Expectations, outlook, point of view. Not actual circumstances or experiences. Pico Iyer notes, in writing on the Dalai Lama,
Happiness is not pleasure, [Benedictine monks] know, and unhappiness, as the Buddhists say, is not the same as suffering. Suffering — in the sense of old age, sickness and death — is the law of life; unhappiness is just the position we choose — or can not choose — to bring to it.
In fact, Eric Weiner suggests in "Lowered Expectations" on the Happy Days blog, such Buddhism might come naturally to the Danes:
About once a year, some new study confirms Denmark’s status as a happiness superpower. Danes receive this news warily, with newspaper headlines that invariably read: “We’re the happiest lige nu.” Lige nu is a Danish phrase that means literally “just now” but strongly connotes a sense of “for the time being but probably not for long.” Danes, in other words, harbor low expectations about everything, including their own happiness. Though not an especially religious people, Danes would make good Buddhists. They live their lives as the Buddha advised: in the present tense, not grasping at some future happiness jackpot.
And how do you do that? The Dalai Lama teaches, as Iyer notes,
We can’t change the world except insofar as we change the way we look at the world — and, in fact, any one of us can make that change, in any direction, at any moment. The point of life, in the view of the Dalai Lama, is happiness, and that lies within our grasp, our untapped potential, with every breath.
And that's why I'm counting my breaths.
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