I’m happy. I’m fucking happy. The atmosphere at this monastery is just fucking incredible and is very conducive to being happy and joyful. You don’t know where the happiness is coming from, it’s just in the fabric of the place. Unity, community, harmony, brotherhood and sisterhood, also known as “bristerhood”, and sometimes it’s just downright playful.

A brother related an incident once when a Tibetan monk stayed here for a week, and at the end, he really lit into the brothers here. He criticized the monastic philosophy here for too much emphasis on happiness. My comment on the anecdote was that I understand where the Tibetan monk was coming from, but that he was also missing the point.

I think the point of the Tibetan monk was that, as monks, practice should be more austere, more serious, more concentrated and contemplative, and it should go deeper into the mind and the nature of existence and being. I actually agree with that. There’s a whole pantheon of esoteric practice in the Tibetan tradition that is available, and the monks here don’t even touch it. We don’t even deal with death very effectively.

But on the other hand, it seemed like what he was saying might be restated as, “As monks, you should be working towards enlightenment, not happiness”. The monks here took what he said to heart, but in the end, what’s wrong with happiness? Can you have too much happiness? What were the monks supposed to say? "Sorry"?

Besides, the Tibetan monk was only here for a week, and that’s not enough to really get to know a practice. If the Tibetan monk stayed for several months, a year, or several years, who knows if he might end up finding it difficult to leave. And we have had monks from other traditions who have come to visit for a week and were blown away by the atmosphere and practice here. They didn’t want to leave after only a week. But again, you still can’t know a practice after one week, and we would caution that it may be great after one week, but after two weeks or three weeks, or longer, they might start itching to get back to their own tradition, the one they’re familiar with and the path they’ve found.

In the end, these are all Dharma doors, different paths for different types of people to think through the nature of reality, of being here, of living; get under the skin of the big questions we have about life that has led us to the practice, with no guarantee that we’ll find the answer. There is a reason for the esoteric practices of Tibetan schools, but there is also a reason for the cultivation of mindfulness, harmony, and happiness of this school of Zen. There’s a reason to remain lay practitioners or to become academics to learn about and spread the teachings and philosophies. You don’t even need to be acquainted with the Buddhadharma. You don't need to be "Buddhist".

This is all coming from someone whose personal proclamation is that happiness is not a goal in life. But as the quote goes There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. There’s a permutation of the quote using “peace” (There is no way to peace, peace is the way). And one with burritos.