I was invited out to dinner with 3 couples last week and during the conversation, someone mentioned the term “wedded bliss.” I hadn’t heard that for a long time. Well, of course, that got me to thinking — what the heck is bliss anyway? I checked the dictionary and it defined bliss as (1) complete happiness; (2) Paradise, Heaven. It also indicated that the first known use of bliss was before the 12th century.
But, as is often the case, dictionary definitions don’t really shed much light on a subject. I think when most people think of happiness, they think of everyday happiness, or things that make them happy in their day-to-day experiences. But bliss seems to be more — like some kind of happiness on a different plane.
So, in my quest, I turned to someone that I’ve always had mixed thoughts about — Buddha. Well, as I expected, Buddhist texts didn’t let me down. If you’re interested, check out the writings of Buddha Amitabha (the Buddha of Infinite Light.) He talks about the Buddhist concept of an ideal world — the “Land of Bliss.” If I read it correctly, it breaks down to something like:
Bliss is an innate state of inner joy, a state of unity, transcendence, completeness, knowingness, wholeness and uplifted consciousness — a feeling of oneness and connection with all of creation. Bliss is where happiness, meaning, and truth converge.
It’s interesting that the writings indicate that bliss is found in every religion but does not require a specific religion in order to know it.
So I guess bliss is something we should all strive for.
But it seems to me that although I’ve heard the term “wedded bliss,” I’ve probably heard the phrase “ignorance is bliss” more often. It used to be a fairly common saying meaning that happiness can be found in unawareness or lack of knowledge. If you think about it, “ignorance is bliss” is kind of like “what you don’t know can’t hurt you.” So to satisfy myself, and as a public service, I did a little extensive research:
Ignorance is bliss seems to have originated in a passage from a poem by Thomas Gray in 1742 — Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. The actual wording is “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”
That actually sounds pretty good — if we didn’t read about others’ actions or national or global events it might shield us from todays’ stress and turmoil. But then again, would choosing to remain unaware of our world, or turning a blind eye to everything equate to bliss?
Is ignorance really bliss ? Probably not…..
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