Exercise 13: Distinguishing happiness from pleasure

Posted on Happy Minds!

From: Happiness - Matthieu Ricard

Bring to your mind a past experience of physical pleasure,
with all its intensity. Remember how you enjoyed
it at first and then how it gradually changed
into a neutral feeling and maybe even waned into lassitude
and lack of interest. Did it bring you a sense of
inner or lasting fulfillment?
Then remember an occasion of inner joy and happiness.
Recall how you felt, for example, when you
made someone else really happy, or when you peacefully
enjoyed the company of a loved one or the sight
of beautiful natural scenery. Consider the lasting effect
this experience had on your mind and how it still
nourishes a sense of fulfillment. Compare the quality
of such a state of being with that of a fleeting sensation
of pleasure.



Learn to value these moments of deep well-being and
aspire to find ways to develop them further.