Here is your Friday STORY on: HAPPINESS: Happiness is the result of action. We know this but don’t often apply it. Practical Philosophy isn’t a serious study that would take four years at college or university. It is a reminder of good principles, beliefs and life’s fundamentals. So happiness is a result of action. But his is positive action of course. You may think a monk or a nun does nothing. But their action is offering their soul to the lord. For every action a criminal does, it is one step nearer to trouble. This of course is stating the obvious. You will also know that greed, desire and keeping up with the Jones’s can cause heartache and unhappiness. We know this but we still subscribe to it. Not in a big way, but in a small way. QUOTE: “Boredom is simply a lack of attention.” (Christopher Fremantle - 1906 – 1978 Philosopher, Teacher). This may not apply to you, but many people desire to eat when they are bored! The answer to boredom is to become attentive and not eat (or over eat). To start a desire for anything other than a necessity begins a spiralling effect. If you don’t get it on your first visit, the intensity of that desire gets bigger and stronger. It can start to take up more and more of your life. It engulfs everything. If you can control your desire, you can control your happiness. RELEASING THE COWS (Told by Master Thich Nhat Hanh) One day the Buddha was sitting in the wood with thirty or forty monks. They had an excellent lunch and they were enjoying the company of each other. There was a farmer passing by and the farmer was very unhappy. He asked the Buddha and the monks whether they had seen his cows passing by. The Buddha said they had not seen any cows passing by. The farmer said, "Monks, I'm so unhappy. I have twelve cows and I don't know why they all ran away. I have also a few acres of a sesame seed plantation and the insects have eaten up everything. I suffer so much I think I am going to kill myself. The Buddha said, "My friend, we have not seen any cows passing by here. You might like to look for them in the other direction." So the farmer thanked him and ran away, and the Buddha turned to his monks and said, "My dear friends, you are the happiest people in the world. You don't have any cows to lose. If you have too many cows to take care of, you will be very busy. "That is why, in order to be happy, you have to learn the art of cow releasing (laughter). You release the cows one by one. In the beginning you thought that those cows were essential to your happiness, and you tried to get more and more cows. But now you realize that cows are not really conditions for your happiness; they constitute an obstacle for your happiness. That is why you are determined to release your cows." QUOTE: "We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” (Charles Kingsley).