Nasrudin was asked, “What is happiness?”
“When a man finds his donkey again after he’d lost it.” he replied.
This is why I call it donkey happiness.
When you lose something you have donkey unhappiness, and when you find it again you experience donkey happiness. Just think about it - is there any other kind of ‘happiness’?
You hurt yourself - lost your comfort and convenience. Then you get well again. You get tired and grumpy - lost your energy. Then you have a cup of coffee, and the world looks good - found your mojo again.
Lose you job, your mother, your kids, your husband, your life, your hopes, your expectations, your social position, your self-respect, or the possibility of fulfilling your desires. All donkey unhappiness. You find another job, your kids come back, your life is reprieved, you social or self-respect returns, your desires are achieved. All donkey happiness.
When we find our donkey again after we didn’t have it.
Is there another kind of happiness?
What I want to speak of is not really ‘happiness’. There is an alternative, but not a substitute. I am as much a lover of donkey happiness and subject to donkey unhappiness as anyone. This is natural, and affects all living beings to my knowledge. But I also know of an alternative state.
My difficulty is that although I have tried to explain this many times over the years, I know that no one understands what I am talking about. I should have realised that was always going to be the case. The only reason I know of this state is because I spent many years practising certain exercises, and the state of which I speak is a direct consequence of these exercises.
So instead of waxing lyrical of this alternate state, I will describe two exercises which I know if practised diligently for long enough, will result inevitably in the experience intended. Descriptions in this case are only for placing words to an experience. If you know the experience, then the words can offer some validation and delight at seeing another has passed this way. If not, then the words are futile.
Exercise one.
I offer this because although it is not part of the cannon, nonetheless I discovered it to be of immense assistance in complimenting the second exercise.
Watch your hands. Don’t bother about attitudes to your hands - are they pretty or ugly, skinny or fat. Just watch them, and try to enjoy seeing them move. Hands are the most amazingly agile contraptions. They are the forgotten servants, always busily doing little actions for our benefit.
There are two aspects to this exercise:
a. Watch your hands in everyday common activities - opening doors, picking noses, arranging clothes, washing dishes, driving cars - wheels and gears, combing hair, preparing food. Just observe them as they do their job, and admire their humble elegant movements.
b. Do specific hand movement exercises. For example:
Fill a bowl of water and move your hands around in the water - just watch them play. Hold sand in your hands and allow the sand to fall through the fingers as you move your hands under each other. Light a candle and wave your hands gently around above the flame. Move your hands as a music conductor - while listening to some music, let your hands conduct and watch them flow with the rhythm and sound. Run your hands over some fine material like silk, and allow them to play with the touch while you watch.
Exercise two:
This is the primary exercise, and is mandatory for anyone on this path. It has to be done for years at every opportunity.
Acting for no reason. You can’t practice this exercise when you are doing your normal tasks, unless you are lucky enough to have been given a job to do at work which is totally meaningless.
Instead you have to set aside time to practice. It has to be out of the chain of conditional action - out of the endless links of functional tasks. Everything we do is for a reason. It can be almost impossible to identify anything we do during the day, which is not for a reason. So you have to make these up and set aside time for them.
There is no limit to the imagination - just pick any activity you can think of which is totally without purpose or reason. Dig a hole and put the dirt across the other side of the path, then fill the hole in again. Pick up leaves one at a time and carry them to the other side of the road. Wash some clothes that are clean. Drive to where you want to go by the longest route. Pull all your clothes out of the drawer and then put them back again. Eat a packet of crisps, one crisp at a time - no matter how miniscule the final pieces get. You might need a magnifying glass to finish that one.
But the trick I offer is to watch your hands while doing this.
If you persevere with these exercises for a few years, one day you will discover a unique state of being while you go about your daily business. Not of happiness or unhappiness - just a quiet satisfaction and completeness. You will feel the composure of donkeys.
Michael Maher 2009
