Recollecting fulfilment
This is a quote from an article that was in the SMH Good Weekend last Saturday, which I've been thinking about since. It's a conversation between Matthieu Ricard, "The Happiest Man in the World" (according to neuroscientific results obtained by the Univ. of Wisconsin Madison) and a grumpy pommy journalist called Robert Chalmers.
***
"Bring to you mind a past occasion of inner joy and happiness," writes Matthieu Ricard in his new book, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill. "Recall how you felt. Consider the lasting effect this experience has had on your mind, and how it still nourishes a sense of fulfilment."
"Now this," I tell Ricard, "was the point where I started to run into trouble. However long I worked at this meditation exercise, the memory that kept coming back to me was of the evening in May 1999 when I was sitting in the Nou Camp in Barcelona, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored the injury-time goal that won the Champions League for Manchester United."
"I would suggest that what you experienced that night was elation. And elation is not really what we mean by happiness. It would be an interesting experiment for you to relive that night, and assess what you actually gained from it."
"You're right," I tell him, remembering how, once the euphoria had worn off, I was left contemplating the same void that has been described by countless sports fans. "When I woke up the next morning,"I tell him, "my head still ached, I was still working for a magazine editor who loathed me, and my laptop was still broken. Now that I come to think about it, Manchester United had done absolutely nothing for me."
"Because elation is a transient thing - not true spiritual fulfilment."
"But if I achieve spiritual fulfilment, will I lose interest in going to Old Trafford?"
"Absolutely not. That's one of the mistakes people make: that a serene, balanced mind is a dull mind. I love football."
Robert Chalmers, "The Happiest Man in the World," Good Weekend March 24, 2007, p. 48
***
"Bring to you mind a past occasion of inner joy and happiness," writes Matthieu Ricard in his new book, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill. "Recall how you felt. Consider the lasting effect this experience has had on your mind, and how it still nourishes a sense of fulfilment."
"Now this," I tell Ricard, "was the point where I started to run into trouble. However long I worked at this meditation exercise, the memory that kept coming back to me was of the evening in May 1999 when I was sitting in the Nou Camp in Barcelona, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored the injury-time goal that won the Champions League for Manchester United."
"I would suggest that what you experienced that night was elation. And elation is not really what we mean by happiness. It would be an interesting experiment for you to relive that night, and assess what you actually gained from it."
"You're right," I tell him, remembering how, once the euphoria had worn off, I was left contemplating the same void that has been described by countless sports fans. "When I woke up the next morning,"I tell him, "my head still ached, I was still working for a magazine editor who loathed me, and my laptop was still broken. Now that I come to think about it, Manchester United had done absolutely nothing for me."
"Because elation is a transient thing - not true spiritual fulfilment."
"But if I achieve spiritual fulfilment, will I lose interest in going to Old Trafford?"
"Absolutely not. That's one of the mistakes people make: that a serene, balanced mind is a dull mind. I love football."
Robert Chalmers, "The Happiest Man in the World," Good Weekend March 24, 2007, p. 48
posted by Ellen at 12:15 am
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