1. All of us have had experiences during which we were happy; we felt, in fact, that this state of happiness came on “for no apparent reason.” In lieu of brushing this experience off as if it were simply a fluke, why not inquire into what it tells us about the nature of happiness?

2. The ordinary view is that happiness is an object of desire. As such, it is to be pursued. But this account fails for many reasons. A few:

• The objects of our desire change over time, but the actual experience of happiness does not change. So, how could the objects and the experience be the same?
• Desire, when looked at carefully, is itself suffering. It’s not that we want desire; it’s that we want the end of desire. But the end of desire is not, itself, an object. It’s something else–which I’ll come to below.
• Pursuing a desire is known as “seeking,” and seeking is suffering.

3. Therefore, this volitional view–according to which happiness is to be an object pursued and thus an object acquired–fails. What must be let go of is the volitional view itself.

4. Happiness is not an object. Thus, it can be neither pursued nor attained. What sense, then, can we make of the unbidden tastes of happiness we’ve no doubt experienced now and again (see 1. above again)?

5. The contemplative view is that happiness is somehow bound up with self-understanding–and not with volition.

6. But happiness can’t be the object of our contemplations because in that case it would fall back into the account just refuted. We’d be trying, in our contemplations, to “get closer” to the “object” known as happiness. So long as did so, we’d be “seeking” and thus would be experiencing more unhappiness.

7. We’re on the right track, then, when we shift from volition to contemplation. Call this the “first plot twist.” But then we need to carry the logic all the way through. When we do so, we discover the biggest plot twist: namely, that happiness is the nature of consciousness, or ourself. Happiness is not an object, nor is it to be found in any object. Happiness is identical with the subject.

8. When you know yourself, you know that you are consciousness. And consciousness, being whole, is none other than happiness.

9. We can now make sense of the clue we find in the opening section (1. above): happiness is what we essentially are. It’s only after the fact that it seems, from the vantage point of the mind, as if happiness is subject to coming and going as all objects are. If–to offer an analogy–you look through a window, then it will appear to you initially as if the blue sky shares the limits of the frame. But once you look more deeply through the window, you lose the frame and you disappear into the blue sky. Similarly, once you go more deeply into yourself, that is, into consciousness, you discover that happiness is the absence of all suffering, the absence of all lack, the sense of wholeness or completeness. Happiness, thus, is inherent in the very being of consciousness–which is you.