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Here is one answer for "what is happiness ?"

In Search of Happiness
by Petr Karel Ontl

All of us seek, each in his or her own way, that strangely elusive state called happiness, but very few of us can describe or define just what we think will give us that happiness. Most of us are looking for something, but we don't quite know what. At best we may have only some vague, nebulous hunches. Not very much to go on! It is as if we have undertaken a journey without a clear idea of where we are going, or how we are to get there. Is it any wonder that we repeatedly fail in spite of all our efforts?

All things change, and our notions of happiness are no exception. It is clear that, if it is formed at all, the concept of happiness is extremely subjective and personal, open not only to wide individual interpretation, but to the vagaries of social, cultural, and even economic conditioning as well.

In simpler, bygone days, it appears that happiness was generally taken to be a tranquil, anxiety-free state of contentment brought about by the fulfillment of certain conditions necessary for survival. One who was properly sheltered, adequately clothed, well fed, free from serious illness and pain, and was not in danger of harm from enemies, was deemed to be happy. For what more could one ask? Fragile though it was, such a basic state of security was deemed to be a blessing, and grounds for great happiness.

In our time, however, it seems that happiness is more than ever held to be somehow linked with the experience of pleasure, and with "getting and having things." Some seek it in the direct agitation and gratification of the senses. Others, in the accumulation of material objects, and in the attainment of fame, status, power, and wealth. And many think it lies in the rather hazy concept of "being free," which today has taken on the extreme connotation of freedom from discipline, morals, social conventions, and even good taste! (In other times this was known as license.)

Unhappiness (suffering, or dukkha) is much easier to define, possibly because we experience so much more of it. But either way, whether we are scrutinizing happiness or suffering, we are dealing with unstable, impermanent states of mind and impermanent external conditions being in accord, or at odds, with what we want and expect. As soon as we no longer have things going our way, happiness wanes and some degree of unhappiness or suffering arises. It may be trivial or severe, but it is nonetheless suffering. Suffering is simply wanting, endless wanting. It is dissatisfaction with things being the way they are.

The Buddha identifies wanting (desiring, craving, tanha) as the basis of all our suffering, and in the same breath he adds that it is the causative factor of rebirth. The Buddha points out that there is no lasting, inherent pleasure or happiness to be derived from having satisfied a desire. Any desire. The pleasure occurs only during the peak moment of releasing the frustration, the anticipation, the tension of the wanting itself. Once the desired object is secured, once the discomfort of wanting has been relieved, gratification dwindles to an afterglow, and soon ceases. As soon as the novelty wears off, our attention rather quickly moves to the next item that catches our eye. It is a never-ending process.

Furthermore, the Buddha also points out that no object or situation can ever, in and of itself, be a source of pleasure or displeasure. Rather, these are constructs of the mind. In our minds we form certain expectations, the way we want specific things, situations, and persons to be. As long as these expectations happen to be met, we experience a degree of satisfaction. When they are not met, we experience displeasure, disappointment, anger, and other unwholesome mind-states in direct proportion to our frustration.

We cannot crave that which we already have, only that which is still out of our reach. We can have an attachment to what is already ours, but that is also a desire, a wanting for the future to be a certain way. We want a guarantee that the object of our attachment will continue to give us pleasure, that it will remain in our possession, and that it will not change, break, or otherwise fail to live up to our expectations. We still want something that is out of reach: a firm guarantee that future circumstances will not alter.

We deceive ourselves and each other into believing that happiness is just one more step away, almost within our reach. If only we could get rid of this, if only we could have that, if only we could change the other, then for sure we would be really and truly happy forever! We spend our lives "if-onlying," reaching and grasping, yet we never manage to get hold of happiness. It always seems to slip through our fingers. That is the story of our lives, life after life, birth after birth.

Yes, this constant reaching and grasping for "just one more thing," this is the craving, the tanha about which the Buddha warns us. This is the glue that binds us so firmly to the Wheel of Samsara, this grim Merry-Go-Round of Misery that drags us endlessly from birth to rebirth, from death to death again, and from suffering to more suffering, relieved here and there by short-lived sparks of gratification or pleasure.

Ironically, the more we grasp at this thing called happiness, the more we chase after it, the more certain it is that it will escape us. We have misinterpreted, misunderstood both the cause and the nature of happiness, and then we have compounded the error by looking for the happiness in the wrong place, in the world, rather than within the mind! Our efforts are doomed to failure from the very first.

Happiness lies not in the ability to satisfy our every desire, but rather in the ability to refrain from reacting compulsively to every craving and prodding of the mind. It is the ability to observe the mind dispassionately, to allow anything to manifest without our "buying into it," without becoming enslaved by it.

There is little that can be done about what occurs to us through external circumstances. That is old, conditioned stuff, kammavipaka surfacing. We need do nothing, except to observe carefully its arising and its passing away. We do, however, need to be very careful about how we react to it. That reaction, that mental, emotional, and volitional response, creates our conditioning for the future.

The clear awareness of our feelings toward the arisen object or thought, unaccompanied by an automatic, self-interested, reflex reaction based in greed or aversion, begins to weaken the kammic bonds that hold us to samsaric misery. And practiced regularly, it provides insight into the workings of nature and of the mind. This insight, this understanding of the impermanence, ultimate unsatisfactoriness, and selfless nature of all conditioned phenomena (anicca, dukkha, anatta), quickly breaks the kammic chains and leads to liberation from Samsara. It is the very core of the Buddha's Teaching