Today is the Third Sunday of Advent, traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday, or “Be Happy” Sunday. In practical,  day-to-day terms,  this starts from a mind that stops struggling with reality and one that realizes that it a moment does not have to be perfect for it to be complete. We do not need everything sorted out in our lives for them to be happy.

When we are using this term ‘basic goodness,’

we are talking about our inherent completeness. 

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Happiness is accepting and choosing life, not just submitting grudgingly to it. It comes when we choose to be who we are, to be ourselves, at this present moment of our lives; we choose life as it is, with all its joys, pain, and conflicts. Happiness is living and seeking the truth, together with others in community, and assuming responsibility for our lives and the lives of others….We are not just seeking to be what others want us to be or to conform to the expectations of family, friends, or local ways of being. We have chosen to be who we are, with all that is beautiful and broken in us. We do not slip away from life and live in a world of illusions, dreams, or nightmares. We become present to reality and to life so that we are free to live according to our personal conscience, our sacred sanctuary, where love resides within us and we see others as they are in the depth of their being. 

Jean Vanier