Becoming Wise is supported by the Fetzer Institute.

I've had hundreds of big conversations, and my conversation partners share wisdom I carry with me wherever I go.

I've never thought about happiness the same way since I spoke with the French-born Tibetan Buddhist monk Mathieu Ricard.

I like his language of human flourishing as the real aspiration, that happiness is not a sensation or a feeling.

It's a state of being that can encompass all of the things that happen in life.

This is becoming wise. I'm Krista Tippett.

You know, you're worldly wise and rational.

And then we also live in this culture where the word happiness gets completely watered down.

So I want to just talk about how you define happiness, because we have to put a lot of precon it's very important because that's why also this word is so vague.

Yeah, it's a problem.

You can use it, you know, buy this toothpaste and you'll be happy and, okay, good luck.

So I think we should clearly see what are the inner conditions that foster a genuine sense of flourishing, of fulfillment, that the quality of every instant of your life has a certain quality that you appreciate fully.

So you see it's very different from people or sometimes imagine that constant happiness

will be a kind of euphoria or endless succession of pleasant experiences.

That's more like a recipe for exhaustion than happiness.

Even the most pleasurable thing, you eat something very delicious.

Once it's delicious, two, three times, okay, and then ten times you get nauseous.

The most beautiful music, you hear five times, 24 hours is a nightmare.

If we think of happiness as a way of being, a way of being that give you the resources

to deal with the upsandance of life, that pervades all the emotional state, including

sadness.

Right.

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