This happened on my first visit to India. I went to a restaurant on a hill. There was a sea view. I asked for a cup of coffee. I was sitting and waiting. Five minutes passed, ten. I looked back at the waiter, and he repeated: "Just a minute! Just a minute!»
I didn't know then that "one minute" doesn't mean a period of time in India. I was naive and impatient then. I did not understand: I came to a cafe, there were few people, and I was not served! I was sitting and turning my head. I joked with displeasure with the waiter that I was not served coffee for so long. Do you know what he said to me? He said that he just didn't want to disturb me from watching the sunset.
Irina, he wanted me to watch the sunset! He saw the way I was watching at the sky!

I remember my birthday, my eighteenth birthday. Many of my classmates had big parties. It was very different for me. Sashka, my brother, brought a huge armful of wild flowers: daisies, cornflowers. I woke up, saw them and felt so happy! I was happy that there would be no guests. You don't need to cook anything… And flowers…

I was laying there all day, reading a book, looking at this bouquet, and was left on my own. I still remember how great it was!

In the evening, my friends came and brought me a cake. And we were drinking tea. I remember this day with a feeling of some smoothness, slowness, happy ordinariness that we often don't pay attention to. This day was not bright and eventful. But I want to remember it and recall it.

When you're happy, anything makes you happy. Silly things make you happy. You go and buy groceries and the sun is shining and the sun makes you happy. The next day you also feel happy. You go buy
groceries and it's raining and the rain makes you
happy. When you're happy, everything makes you happy.

When you're not happy, nothing makes you happy. Happiness is not an effect of the things you do. Happiness comes before the things you do. And thinking that happiness comes from something you do, prevents you from noticing that it is already there.

When I was in Barcelona with my daughters, this year I was jogging in the morning with almost nothing, just trousers on the top of a mountain. I saw on the other side the new highway from North coming down to Barcelona and there was a big traffic jam.

In this moment you realize that you are completely happy and you have a reason to be happy. Because you're not in this hamster wheel, like running and not really moving. I was thinking about all the people in the traffic jam who, of course, would like to swap their life with mine.

20 years ago I had a fight every night for example in a disco. "Oh, please stop smoking the cigarette". Only one word was necessary to have a nice fight. Time has passed. I've changed. There are so many aspects which were part of my personality which are really behind me now.

The birth of my first child made the greatest impression on me. I remember the moment of my son's birth, not the fact, but the moment itself. He was born on Cosmonautics Day . And we told him: "Come on, fly to us in your rocket." And he was born very quickly, twenty minutes after I had told him that.

We still remember this and say that he came in a rocket from space. And the whole process of birth was so happy that I can't even describe it. And a couple of minutes after he was born I thought that I want to do it again, I want to experience it again.

I read that Albert Einstein said at the end of his life that any physical equation must include God's will. Because there is nothing rigorous, strictly mathematical, there is no just formula. God's will is everywhere, manifesting itself in everything. You move towards the goal, and you say: "Everything is in the hands of God. Maybe I will not come to the goal I originally intended, but in the process I will find something that is why I had to go. The journey Itself, the movement itself - a way to live. Not a goal, not an achievement, but a process

Anna:
Joy is my basic emotion, my basic feeling of life. It's like a tuning fork in life. When I'm happy, everything around me gives me happines. As soon as the feeling of joy goes away, I know that I need to recall it.

I have the joy of sadness. I am happy that I can be sad, be nervous, be afraid. It probably comes from my childhood. I've been like this for as long as I can remember myself. I have a global responsibility to humanity. If I talk about myself as a part of society, I feel very responsible. For example, I sometimes take a responsibility on smiling in Moscow. This is my mission today: to go and smile. If not me, then who? I sometimes feel a responsibility in my body to be happy! If you got this life as a gift, then be kind and enjoy it! Everything else doesn't matter

Dmitry:
One day my father and I were working in the apiary . A dark indigo autumn night. An incredible number of stars. I was standing by the fence. And I remember my father coming up to me, and I said a lot of warm words to him - all of them that were born in me at that moment. We hugged and stood there for a long time. I think we even cried. Then I went to Petersburg. Just twenty days later, he burned in a fire

When I was flying from St. Petersburg to Saratov, I asked the stewardess to bring a glass of vodka. It was possible in business class. A priest was sitting in the next seat. I imagined that I was in the sky, and my father was looking at me. Suddenly I thought: "what does he want me to look like? Broken, crying in grief and sadness? – No, of course not!» And I gave that glass of vodka back to the stewardess.

I used to think that happiness was about having fun. A holiday is happiness. Dancing is happiness. A delicious meal is happiness. Now I think it's about accepting yourself as you are, with all your baggage. This is happiness.

When I learned to accept myself with all the shit, then I was able to accept everyone else with all their shit, sorry. After this it's easy to be happy. Whatever the other person does, it's easy for me to understand and accept it. At this moment I can decide whether I want to continue my relationship with this person or not.

Happiness is in this awareness of " Who am I?" - "I am an ant". This is global happiness for me. I'm with these people. I'm not alone. I'm with them. And they can push me or give me gifts, they can do some nasty things, but I'm with them. I was born on the Earth. And I'm with them in this anthill. Neither higher nor lower. I was born like them and I will die like them. And I have a choice - to be happy every day, to have fun every day and to breathe.

-What's your personal recipe for happiness?

-It is giving something to someone, who deserves it. Doing some selfless service without expecting any reward from them. You should do service to the people and don't expect anything from the person to whom you're doing the service. It should be selfless service. If I do a service to a poor man he won't be able to repay me if I do a service to a friend she or he might be able to repay me. That shouldn't give you happiness. So whatever service you do, it should be selfless service that gives you a lot of joy.

Who influenced you in your life?

I've already mentioned my grandfather. He was a farmer living 200 kilometers from the city of Perth. And here with his horse and cart he went right to the city twice a year and he bought a big box which was full of books. And in the evening after the work he was sitting with my grandmother beside a lantern (because they had no electricity). He was reading a chapter of his book aloud to my grandmother and she was reading a chapter of her book aloud to him. They read chapters to each other and then went to bed. And that was their evening's entertainment. He had a big impact on me.

The little things that make me happy every day? It's listening to my children's laugh, watching the sunset, being in touch with nature. Sometimes, it's just noticing a cloud of a strange shape, spending time with my husband, my sisters, my mother. This is when my children say that the food I've cooked for them is delicious. This is when a friend visits me. All these brings me joy and happiness.

Happiness is an illusion. Buddha never taught to be happy.

There is something... but if you had experienced it, you would never have called it happiness. This is more, much more. Then you would realize that happiness is pain. But no one knows about it. People are looking for things that they think will bring them happiness, because they have no idea what to look for.

We grab anything that brings us joy. But this is an illusion. And Buddha taught how to break out of illusion into reality, to feel it constantly. For anyone who is focused on finding happiness, this is boring. I am talking about a state that is beyond consciousness, beyond happiness or sadness.