Sunday September 27th, 2015, Nippori Japanese Meditation Center, Tokyo, arranged a Japanese meditation retreat and Dharma Talk on the topic of “What is happiness?” Phra Thaniyo was the teaching monk who gave the Dharma Talk. The teaching monk began by asking participants what the happiness is, how the happiness arises, and if are happy now and told them to check themselves with these questions. The monk continued teaching that there are 3 ways to make themselves happy:
1. Have positive thinking
2. Don’t think negatively and
3. Live modestly.
About 10% of things in human life are uncontrollable and 90% are controllable. For example, a family has breakfast together every morning. One day in the morning the son unintentionally spilled coffee on his father’s shirt and his father was angry and scolded him. His father blamed his mother that she placed the cups in the wrong place so this event happened. Finally, his father hurried to go to work and drove his car too fast. At last, the policeman arrested his father because he drove faster than the speed limit. His father faced many negativities that day. However, if you start from the beginning, you will find that if the father was conscious and restrained his anger, everything would have gone more smoothly. So, no matter what happens, you should be conscious, calm and solve the problem with patience. After the Dharma Talk, all participants meditated together. When the ceremonies were over, some people stayed behind and discussed dhamma with the teaching monks further.
