If You Truly Want To Be "Happy".....

You typically hear of Buddhists seeking NIrvana, which most interpret as a sense of peace. This is true but slightly misunderstood. Nirvana is an escape from Samsara (the cycle of life), but it is also the concept of extinguishing emptiness associated with the five skandhas (form>feeling>perception>mental formations>consciousness). A concept of removing the blindfold so that you can see the truth. The first four skandhas lead to the 5th, a consciousness. Consciousness leads to the three poisons of greed, aggression, and delusion. This is what creates suffering, or duhka, which is led by thirst (tahna). When you meditate you release yourself from the five skandhas, you remove this concept of "self" or seperation from everything else. At some point we develop a sense of self-concept and everything else is "other". This leads us in a search for atman, or "self". We develop the belief in a deity or the idea of a "soul", something that is permanent. We lose the reality that everything is interdependent as we strive for the concept of independence. There is no "self", it is merely a construct within our minds, which we see as separate from the flow of everything else. We search for a soul to find this concept of "self" that we develop. Your mind is merely changing physical matter full of neurons that perpetuate concepts from the five skandhas. It is not who you are, not your soul. Your body is not permanent, therefor it cannot be your soul or "self", as a soul should be permanent. Your physical body has 10 times as many bacteria in relation to cells. That means that you physically weigh 10% of what you see on a scale, the other 90% is bacteria, bacteria can not be "self", they can not be your "soul" or atman. If you wish to believe that the cells you do have are you, or the existence of "self", then know this; every cell on your body is completely replaced by new ones anywhere from a couple weeks for your skin to less than 16 years for your gut. Therefore your physical matter, or cells, are not permanent. There is no soul or "self" in your cells. Everything is in constant motion, constant change. When one reaches a state of meditation they get a glimpse of enlightenment, a glimpse of a sense of joy. They lose the concept of self, realize the concept of emptiness, remove the bindings of duhka and tahna, remove the concepts of greed, delusion, and hate. They truly become, and live within this world in a state of peace and just a general sense of "being". They simply "be", they stop becoming, they stop doing. They realize even that samsara and Nirvana are the same, there is only one reality and endless perceptions of that reality. Only the ones who are able to truly remove the blindfold and see have a chance at finding real joy. My hope is that I eventually, in one of my many cycles of life, am able to achieve this enlightenment and be released from this suffering caused by my concept of self and search for atman. Emptiness is nothing and nothing is emptiness. Nirvana is samsara and samsara is Nirvana. There is no existence of dualism, as everything is everything. This is only a contradiction in the logic created by the constructs of suffering beings.