From the July 2012 Shambhala Sun magazine: Waking Up to Happiness

Sneezing, coughing, blowing her nose — Natalie Goldberg was awfully sick yet she was happy. Happiness is available to everyone, she realized, but we can find it only when we're still.

"You don't do happiness. You receive it. It's like a water table under the earth. It's available to everyone but we can only tap it, have it run up through us, when we're still. A well that darts around can never draw water.

We misinterpret success, desire, enterprise, and the things we love as the state of happiness. Usually, we don't even consider happiness because we're too busy dashing after life, defending, building, developing, even fighting, asserting, arguing. We're in the scramble—lively, engaged."

Read a longer excerpt from "Waking Up to Happiness" here. And you can browse the entire July 2012 magazine here. For more from Natalie Goldberg, see our Natalie Goldberg Spotlight Page, which features all of her work from the pages of the Shambhala Sun.

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