Thich Nhat Hanh: happiness is possible without simply consuming all the time

In the second part of his interview, Thich Nhat Hanh explains why you don't need to be a Buddhist monk to give up an addiction to a high-consumption lifestyle Most of us in the West are still attached to a high-consumption lifestyle. We like to buy new and exciting things. Is there a strong enough alternative lifestyle out there that can convince us to leave this high-consumption one behind? What we need is transformation of our consciousness, our idea of happiness, our lifestyle. Not only are those of us in the West attached to a high-consumption lifestyle, in Asian countries people are very much doing the same. We like to buy new and exciting things. We are seeking for happiness, but there is suffering inside of us. There is a big vacuum inside of us. That is why we are looking to fill up that vacuum inside. That is our situation. We don’t feel at peace with ourselves. We have a big vacuum inside and we don’t know how to fill it up with better things, so we look to consumption. We think that if we can buy new and exciting things we can then forget the vacuum inside. That does not seem to have an effect. We are buying more and more, but we do not feel the kind of fulfilment we need. We need love, we need peace, but we don’t know how to recreate peace, so we are looking for other things to cover up the suffering and the vacuum inside of us. Of course there must be some sort of lifestyle that can help us create love and joy and we don’t have to go to the market to buy things. Unless you know how to create that kind of life you continue to go and buy things. Unless you know how to create that kind of life then you will continue to go and buy these things. Suppose you know how to enjoy walking meditation. With some training you know how to bring your mind back to your body so that your mind and your body are together. When your mind are together you are truly there and you can recognise that the rain is wonderful, the trees are beautiful, the air is still somehow fresh. You enjoy breathing in and breathing out and you can touch the wonders of life in the present moment. When we are mindful of our body and what is going on around us we are in a situation to touch the miracle of life that is going on around us. This present moment is full of wonders. If you don’t know how to these wonders you do not know how to appreciate life – to appreciate what is there. Instead you run after something that you think will make you happy. 

 Suppose we learn about The Five Mindfulness Trainings. The five mindfulness trainings are a kind of lifestyle born from a vision called “interbeing”: everything is connected to everything else. Your happiness and the happiness of other species “interare”. If you are healthy and happy then other forms of life can profit from you. If you are sick and suffer then other species will have to suffer with you and that insight of interbeing will help you to see that you are linked to everything else. To protect yourself you have to protect nature and every other species. That insight of interbeing will help you to remove discrimination, fear and anger and make you feel better in yourself. The five mindfulness trainings help us to protect life. The first mindfulness training is about protecting life: your life and the life of other species. Your life and the lives of other species are interrelated. When you protect the life of other species, you protect your own life. In order to protect ourselves we have to protect others and that is the practice of the first mindfulness training. When you breathe in mindfully you can see that Mother Earth is in you and you are in Mother Earth. That kind of insight helps you to remove your fear of dying and helps you to see that in order to protect yourself you have to protect Mother Earth. Protecting Mother Earth is protecting other species is protecting oneself, that is very clear. Even if you are the youngest of the species on the earth you can play the role of an elder brother or sister and try to look up for the wellbeing of other species. This is a very beautiful thing to do and what Mother Earth expects you to do as a species on earth, the Homo sapiens. Protecting life is a joy and that is an act, a kind of lifestyle that comes from the insight of interbeing. You are doing it for yourself because life is one, it can’t be chopped into several pieces. To live in such a way to help you to protect life can bring you a lot of joy because that is love itself. When you have love in yourself you don’t have to run and buy things because love is fulfilling and makes you peaceful and happy.