Better to Be a Renunciant
Buddhism, Happiness, and the Good Life
Charles K. Fink*
Abstract
This essay seeks to understand the nature of happiness and the good life within the context of
Buddhist philosophy. Buddhism is a pessimistic philosophy, but only in the sense that it insists that
happiness, as we ordinarily conceive of it, is unattainable. It is optimistic insofar as it maintains that
true happiness is humanly possible, but only if we see things as they really are and relinquish our
desires. Yet, even if we would be happier as renunciants, would our lives be better? To answer this
question, we must understand the relationship between happiness and the good life. I argue that
happiness is a complex psychological state involving affective, cognitive, and motivational
components. Buddhist practice seeks to cultivate these different dimensions of happiness and in this
way lay the foundation for living a good life.
1. Introduction
Buddhism is often interpreted as a philosophy of life rather than as a true
religion. This is understandable. Buddhism addresses the problem of suffering
and offers a way of life by which suffering can be overcome and happiness
achieved. Of course, Buddhism is not just a philosophy of life; it is also a religion.
But central to Buddhist teaching is a critique of the conventional conception of
happiness—a critique that can be appreciated independently of any distinctively
religious doctrines, such as karma and rebirth. Buddhism is a pessimistic
philosophy, but only in the sense that it insists that happiness, as we ordinarily
conceive of it, is unattainable. It is optimistic insofar as it maintains that true
happiness is within our reach, but only if we come to see things as they really are
and discipline our minds accordingly.
This essay examines the Buddhist conception of happiness and how it relates
to the good life. The first section focuses on a core Buddhist teaching: that life is
suffering. I argue that this should be understood to mean that the common
*
Professor of Philosophy, Department of Arts and Philosophy, Miami Dade College, Kendall Campus,
11011 SW 104 St., Miami FL 33176-3393, USA.
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conception of happiness is fatally flawed. The second section makes a case for the
renunciation of desire and explains why it is, at least from a Buddhist standpoint,
that we would be better off as renunciants. In the third section, I explore the
relationship between happiness and the good life. Although the two notions are
not always distinguished, the concept of happiness can be treated as a
psychological concept rather than as a normative one. This allows us to ask
whether happiness is all that matters in life, and even whether happiness is
essential to living a good life. In the fourth and final section, I suggest that
Buddhism conceives of happiness as psychological health and that, so understood,
happiness is foundational to living a good life.
1. Why Life is Suffering
The Buddha famously taught that life is suffering, and he located the source of
this in desire, thirst, or craving. The happiness we seek is unattainable because our
thirsts are unquenchable. This implies that we would be happy if only our desires
were fulfilled. Happiness, then, is a state of fulfillment or “desirelessness,” a state
completely free from dissatisfaction or want. But, having said this, it is clear that
the Buddha’s message is not that happiness is to be achieved by fulfilling our
desires, but that we suffer because we mistakenly conceive of happiness in this
way. It is because we seek happiness in the fulfillment of desire that happiness is
unattainable. Why is this?
First, the stream of desires is endless. No sooner is one desire satisfied than
another one takes its place—a sad phenomenon sometimes called the
“satisfaction treadmill.”1
Never content with the present moment, we seek
happiness in the future, in the satisfaction of some new desire. As any beginning
meditator knows, dissatisfaction and restlessness gnaw on us constantly. The
untamed mind is never free from the grip of desire, not even for a moment. If to
be happy is to satisfy all of our desires, and if the stream of desires is endless,
then lasting happiness is unattainable. Some new desire, some unsatisfied want,
always appears to disrupt whatever satisfaction we might experience.
Second, desire often assumes the form of grasping or attachment. To a large
extent, we seek happiness in our possessions. We covet material things, of course,
but also pleasure, health, knowledge, status, praise, and recognition. We are
1
See Irvine (2006), p. 106.
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attached to our family and friends, our pets, our material possessions, our bodies,
our minds, our careers, our reputations, our health, our physical appearance, our
youth, and, of course, life itself. Can we achieve lasting happiness by acquiring
and holding on to the things we covet? No, according to Buddhism, for the
following simple reason: all things are impermanent. In one way or another, all
that we care about, everyone and everything, slips from our grasp. Material
possessions crumble into nothingness. Children grow into adults. Relationships
end. Health fades. Youth fades. Beauty fades. If this is not obvious, consider this.
Death represents the loss of everything we value, and no one escapes death. In
Buddhism, impermanence (aniccata) is one of the three marks of all conditioned
phenomena. Because all things are impermanent, we cannot achieve lasting
happiness by acquiring the things we desire. These things eventually fade away,
and with it our happiness.
Third, the things we think will bring us lasting happiness simply don’t. We
tend to think: If I only I had the right job, a good marriage, enough money, a new
house, then I would be happy. Yet nothing desired, once acquired, is a source of
lasting satisfaction. Of course, we derive some satisfaction from achieving our
goals, but it soon fades. Psychologists call this “hedonic adaptation.”2
This is
another of the three marks of existence: dukkha. All conditioned phenomena,
according to the Buddha, are marked by “unsatisfactoriness.” This is rooted in the
first mark of existence. Our experience of satisfaction is itself a conditioned,
dependent phenomenon. It fades like everything else.
Fourth, if happiness is to be found in the fulfillment of desire, then we must be
able to control things—people, situations, and events. To be happy, things must go
our way. And this means that we must have the power to make things go our way.
Yet, realistically speaking, not much is under our control. Sensing this, we
immerse ourselves in worry. When our will is thwarted, as it so often is, we
experience frustration. When people don’t behave as they’re “supposed” to
behave, we experience anger and resentment. Worry, frustration, anger, fear,
resentment, jealousy, despair, disappointment, heartbreak, and many other
conflictive emotions are bound up with our efforts to control things. Although it is
happiness that we seek, it is suffering that we create for ourselves and for others.
According to Buddhism, the problem is not just that we have limited power
2
See Irvine (2006), pp. 105-106. There are ups and downs in life, but the evidence suggests that there
is an individually variable happiness “set point” to which people eventually return. See Haybron
(2011).
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over the world; rather, we have no power at all. The self, understood as a center of
power and control, as a doer of deeds, an initiator of actions, does not exist. When
I think, there is no “I” that makes thoughts appear. When I raise my arm or speak,
there is no “I” that makes my arm rise or my lips and tongue move. There is no
actor or agent behind my actions. The “I,” understood as an actor or agent, as a
center of power and control, is an illusion. This is the third mark of existence:
no-self (anattā). Understood as a general metaphysical thesis, the no-self doctrine
amounts to the claim that all things lack a substantial core. All things at every
moment are in the process of coming to be or in the reverse process of ceasing to
be; there is no time when something simply is. There are no “beings” but only
“becomings.” This includes myself. My life is a transformational process, but
there is no enduring entity that undergoes this process. My thoughts and actions
are events, and they are bound up with everything else that happens. They cannot
be disentangled from the causal matrix and assigned to a separately existing,
substantial self.
We regard many things as possessions, and these things are intimately bound
up with our sense of selfhood. Every “my” points to an “I.” I look upon my body,
for instance, as my body, not just as a body. But my body is not a possession. It is
something I make use of, but only temporarily. It is subject to disease, old age,
death, and decay. Sooner or later, it will slip from my grasp, like everything else.
Because all things are impermanent, there is nothing that persists from one
moment to the next—including myself and everything I conceptualize as mine.
This can’t be reconciled with the attitude of possessiveness. Possessiveness
insists that things remain the same. But nothing remains the same. The object of
my possessiveness now is not the same as the object of my possessiveness a
moment from now. Possessiveness rests upon the delusion of permanence. The
delusion is thinking that we can arrest the process of change and somehow make
something remain the same from one moment to the next, from one day to the
next, from one year to the next.
There are a number of reflections that bring home in a powerful way just how
deep our attachments are. Imagine that all your physical possessions are destroyed.
How devastating would this be? Imagine losing your ability to remember things
or to learn new things, to see, touch, or hear. Imagine that you lose your career.
Imagine that everyone you care about dies. Imagine tha