As the end of the year approaches, and darkness comes sooner each day, I find myself thinking about happiness.  I have seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which is a fancy way of saying that I get depressed when I can't see the sun. 

 This is made worse by the fact that I live in the midwest, and the sky is an endless block of gray for 6 months out of every year.

So, I spend 6 months of every year being moody, lacking energy, and wanting to spend my life in bed.  Thankfully, it's not debilitating.  The practices of chanting and meditation give me temporary relief from the "winter blues".  And my home is filled with sun lamps that bless me with artificial sunlight each night.  In short, I've learned how to manage it.

But as the cycle begins again, I can't help but wonder at the fleeting nature of happiness.  How is it possible that I can be in a foul mood when I sit in front of my altar and smiling ear-to-ear when I get up from it?  What changes in the 30 minutes I spend sitting under a sun lamp that turns my frown upside down?

In the hopes of answering my question, I turned to my Dharma books and found the following quote from Shinran Shonin, the founder of the Jodo Shinshu sect of Pureland Buddhism.

We are the bonbu of birth and death.  But hearing the gan of compassion that transcends this world.  Even though the body is defiled by bonnos, the mind lives and plays in the Pure Land.

In Pureland Buddhism, bonbu represents the human condition.  It denotes a foolish being whose mind is filled with desire.  Bonnos represent the causes of suffering (greed, anger, and ignorance).  In this passage, Shinran is reminding us that it's natural to be unhappy due to the defiled nature of our minds.  But we don't have to remain that way.

When we chant nembutsu, which he calls the gan of compassion, we remind ourselves that we aren't just bonbu beings.  Our enlightened nature lies just below the surface of our delusion.  And when we chant Namu Amida Butsu, we wash our bonnos away, we see our enlightenment more clearly, and our faith is restored.

I love the summer.  I love the sun, and I love riding my bike; surrounded by green, growing things.  But winter steals those things away from me.  And as my craving for them turns to greed, my suffering grows.

But how can I love summer if I don't love winter as well?  How can I live a happy life if I'm not willing to live every part of it?

When I chant nembutsu, it washes my greed away; giving me a glimpse of my enlightenment.  When I live nembutsu by using sun lamps to make my life more comfortable, I'm reminded that everything isn't doom and gloom.

These actions restore my faith, they make me happy, and they remind me that the sun will always be there; even if I can't see it.

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Happiness and the Winter Blues