The Buddha, The Middle Way

To practice Zen is to fully experience your emotions without pushing them away or being swept away by them. We should see our emotions like a wild bull that, while powerful, is neither good nor bad. Rather than remain ignorant of the bull, we look for it and aim to tame it.

• Nostalgia was considered by the early 20th century a psychiatric illness caused by some traumatic experience of childhood. It had three components, cognitive, affective and conative.
• The cognitive part remembered old memories of the self, while the affective part was a sa...

Although they differ on the specifics, these theories generally agree on a few points:

• It’s good to be happy, and people like being happy;
• Happiness is neither a totally fleeting, momentary experience nor a stable, long-term trait;
• At least some portion of our happiness...