The teachings of Buddhism are centred around enlightenment or self-realisation, an experience that is ineffable and inexplicable, beyond speculative thought and inquiry. While someone unfamiliar with the teachings might be tempted to dismiss the phenomenon as escapist fantasy, one should understand that enlightenment is real and is not a turning-away from life. It is the return to life having understood its nature. There is, however, a genuine danger of a practitioner getting caught in mere philosophising or ritualism.

Pleasure, joy, contentment, satisfaction, fulfilment, peace of mind, the relative absence of pain and suffering—these are perhaps the correlates of happiness. But how should one define happiness if one must? Every human being that has lived has attempted to define it in his or her own way. If any of them were successful is something you and I cannot be the judge of, because happiness has meant different things to different people. Its definitions change with time. It changes as we age.

Theodorus Gerardus Jozef ‘Theo’ Jansen, a Dutch scientist turned artist, builds large kinetic sculptures out of PVC that seemingly move on their own. These sculptures called strandbeests—meaning ‘beach animals’ in Dutch—mesmerize with their uncanny, lifelike motion. The kinetic structures which Jansen calls ‘artificial life’ are propelled by wind. The recent editions can respond to the environment and alter their course when they touch water, and they even store energy to move when there is no breeze to power them.

Bodhidharma, credited by the Chinese as having founded the Chan School of Buddhism—known as Zen in Japan and the West—famously captured the essence of the school in the lapidary phrase ‘Direct pointing to the human mind’. It is the first of a two-phrase saying, the second of which is the phrase ‘Perceiving one’s true nature and attaining Buddhahood’. Bodhidharma did not leave many written teachings, but the legends surrounding him hold a special place in Zen canon and speak of truths that cannot be captured by mere words alone.