Happiness Isn’t a Destination

(ethereal music) Headspace Studios. (ethereal music) Hi, it's Andy here, and welcome to "Radio Headspace." And welcome to the start of the week. Very often, I get asked the question: How do I analyze or how do I work out whether I'm progressing in my practice of mindfulness, in my practice of meditation? And it's always a difficult question to answer. And even if you don't do any meditation, even if you don't practice mindfulness, this is still sort of very relevant 'cause it's, how do we get a sense of whether we are being more present in our life? And I always come back to the same story that my teacher shared with me. So when I went off to become a monk, I definitely went with the idea that enlightenment, for one of a better word, was something that I didn't have, that it existed somewhere else outside of my mind as it existed at that time. And perhaps, even that it existed in another place that I needed to go somewhere else to find it and get it. And I thought that when I went there, that all of my negative thoughts were gonna disappear. I thought that all of my difficult and challenging emotions would disappear. I don't know really what I was thinking. I just thought that I would experience a mind that was always peaceful and always calm. And in my mind, that was what enlightenment was. And, of course, when I went there, I discovered that while actually in sitting, you witness the mind, definitely. Sometimes it's calm, but sometimes it's busy. Sometimes, the emotions feel very pleasant, but sometimes they're very unpleasant as well. And I remember having this discussion with my teacher and he said, "Look, rather than thinking of a place of eternal happiness and a place of enlightenment, rather thinking of that as something that's going to happen to you in the future, instead, think about enlightenment more as being present in this moment." So when we are present in this moment, undistracted with an open, curious, and kind mind, that is enlightenment happening in this moment. We may not think that's enough. We might think, "No, it has to be something more, but there's something so extraordinary about this moment. We so rarely show up for this moment. Normally, we are distracted. So then it just becomes about, "Okay, so how do we start to create stability in being present?" So sort of, essentially, stability in enlightenment. How do we move from one moment, one moment being considerably less than one second, to having many moments throughout the day? Maybe it's 10 to begin with, and maybe we build it up and it's 20, 50, 100. But, over time, how do we start to have more of those moments when we are present, when we are undistracted, when the mind is genuinely open and curious? And for me, that was a real kind of turning point in the...