Cracking the Happiness Code
by Master Lee Feng San Shifu
Translated by Sophia Lui
Edited by Ric Meyers
Have you ever wondered about happiness and how to be happy? Are you happy? In Chinese, words are embedded with a lot of hidden meanings which can be fun and interesting. Often, I would switch around the characters of a word and ponder upon its various meanings.
For example, the word “happiness” consists of two characters –快樂 “haste” and “pleasure.” At a glance, the word “happiness” just means “happiness.” However, if one studies the two characters inside the word, it makes one wonder if “haste” can beget “unhappiness”?
Sometimes, in our desire for instant gratification, we may end up being unhappy. The sayings, “married in haste, repent at leisure” or “haste makes waste” are such examples. However, the character “haste” contained in the word “happy” may also be looked at in a different way. For example, if we are feeling happy all over, then naturally we are enjoying ourselves; and if there is joy, we will be effortlessly quick and efficient in whatever we do.
Therefore the character “haste,” when used in different contexts, produces different meanings. Furthermore, when we reverse the characters in the word “happiness,” they become “pleasure” and “haste.”
A saying goes: “extreme pleasure ends in sorrow.” That means if we go overboard in our pursuit of pleasure, then the final result may be displeasure (noting that the word “displeasure” contains the characters “no” and “haste”不愉快).
When someone heard me mention “extreme pleasure ends in sorrow,” he immediately associates it with the saying “compassion begets bliss.” This is because both the words “sorrow” and “compassion” have a character in common which is 悲. According to him, only compassion alone can lead us to the Western Pure Land of Bliss, which I think is an interesting observation.
If our happiness springs from within, we will naturally overflow with joy. Nevertheless, we must also look at it from a different perspective: if we are looking for instant gratification of our desires, we may end up being unhappy.
But if we do, indeed, find ourselves in a place of despair, we can also further ask ourselves “could it not also be true that in order to know happiness, we also have to know sorrow?” These are the various conditions of life that we have to explore to find out.
Yes, Chinese words hold a lot of hidden meanings which continue to offer endless fun and fascination. I invite you to try exploring that yourselves!
“When happiness springs from within, we will naturally feel joy; if we feel joy in what we do, then we will naturally be quick and efficient in whatever we do.”— Lee Feng San Shifu
