The Radiance of Love, the Bloom of Beauty

Nothing can make us happy and nothing can make us unhappy. Happiness is our natural state; it is the nature of being. This innate happiness is never absent, but it can be obscured. It never disappears but is veiled, and this veiling of happiness is the experience we know as sorrow or suffering. This is why suffering is referred to as unhappiness. Happiness is not referred to as unmisery. Happiness is like the blue sky; unhappiness is like the grey clouds. The blue sky is our true nature, the nature of being. The grey clouds are thoughts and feelings. There are really just two possibilities at every moment: one, to remain unconditionally open in the face of our experience, and two, to close our hearts to that experience. The recognition of the nature of being is warm peace, quiet joy, the radiance of love, the bloom of beauty.

Nothing can make us happy and nothing can make us unhappy. Happiness is our natural state; it is the nature of being. This innate happiness is never absent, but it can be obscured. It never disappears but is veiled, and this veiling of happiness is the experience we know as sorrow or suffering. This is why suffering is referred to as unhappiness. Happiness is not referred to as unmisery. Happiness is like the blue sky; unhappiness is like the grey clouds. The blue sky is our true nature, the nature of being. The grey clouds are thoughts and feelings. There are really just two possibilities at every moment: one, to remain unconditionally open in the face of our experience, and two, to close our hearts to that experience. The recognition of the nature of being is warm peace, quiet joy, the radiance of love, the bloom of beauty.