for the first month, and a year later it is merely "a means of transport."
This is not your "ingratitude"; it is an inherent property of the human nervous system: any constant stimulation is gradually "adapted to" by the brain, and the feeling shifts from "intense" to "flat." There are three strategies against time: space it out—don't eat your favorite dish every day, don't play your favorite song on repeat; create variation—take a different route to the same destination, use a different method for the same work; switch attention—when pleasure grows flat, pursue strength; when strength hits a bottleneck, enjoy tranquility.
Some happiness exists only when there is "not enough." When you were a child, you only ate cake once a year, and you remembered that one time for a whole year; now you can eat cake whenever you want, but that "happiness of anticipation" is gone.
Against space: deliberately create distance—save your favorite clothes for important occasions, save the movie you most want to see for a special day; distance is not loss, it makes happiness richer; adjust the frame of reference—you can drink clean water at any time, which for most of human history was a privilege reserved for emperors; pull the frame of reference far back, and happiness returns; reduce availability—some things, deliberately make them "not so easy to get"; a little obstacle increases a little cherishing.
Your desires always run faster than you. When your salary is five thousand a month, you think ten thousand would make you happy; when you reach ten thousand, you think twenty thousand is barely enough; when you rent, you think buying a house would make you happy; after buying a small house, you think you need to trade up.
Swelling desire is not greed; it is far sneakier than you imagine—it appears in the name of "pursuing something better," making you feel "I'm just ambitious." But the treadmill of desire has no end; the faster you run, the faster the treadmill accelerates, and you can never catch the finish line of "enough."
Strategies: distinguish "needs" from "desires"—a need is "without it, you suffer"; a desire is "with it, you are happier, but without it you won't die." Needs must be satisfied; desires need to be managed. Deliberately lower expectations—the higher the expectation, the greater the pain of the gap; with reasonable expectations, every extra gain is a surprise. Set a "satisfaction point"—before pursuing a goal, ask yourself: at what point will I be satisfied? When you reach that point, really stop, really say "enough."
No matter how beautiful the scenery, looking at it long enough, you tire of it; no matter how good the song, on repeat it grows cloying; no matter how loved the person, with daily familiarity they become "invisible." This is not your "change of heart"; it is that the nervous system is sensitive to novel stimulation and dull to repeated stimulation.
Strategies: rotate—don't live on a single source of happiness; spread happiness across multiple items of private good; when one path grows "stale," take another; go deep—one cause of aesthetic fatigue is "sipping the surface"; keep deepening your engagement with one thing, one person, one field, and every deepening is new scenery; pause—don't wait until you are "tired of it" to stop; pause proactively while you are still not tired, leaving a little "hunger."
We always think happiness is in other people's hands. As a child, happiness is given by parents; at school, by teachers; at work, by the boss; in love, by the partner. You hand over the keys to your happiness, one by one, and then wait for them to give you happiness.
But have you considered: they too have their own private goods to satisfy, their own emotional fluctuations, their own limitations and helplessness. Parents grow old and leave; teachers change and forget you; bosses change and fire you; partners get tired, quarrel, and leave. Handing the keys of your happiness to others is admitting: your happiness is determined by others' states, and others' states are beyond your control.
Seeking inward does not mean "needing nothing," does not mean "cutting yourself off from the world," does not mean "no money, no love, no achievements." Seeking inward means: you take back the sovereignty of your happiness into your own hands.
Money matters, but your value is not determined by money; others' approval matters, but your confidence should not depend entirely on others' evaluation; love matters, but the meaning of your existence is not defined by "whether anyone loves you." Seeking inward is when you begin to say to yourself: I can create value for myself, I can understand my own pain, I can take care of my body and emotions, I can love myself, even if the whole world does not love me.
This is not narcissism; it is preservation. This is not escaping relationships; it is the prerequisite for healthy relationships. A person who cannot love himself has no ability to truly love others—his so-called "love" is often taking, depending, and controlling.
Taking care of yourself—the benefactor of the body. Eat when hungry, but not recklessly; sleep when tired, but not to escape; check when in pain, but not with excessive anxiety. Your body does not need you to run ten kilometers a day, eat organic food, or get the most expensive checkups; it only needs you not to abuse it.
Understanding yourself—the benefactor of the spirit. How long has it been since you seriously listened to the voice in your heart? "I'm so tired"—did you hear it? "I don't want to do this"—did you hear it? "I'm afraid"—did you hear it? "I need help"—did you hear it? These voices are often suppressed by us. The words you say to yourself are harsher than your most demanding boss. You treat yourself as an enemy, not as a friend.
Loving yourself—the ultimate benefactor. This is the hardest lesson. Loving yourself is not "only being good to yourself and ignoring others," but treating yourself as a valuable life worthy of being treated kindly. What would you say to your best friend? Say that to yourself too. How would you take care of a sick child? Take care of yourself that way too.
You are not an island, but you must be your own harbor. From your own harbor, you set sail, explore, and connect with other islands. But you always have a place to return to—yourself.
Many people think the meaning of life is an "answer" hidden somewhere, waiting for you to find it. Once found, you understand; if not found, you are lost. This way of thinking treats meaning as a static, external, fixed thing.
But that is not how it is. Meaning emerges in action; it is not discovered in thinking. You sit there thinking "what is the meaning of life?"—ten years of thinking won't produce an answer; but you go do something—create, help, protect, pass on—and in the process of doing, meaning arrives on its own.
Source one: creating value, being useful to others. A person feels his life has meaning rarely because "I ate a good meal" or "I bought a nice bag." These are happiness, but they do not constitute meaning, because they are consumption, not creation. Meaning usually comes from your usefulness to others: someone reads your article and says "that helped me a lot"; your product solves someone's problem; the knowledge you teach enables students to make a living independently.
Source two: transcending yourself, breaking through your limits. There is also a kind of meaning that does not come directly from being useful to others, but from transcending yourself. You climb a very hard mountain—not for anyone else, just because you wanted to. At the summit, the wind is strong, and you gasp as you look down. At that moment, you feel "I did it." No one needs to pin a medal on you; you know you crossed a hurdle you had never crossed before.
Happiness is not the grand prize at the end of your life, not the medal you earn by striving. Happiness is the accompanying state of walking on the right road. When you set reasonable goals for each item of private good, actively endure constructive suffering, find the rhythm between movement and stillness, fight time, space, desire, and fatigue, become your own benefactor, and at the same time know why you are walking this road—happiness will follow you like a shadow. It is not a rabbit you chase; it is the wind under your feet when you run.
So, there is no need to treat "am I happy" as a daily performance metric. Not being happy today does not mean you have gone the wrong way; being especially happy today does not mean everything is settled forever. You only need to ensure two things: the direction is right—what you are doing, when you look back a year later, ten years later, or on your deathbed, you will not regret; the method is right—along the way, you take care of all your basic aspects, neither neglecting nor overdoing any. Happiness will come by itself.
Happiness Is Not Pleasure is the core work in the "application and gateway" direction of Hua Guoping's system of thought. Starting from the structure of human nature, it moves toward the practice of happiness in everyday life. It does not answer the abstract definition of "what happiness is," but the concrete question "what am I lacking today, and what can I do for myself."
Downward, it takes up the analysis of human nature and pain; upward, it points toward meaning, civilization, and the complete growth of the person. It does not replace any religion, nor does it replace any philosophical tradition; instead, it offers ordinary people a set of operable, testable, correctable methods of happiness: identify which item of private good you lack, distinguish constructive suffering from consumptive suffering, find the rhythm between movement and stillness, fight the enemies of happiness, and become your own benefactor.
Further reading: The Pinnacle Concept—the original seed of the system; On Human Nature—the complete unfolding of the eight-factor model; On Resolving Suffering—concrete methods of awakening from pain; The Essence of Morality—the energy view of good and evil; The Awakening of Value—how to make yourself more valuable; The Community of Shared Human Happiness—the highest goal of the system.
The title of this book is itself the core proposition: Happiness is not the maximization of pleasure, not the achievement of goals, not the satisfaction of needs, not the flow experience, not the five elements, not the severing of desire. Happiness is: at a given moment, under specific physiological, psychological, and surrounding conditions, when one or several items of private good have been benignly satisfied, the temporary state of balance that body and mind reach.
This definition contains three keywords: satisfaction of private good—happiness has concrete content, eleven dimensions; balance—not the more the better, but coordination of all factors, combination of movement and stillness; fitting the present—happiness is situational, varying by person and changing with time.
So, when you are unhappy, do not ask "why am I unhappy"—that question is too big and too abstract. What you should ask is: of these eleven items, which one is most lacking right now? Find the one most lacking, and you have found the breakthrough point of happiness in the present.
Happiness is not without enemies; it is that you are smarter than your enemies. Happiness is not a once-and-for-all destination, but a dynamic balance that needs constant maintenance. Happiness is not waiting for others to give, but taking care of yourself, understanding yourself, and loving yourself. Happiness is not everything, but happiness is the path—walk on a meaningful road, and happiness follows naturally.
Happiness is not pleasure; balance is. You did not come to suffer; you came to live a life.
Introduction: Applied entry · What happiness is: happiness is a state of balance; suffering is the raw material of happiness.
Core Idea: 幸福是什么。
Discipline: 心理学 / 幸福学、自我成长、人生哲学