Happiness- What it is, and How to achieve it - New Speaker Series by author James Hilgendorf

EL CERRITO, Calif. - Aug. 5, 2015 - PRLog -- What is happiness?

Ask a thousand people, and you'll probably get a thousand different shades of answers.

Everyone wants it, yet even when we finally think we have it, it changes shape and eludes us and morpohs into something else.  It is like life itself, which is always changing.

James Hilgendorf - speaker, author of ten non-fiction books, filmmaker, and practicing Buddhist - has initiated a new series of talks in his Speaker Series, dedicated to the topic of happiness.  The talk is titled "Happiness - What it is, and how to achieve it".

He states:

"Happiness for many means the dream job, or perhaps the freedom to have no job at all; the dream boy or girl friend; a lot of money in the bank; vacations to exciting places, perfect health, and the list goes on.  Yet I have known many people who have attained these, and still find their happiness incomplete - or, in many cases, even complicated because of the attainment of their desires. Health, wealth, intelligence, we envy these qualities.  Yet I know a young man who works at the local grocery store, who is retarded in some degree (the store makes it a policy of hiring the disadvantaged when it can), whose whole being radiates joy.  He greets everyone with a genuine, concerned smile.  He looks consistently happy.

"One core problem is that we are looking for the answer to our happiness outside ourselves.  Even if we gain what we are seeking, if we are not already happy and strong inside, our happiness can shift and even disappear in an instant.  The boyfriend can run away with another girl.  The investment stocks we hold can crash.  Our health can take a turn for the worse.  Then  where are we?  Where is our happiness?"

How to create a state of happiness within then that can never be shaken becomes the problem.  In his talks, Hilgendorf finds solutions not only from his own experience of practicing Buddhism for over forty years, but also from the lives and wisdom of many other people throughout history.

Further information on James Hilgendorf, his books, and his talks is available online at:

http://www.jameshilgendorf.org