Unconditional Bliss: Finding Happiness in the Face of Hardship

By Howard Raphael Cushnir

We can be happy in spite of hardship, heartbreak, or a job we hate. Pie-in-the-sky? This down-to-earth guy shows us how. When personal tragedy struck, Howard Cushnir already knew the Zen practice of staying in the moment. But he wasn't prepared for the gift of grace he received. One day, all but lost, he was suddenly suffused with a complete sense of well-being---not a passing experience, but one available from then on. Paying close attention to the changes in his own inner states, Howard soon realized that feeling blissful is a choice we can always make, regardless of our circumstances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quest Books
• Release date: Sep 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9780835630733

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Learn more about Howard Raphael Cushnir and his work at http://www.cushnir.com, http://twitter.com/RaphaelCushnir, and http://www.facebook.com/pages/Raphael-Cushnir/157262047657820

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Copyright © 2000 by Howard Raphael Cushnir

First Quest Edition 2000

Quest Books

Theosophical Publishing House

PO Box 270

Wheaton, IL 60187-0270

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While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Cover and book design and typesetting by Beth Hansen-Winter

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cushnir, Howard.

Unconditional bliss: finding happiness in the face of hardship: an introduction to living the questions / by Howard Raphael Cushnir. — 1st Quest ed.

        p.   cm.

ISBN 978-0-8356-0792-6

1. Conduct of life.  I. Kern Foundation.  II. Title.

BF637.C5 C87 2000

ISBN for electronic edition, e-pub format: 978-0-8356-2109-0

6 5 4 3 2 1 * 00 01 02 03 04 05

For Josh Baran and Mary Beth Albert

MY BEAUTIFUL BEACONS OF BLISS

Contents

Introduction

Part One – Terms of Service

  1. How I Know about Bliss

  2. Don’t Believe a Word I Say

  3. This Is Not a New Age Book

Part Two – Basic Bliss

  4. A Defining Moment

  5. Contracting and Expanding

  6. Resistance

  7. Acceptance

  8. Awareness

  9. The First Try

  9. The Second Try

  10. Out of the Blocks

  11. Stumbling

  12. The Art of Asking

  13. The Point

  14. Living the Questions

  15. Perfect Poison

  16. Bill of Goods

Part Three – Advanced Bliss

  17. Dissent

  18. Radar

  19. Backlog

  20. Wiring

  21. Swinging

  22. Swirling

  23. Twitching

  24. Stinging

  25. Stuck

Part Four – Beyond Bliss

  26. What a Dog Hears

  27. Hell

  28. Hidden Treasure

  29. Mystery

  30. More Mystery

  31. Greater Mystery Still

Gratitude

… Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue …. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now.

    — RAINER MARIA RILKE

Introduction

EVERYONE WANTS TO FEEL GOOD. ΝATUrally, we gravitate toward activities which give us pleasure and avoid those which give us pain. For some, this involves all kinds of sophisticated strategy and delayed gratification. For others, it’s as simple as going out and doing what they love.

All human beings are complicated, and each human being is unique. As a result, there are countless variations in the pursuit of pleasure. Often, our histories and life circumstances provide serious obstacles along the way. Even if those obstacles are surmounted, most of us possess deeply held beliefs about how much pleasure we’re allowed to have.

What unites most people in their pursuit of pleasure is the idea that it arises as a response to experience. Sex, money, power, love — these are all seen as exceptional triggers. At the same time, thoughtful people understand that none of those triggers will succeed in providing lasting pleasure unless a person’s inner environment can foster and sustain it.

In the pursuit of inner peace, we spend countless hours and billions of dollars. Our investments go to books, therapies, retreats, and techniques such as yoga and meditation. We hope that by becoming better, happier people, our actual experience of life will brighten as well.

This approach often leads to great success. We flow with life more easily and take things more in stride. But life is still hard, for everyone, and great suffering never fails to make an appearance at many points along the way. No amount of inner work, for example, can prepare us for the death of a loved one. In fact, most people would argue that it shouldn’t. To be fully engaged in life, the argument goes, means taking whatever comes and responding to it deeply and authentically.

I agree with this argument, but it only tells half the story. I try to tell the other half in this book.

Imagine an existence of constant, ever-available bliss. Imagine that this bliss asks for nothing and depends on nothing. Imagine that it is the very foundation of all experience, and that not even the most tragic of life’s events can alter its strength or presence.

I know that this bliss exists. I know it because I live it. And I believe that you can, too.

What’s more, in order to live in the radiance of this bliss, you don’t need to be like me or anyone else. You don’t need to have faith in God or any creed. Whether you’re shy or loud, Christian or atheist, revolutionary or archconservative, this bliss belongs to you.

All right then, you must be asking, so where is it? The answer is simple. The bliss to which I’m referring is deep within every one of us, always present but rarely chosen. To choose it requires the asking of just two questions. We need to ask these questions with great patience and intention. We need to embody them, to live them.

In this brief text I attempt to describe the questions, explore them, and provide you with everything necessary to make them your own. If you stick it out to the end and begin living the questions, you may soon taste a bliss as eternal as it is indescribable.

The book begins with a quick orientation — Terms of Service — which explains how I came to write it and suggests a framework in which to approach it. Part Two — Basic Bliss provides a foundation for the questions, clarifies them, and then demonstrates how to put them to use. This first pass is elementary, and therefore avoids many subtleties and complications. Part Three — Advanced Bliss fills in those missing pieces. Part Four — Beyond Bliss explores how living the questions can radically transform our entire perspective.

How you read the book should be determined by what you bring to it. If you’re intrigued by what you’ve read so far, then proceed from start to finish. If you’re impatient, and want to get to the bliss right away, then skip immediately to chapter 4. If you’re deeply resistant, perhaps not even sure it’s worth continuing, then first visit chapter 17, which addresses the most prevalent dissenting views. If at any time along the way you despair, and suspect that the circumstances of your life preclude bliss, then quickly flip to chapter 25. There, we’ll investigate some common roadblocks, as well as practical steps to work through them.

No matter how you arrive, I sincerely hope you make it through. If so, you won’t need to learn about bliss the way I did, which costs a lot more and hurts a lot worse.

Finally, it needs to be said that nothing in this book belongs to me. The bliss, as well as the questions that lead to it, are a product of the great mystery at the source of all existence. I bow to that source, revel in it, and one day hope to meet you there.

---

PART ONE

Terms of Service

---

CHAPTER    1

How I Know about Bliss

FOR OVER TWENTY YEARS, WITH a seeker’s heart and a skeptic’s mind, I roamed widely in the spiritual marketplace. I explored my own heritage —Judaism — as well as any other traditions that sparked me. Throughout my investigations, I vowed not to accept anything on faith that I didn’t experience directly. Except for a few peak experiences, I encountered no bliss whatsoever.

On the other hand I wasn’t complaining. I considered myself a fortunate person. I was blessed with many advantages and had chalked up many achievements. I grew up in a difficult family (who doesn’t?) but had worked hard to heal most of my wounds. My career and personal life were on track. I had my health. I anticipated life’s ups and downs and managed them reasonably well.

And then, all of a sudden, everything exploded. The details of that tragedy aren’t the subject of this book. What’s important, though, is how deeply miserable I became. All my assumptions about life went right out the window. At the age of thirty-four, I felt like I knew absolutely nothing.

Eventually, that explosion came to serve me. I was cracked open, defenseless, and the hole left behind was wide enough for grace to enter. By grace, I don’t mean anything religious at all. There was no seeing the light or accepting a savior or coming to a deeper understanding. In my case, grace meant the arrival of an inner transformation. Spontaneously, and without effort, my experience of living was suddenly and irrevocably changed.

In my core, in the region we call the heart, arose the ceaseless experience of bliss. For no reason whatsoever, I felt joyous and peaceful and loving. At first I thought it was a mood or another peak experience that would surely pass. But it hasn’t, to this day, and that was a full five years ago.

So there I was, the same guy as before with the same rotten life, except instead of feeling rotten it felt spectacular. The bliss in my heart radiated throughout my body, and beyond, to anyone open to receive it.

On top of all that, nothing seemed to be required of me in order for the bliss to continue. It was a mysterious gift with no strings attached.

From the outset, I decided to pay very close attention to what was happening. I felt like my own life now contained the message I’d long been seeking, and I wasn’t going to let that message elude me.

It didn’t. I got it. And now I pass it along to you.

CHAPTER    2

Don’t Believe a Word I Say

USUALLY, IN A BOOK LIKE THIS, the writer presents a thesis and then sets out to prove it. You, the reader, follow the writer’s train of thought. In the end, if you make it that far, you decide whether to agree or disagree.

Often, you’re swayed a bit by the position and reputation of the writer. You probably choose to read the book in the first place because you have reason to respect the writer’s opinions. Maybe the writer is a renowned expert or can document years of study on the topic in question.

In this book, however, I don’t attempt to prove anything. Nor do I claim even a shred of expertise. I don’t expect you to trust what I say, and in fact I hope you won’t.

Instead, I’ll present you with a series of observations from my own life. These observations have led me to believe that the direct experience of bliss is available right now, and all the time, to virtually every human being.

Does that sound outrageous? It might to me, if I were in your place. But I hope, as you read further, that you’ll come to know this for yourself.

That won’t happen because my observations make sense. Even if they do, and you accept them as your own, nothing but your beliefs will change. And the