This paper first explores the association between religiosity and subjective life satisfaction, by making quantitative empirical investigation on this subject, and then explains the Buddhist philosophy and practice on the realization of happiness. On the empirical part of the study, this paper uses the data of the 2012 East Asian Social Survey (EASS 2012) to investigate predictors of subjective life satisfaction of adults in the East Asian societies. The results from the ordered logistic regression (OLOGIT) indicate that religious people tend to have higher odds ratio (OR) to report being happy than non-religious people, though the OR isn’t statiscally significant. However, the empirical results also indicate that people who have religious belief and frequently participated in religious activities in the past 12 months do have significant higher odds of reporting happy life than those who don’t. Moreover, people with certain socio-economic characteristics, such as having higher subjective evaluated income and self-evaluated socio-status, do have higher odds to report higher life satisfaction. The empirical findings only answer what factors are associated with higher life satisfaction, it still fails to answer how people can keep themselves happy in their daily life. As a result, this paper proceeds to provide answer from Buddhist teaching. The conception of happiness in Buddhism is different from that of secular studies and other religions’ teaching in the world. Therefore, a special effort of this paper is to illustrate the Buddha’s teaching on the path of happiness. For the Buddhist, receiving and upholding the five precepts and doing good deeds are the foundation worldly happiness. Moreover, the Eightfold Noble Path and Six Paramitas is the guideline for attaining liberation and cultivating virtues so that one can achieve positive livelihood to enhance happiness. The accomplishment of the Utmost Bliss (or Nirvāna) in Buddhism is achieved by practicing cessation of vexation and clear observation (śamatha-vipaśyanā) to attain purification of mind, so that “Pure Land on Earth” is realized in the current worldly life.
