Comparing Matthieu's 'The Alchemy Of Suffering'

The average brain goes through multiple experiences each and every day that impact your emotions in various ways that one cannot control. The most enjoyable and complex emotion would have to be happiness. Happiness is ultimately subjective to the individual themselves based on the experiences they’ve had. According to author Daniel Gilbert who wrote Paradise Glossed explains that actions are also based upon emotions and that it drives the individual to do certain things. On the other hand, Author Matthieu Ricard describes happiness to be a burden of sorts causing one to eventually depress themselves. All in all, these two authors have different meanings of happiness and both seem to lead in the same direction as to what happiness is. In Paradise

In The Alchemy of Suffering, he imposes that happiness is something that each individual processes differently. This is something not usually affiliated with the idea of happiness but it certainly proves to be true with the way Matthieu presents his thoughts. His work brings in the teachings of the Buddha himself and the Four Truths of Happiness. The first being the truth of suffering which is recognizing it. The second truth is the cause of the suffering which explains itself to be a mental experience and that it is all in the mind which ties into the third truth. Finally, the fourth truth is to accept the reality. These are teachings that prove that happiness is something that is potentially lethal when it comes to emotions. It isn’t anything that would be categorized in its own definition. Another concept Ricard brings into his work is responsibility. This is something happiness doesn’t want to deal with. “Hidden suffering is concealed beneath the appearance of pleasure, freedom from care, fun” is how he puts it into words (Parfitt and Skorczewski). Eating cheeseburgers is satisfying but in the end, it is shrouded by guilt where we know it is unhealthy but it brings