[Touching the bell once]
[Bell]
When looking deeply, we see that happiness...
depends on our mind more than the outer circumstances.
When something happens
to us,
it's the way we look at it
that determines whether it's a happiness or a pain.
For example, when you...
open the door
open the door of your room
to go out and to walk to the Meditation Hall.
The way you open the door,
the way you walk through the door,
the way you take each step to the Meditation Hall,
all of these moments are happy or not,
not because there's a door or because there's a meditation hall,
not because there's a path from the door to the Meditation Hall,
not because we have two feet,
not because we have...
some moments to walk,
but it's our way.
It's our way
of looking
at that event.
If we know how to open the door,
if we are mindful,
if we are aware,
opening the door
can be a moment of happiness.
And then we can get in touch with the fresh and cool air outside.
Well,
that
is joy.
And when we take our steps, each step can also be a joy.
Otherwise, opening the door is painful.
Getting in touch with the cold outside is painful.
And having to walk to the Meditation Hall is also painful.
It totally depends on our way of looking at things.
For example,
before opening the door,
we remind ourselves
last week or the week before that, we suffered from a bad case of the flu.
And we couldn't be able to open the door and go outside.
We were bed-ridden,
couldn't even get up.
How much we wished we could have gone out...
that we could have opened the door and gone out, but we couldn't.
And now,
the memory about the time when we lied in bed feeling so ill -
we bring it up in the present moment.
Then we put the present moment
onto this background of that past situation.
We'll see that being able to open the door and go outside
is a great happiness.
But if we say "It's cold out there,
I haven't slept enough
but I have to go to the sitting meditation,"
then when we open the door,
it's the same door,
it's the same gesture, it's the same steps,
but we don't feel happy at all.
So our happiness depends on the mind.
Not the outer circumstances.