Ep. 162 – Happiness: The Progress of Insight

Insight Hour with Joseph Goldstein

Be Here Now Network

Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness, Vipassana, Buddhism, Insightmeditation, Meditation, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 864 Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Joseph Goldstein examines what happiness is and how we get it, plus he outlines the very ordered stages of progress that occur on the path of insight and wisdom.

“There’s another kind of happiness, which is higher even than the happiness of concentration, and that’s the happiness of insight, the happiness of wisdom, when we really come to a deep and profound understanding of who we are, of what this life is about.” – Joseph Goldstein

In this episode, Joseph explores:

The happiness born from sense pleasures, not only in this realm but in the higher realms
How purity of conduct, through both generosity and understanding virtue, can bring sense pleasures
The happiness that comes from concentration
The happiness that comes from insight and wisdom
The very ordered way that the progress of insight unfolds: psychological insights, purity of view, vipassana happiness, fear of the process of existence, the urge for deliverance, the stage of equanimity, and finally, opening to the unconditioned, that which is beyond the mind

This dharma talk from October 14, 1982, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The danger in Western cultures when we speak about this is people often hear the term
0:10.3	virtue or morality as somehow connoting moralistic and self-righteousness which has
0:19.4	been a danger in our culture in the past but that has nothing to do with true virtue.
0:26.0	Virtue is harmony. Oh, Welcome to the Joseph Goldstein Inside Hour.
0:48.0	This podcast is an expression of our shared interest in self-discovery.
0:55.0	Join Joseph as he shares his deep knowledge of the path of mindfulness.
1:00.6	If you are interested in supporting this podcast, please go to be here now network.com slash Joseph. Tonight I'd like to talk about happiness, what it is, and how we get it.
1:26.0	There are lots of different kinds of happiness.
1:39.0	And we get those different kinds in different ways.
1:42.0	It's helpful to have an understanding of the general laws
1:47.2	of principles governing the arising of happiness so that if in fact that's what we want to
1:57.8	experience in our lives we know the correct way going about it.
2:04.0	What's the first kind of happiness that most people are familiar with?
2:10.0	Generally, Generally it's the happiness of the sense pleasures that is beautiful sights and sounds
2:20.3	and smells and delicious tastes, nice tingly sensations in the body,
2:28.0	and pleasant thoughts and emotions,
2:30.0	the mind considered the sixth sense.
2:38.0	And although it's true that the happiness we derive from sense pleasures is impermanent and fleeting, still we have the experience that in the moment of those pleasures, it brings about a certain kind of joy, certain kind of lightness in our lives.
2:57.0	We like them.
3:00.0	The Buddha talked of another kind of sense pleasure, which is described in the Buddhist cosmology.
3:15.0	And that is the sense pleasures of the higher realms.
3:20.0	And as in the Buddhist cosmology there are 31 planes of existence and beings in the cycle of
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