Mipham Rinpoche's Advice on Happiness, p2

There needs to be harmony between one's self and one's outer environment. These have to meet in a way that allows you to experience happiness. Otherwise, the causes and conditions are not present for you to experience happiness.

It can even come down to us being able to spend time with friends and the people we enjoy. If we constantly need to work, if we need to work really hard to stay in this place, if we have to put in a lot of effort to enjoy the environment we find ourselves in, then we can't even spend time with friends. We can't enjoy ourselves. We don't have time or the ability to enjoy the company of others because we are so busy trying to create the means by which we can enjoy this environment.

It can be difficult to accept. Sometimes people want to be in a very beautiful place, but they're not able to stay there. This causes suffering. They're not able to meet the needs of being in that place, it's not a harmonious relationship. They experience suffering, but they may not be able to accept that. They go about trying to live in that place, but they're unable because the causes and conditions are not there.

Part of harmony with our surroundings or with the place where we find ourselves, is the ability to enjoy where we are. The ability to be happy with the place, happy with the life we have, happy with our family, happy with our job -- if we can accept these experiences and conditions of our life, then happiness comes about through acceptance. We accept these things and we are happy with them. But some find themselves at odds with the conditions of their lives. They're never quite happy with the conditions of their lives, they want something else, or they want to work harder. They focus on work, they become very engrossed in work. They want to have something other than what is given to them or what is around them, what is in their lives. To have a harmonious relationship with the conditions of life is the path of the dharma.

This kind of harmony relates directly to Dharma, this is the path towards happiness. And that's what we said the Dharma is about, right? It's the path to happiness. Whether we go along that path or not, that's up to us. Part of the path to happiness is to have a harmonious relationship with the conditions in our lives, and because of that harmonious relationship, to be able to enjoy those things, to be satisfied with those things and then to experience happiness because of that. But if there is a disconnect or a lack of harmony between our minds and our outer environments, then we're never really happy. We can't accept the conditions of our lives. We begin to do things like put lots of effort into our jobs, trying to get more. This is the effect of having more desire, more needs, more wants, more wishes, rather than experiencing a harmonious relationship to our life in its conditions.

Easy going and dependable friends

Mipham Rinpoche discusses additional factors that are important to happiness and the cultivation of happiness, both in ourselves and the friends who accompany us, the helpful friends. One factor is to be easygoing and relaxed, to have a relaxed mind and an easygoing state of being. And another is to be very reliable or dependable, to be an undeceiving individual, to be somebody who doesn't engage in deception or trickery of any kind, but is very honest and undeceiving. To be both easygoing and relaxed as well as undeceiving, these are important qualities to have in order to experience and cultivate happiness.

It's important to be a very soft, gentle kind of person, to be a relaxed, somewhat laid back person, easy to get along with. It's also important to be reliable and dependable, someone who others can depend upon: today you are one way and tomorrow you'll be the same way. You're not going to be one kind of person today and another type tomorrow who nobody can depend upon. We probably have met people who one day say one thing, and then the next day have completely changed. That kind of person is very difficult to rely upon, that's not a great friend to have. It's important to have a friend we can rely upon, somebody who is very dependable, somebody who is consistent in their behavior and the way they are from day to day. We can rely upon them. This is important in the Dharma as well as in regular, day-to-day life. It's important is to have excellent friends who can help us. They can be helpful for us, they can assist us, and they are going to be there for us in experiences of happiness as well as suffering, not only in the good times, but also in the bad times.

These days we have many thousands of friends in social media, some have hundreds of thousands of friends. But when we experience suffering or hardship, where are those friends? Are they really going to be there for us when things get difficult? That is how you can tell who your true friends are, the ones who can actually help you through difficult times, who can help you through suffering. This person can be a friend or family member. It can be anybody who really is going to be there for us when the going gets tough.

The problem with today's world is that people don't really trust each other. We don't have trust for each other. But if you can't really trust anybody, you can't really rely upon them. It's an important quality to have. It's important to have friends we can rely upon, it can be just one. It doesn't have to be many, it's enough to have one friend who we can rely upon and trust. If we don't have any friends like that, then it could be a sign that we ourselves are not reliable. We're not being a reliable, dependable friend for others, and therefore we don't have any such friends ourselves. It's important not only to have a friend like that, but to be that kind of friend for others as well, somebody who can be relied upon through suffering as well as happiness.

It's also important for us to be with a person who has a very relaxed mind, a very easygoing mind, a mind that is at ease. When we are around these types of people, then our mind also becomes very at ease and very relaxed, very happy and very, very peaceful. The opposite is also true. We can tell when we are with somebody who has a very stressful mind that's not at ease, that's worked up all the time. Being around that person rubs off on us, we have the same experience, our mind becomes disturbed. Our mind is not at peace. We feel very agitated around them. This is the opposite effect. It's important that we try to spend time and be around people who have an easygoing mind. Their mind is at ease and we feel the same way around them. It's important for us to be that person for others as well. This is another way that we can experience happiness from external conditions in our lives. There is a direct relationship with happiness, and that experience of happiness is (ed: based on) being around people like that and to also embody that for others.

It's important to recognize these types of people in our lives, whether they're friends or family, those whose nature is relaxed and at ease, who are very dependable people. We can appreciate and recognize how they help to create the experience of happiness. In my own life, I can see that I'm very lucky to have a wonderful family, very wonderful Dharma friends, and excellent spiritual guides and teachers. They have embodied this kind of excellent friend, these people whose minds are at ease and very peaceful, who are very dependable. I recognize that this is coming about through my own merit. It's important to first recognize those people in your life, to appreciate them. Sometimes we don't really appreciate the people that we have. So we need to recognize and understand that they help us to be happy in this life. They help us to experience happiness. For me, I have had these wonderful friends, family, Dharma friends, lamas, teachers, all of these people in my life who have allowed me to experience happiness.