The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

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So, hello everyone, and welcome to this second talk on the no, and maybe I shouldn't call it noble, but the truths, the four truths of happiness.

And the second truth for today is the truth of the conditions for happiness.

And this is chosen carefully because rather than calling it the causes of happiness,

there are the conditions for happiness. And just that is significant.

If there's cause for happiness, And just that is significant. If there's cause for our happiness, the chances are

that happiness becomes too dependent on a cause, too dependent if something has to happen so that we

can be happy. And the happiness then becomes fragile. And chances are that that happiness is not very deep, or is not very pervasive.

It could be genuine to be caused by something, and it can touch us wonderfully at times.

But it's not something which can persist very well, except in memory, when the cause is not there.

In Buddhism, there's a lot of emphasis on understanding the conditions for maturing in this Dharma,

maturing in the Buddhist path, a path that comes with it, the arising of joy and happiness,

delight, gladness, contentment. So a whole slew of feelings that belong to the family of well-being.

And they're an integral part of developing this practice.

But these things are not caused by anything,

but conditions come in place for them to arise.

And sometimes, some of this, when the conditions come into place, they teach us something

about the availability of happiness and well-being that maybe is here much more often than we realize.

Because some of the conditions are absences.

So, for example, the absence of being unethical.

The absence of killing and stealing and sexual misconduct and lying,

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