I think that word choice is really a problem here. Happiness is too big a word and encompasses too many disparate concepts. The happiness that is being described in the article might be better worded as "inner peace," which is certainly a valid form of happiness. But there are at least two other kinds of happiness that cannot simply be described as the absence of dukkha or unease or suffering.
The first kind of happiness seems, to me, to always be accompanied by a sense of surprise or involves seeing or doing something for the first time. When your kid does something particularly funny or clever. When you discover an elegant solution to a puzzle. When you are watching a good movie. Dukkha could distract you from these things, but it rarely seems to. Indeed, this kind of happiness often distracts you from dukkha. It is not elusive, and it is something that benefits from seeking to find it. It is not about the journey, but about the destination, although the journey often makes it better. It often makes you laugh.
The second kind of happiness is what you feel when you relieve someone else's unease. Cooking dinner for others. Watching a movie together that you have seen before, but they are seeing for the first time. Giving a hug to a friend who needs it. The happiness you feel doing this is based upon your attachment to the other person, or to humankind in general. It makes you smile and feel warm inside.
I have often thought that, while Buddhism has some awesome ideas, it misses out on the more active joys in favor of the passive, and it concentrates on the negative results of attachment to the detriment of the positive.
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I think that word choice is really a problem here. Happiness is too big a word and encompasses too many disparate concepts. The happiness that is being described in the article might be better worded as "inner peace," which is certainly a valid form of happiness. But there are at least two other kinds of happiness that cannot simply be described as the absence of dukkha or unease or suffering.
The first kind of happiness seems, to me, to always be accompanied by a sense of surprise or involves seeing or doing something for the first time. When your kid does something particularly funny or clever. When you discover an elegant solution to a puzzle. When you are watching a good movie. Dukkha could distract you from these things, but it rarely seems to. Indeed, this kind of happiness often distracts you from dukkha. It is not elusive, and it is something that benefits from seeking to find it. It is not about the journey, but about the destination, although the journey often makes it better. It often makes you laugh.
The second kind of happiness is what you feel when you relieve someone else's unease. Cooking dinner for others. Watching a movie together that you have seen before, but they are seeing for the first time. Giving a hug to a friend who needs it. The happiness you feel doing this is based upon your attachment to the other person, or to humankind in general. It makes you smile and feel warm inside.
I have often thought that, while Buddhism has some awesome ideas, it misses out on the more active joys in favor of the passive, and it concentrates on the negative results of attachment to the detriment of the positive.