Walt Disney called Disneyland in California “The Happiest Place on Earth.” Walt Disney World in Orlando uses the same slogan. But having visited WDW scores of times, I can’t help but notice the crying children, the crowds spending their time in long lines to buy food (typically, huge turkey legs, burgers and other food cruel to both the slaughtered animals and the heart attack-to-come people stupidly eating such trash), people standing in line an hour for a sixty second ride, getting a Fast Pass and looking for something else to do until the Fast Pass time arrives, and otherwise demonstrating that visiting the happiest place on earth requires a lot of physical stamina, a lot of money, and a willingness to overlook the absence of happiness in the faces of the visitors.
The happiest place on earth is inside us all and we visit it every time we sit in zazen. There are no meditations cushions, no quiet spots on any Disney property. Or at Universal Studios, Busch Gardens, Six Flags, Coney Island…Such places are designed to satisfy sense desires and of course all they do is create more of such desires. They say come again, come again and come again.
But no theme park will ever deliver the promise of happiness. They take us all in the opposite direction, deeper into the darkness of sense desires. They have even created a class of people who think they are unhappy unless they are at a theme park or some other vacation destination. Millions of people know about theme parks yet are unaware that meditation halls even exist.
The good news is that the people who run these parks are people of good will who really do want to deliver happiness to their customers. So look for meditation rooms to start appearing in theme parks (and other public places) before this decade ends.
