If you had a dream in which you were happy would that be happiness. If you dreamt you ate fish would that count as having eaten fish.
On one level
no, since in the case of eating it wouldn't fill your stomach and you
would wake hungry. But in the case of happiness could happiness be
unrelated to reality. I mean what is happiness but emotion and what is
emotion other than
something which
predominantly starts in the mind. If the source of happiness is in the
mind and dreams, which are states of consciousness in the mind, if these
states of mind bring happiness then it is what it says on the tin, happiness.
How much of
what we assume to be specific to ourselves is a shared by ourselves as a
common experience. If two people become happy together is that
happiness instinctively separate. Is it my happiness or is it a
communicated experience which without the
other persons obvious reciprocity could not exist solely on its own.
So beyond the boarders of our sensitivity to outside stimuli, the smile we interpret as the other person being happy and wishing to share their happiness with you, how much else do we rely on to function as a human being.
Is the Buddhist right for analysing the person within you with such intensity that you only find purity of human purpose in the discovery of that singularity which is you.
Or is the human-being most pure when engaging in a shared emotion, when everyone they come into contact with feels that mental climate in which they respond with what we call happiness.
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