Unhappiness, to me, is a not doing, and it’s very similar to holding one’s breath, and it takes effort. One has to find a reason to hold one’s breath or else you wouldn’t hold your breath, just like being unhappy. One has to find a reason to be unhappy or one would never be unhappy. And that in giving up holding one’s breath, there is no pain, there’s release.
The pain is in actually holding the breath. All you do is stop holding your breath. You don’t actually do anything. You stop deciding to hold your breath, you see, and you just start breathing, and there’s no pain. In fact, there’s relief. In making that choice and that decision, there’s no pain, because it is a choice for true happiness, something that’s really good for you.
It was a very clear thing. The unhappiness was the holding of breath, and that’s what takes the effort, and that’s what is the painful thing. You can’t be unhappy unless you think there’s a reason to be, any more than you wouldn’t hold your breath unless you felt there was a reason to hold it.