Matthieu Ricard: Habits of happiness

Clinton at the top of this video puts a damper on it. lol :)

This sounds nice, and has some potential. But Buddhism is from an era before they knew about hormones, brain physiology, neurotransmitters, etc. Happiness is more tied to certain neurochemicals rather than anything vague.

Yes and No...

Through intense meditation and changing your living philosophy...you can change your mind consequently change the way neurochemicals/ transmiters act/function in the brain leading to a complete new network. Its mind training that changes your brain network..., a analogy,... Software changes its hardware. What you think is what you will become...

I'm sure you can change yourself through changing habits and meditation. But I highly doubt you can actually trump hormonal motivations so easily. Give a monk a nice dose of testosterone and he'll be humping around in no time!

You are right, any human would start jumping to such a dose. However, this does is not natural and is given externally. right? Now, Yoga (asanas) were developed to control the hormone excretions, which controls the human behavior (moods). So before one starts with intense meditation, one has to control the glands via asanas/pranayama. This way you create the right environment in your body + mind. Try it for 6 months, you have nothing to loose. Self experience.

I'm confused?
You just told Ramshobraja that he was wrong, but then went on to prove his point in it's entirety?
I think if you have the perspective of brain plasticity you both may find your arguing for the same thing.

He's not talking about the happiness you talk about.

Yeah I agree with your point

and that's just my opinion.

Why viva Shakespeare?

well, I believe that Shakespeare was one of the greatest human minds to ever exist. I also believe that if a person were to read every single word he ever wrote (if you're crazy like me, you'll read it all several times), that person would have a FAR more profound understanding of humanity than he did before reading Shakespeare.

Also, he was the greatest, most beautiful writer in the history of our language
He can move me to tears in a couplet

Viva Laurence Sterne, Montaigne and Ellington too!