In both Western and Eastern traditions, happiness is less about feeling good than about an attitude of acceptance of life the way it is. Happiness comes from accepting what is , in contrast to pursuing what is not yet. To penetrate life means to get into it with a focused power and precision, like a laser beam. As Thoreau indicated, it means “to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”. If we truly practice his favorite principle – less is more, simpler is better – we sooner or later come upon the subtler principle it reveals: what is, is good enough.
Less is more, simpler is better, works precisely because whatever exists without our inflating and overcomplicating it, is good enough. Zen alludes to this principle when it says “The beauty of a mountain is that it is so much like a mountain, and of water, that it is so much like water”. Simply stated, life is simply good.
Michael Gellert, The Way of the Small
