Happiness is literally an inside job, according to scientific materialism, which believes that we are nothing more than material constructs and that the miracle of consciousness is but an epiphenomenon following on the interaction of material objects like cells, chemicals, molecules, and ever smaller atom, electrons, and quarks.
Organized religion errs on the side of spiritualism, believing us to be a "soul," "spirit," or "magical subtlety." These three things are real, but they are not the self any more than consciousness is.
There is nama rupa, "name" (the instructions) and "form" (the carrying out of those instructions in the material sphere). But self (atta) is not that. How else could it be? If it not one, it has to be the other, unless it is both? It is both both and neither.
What we regard as "self" (soul, ego) is mind-and-body, but though mental and physical processes exist and are active, they do not amount to a concrete "self."
The "self" that exists is dependent, temporary, ephemeral subject to Three Characteristics of All Conditioned Things: they are impermanent, incapable of satiating/fulfilling, and are impersonal.
This last characteristic is the one that is impossible to believe, but it is the key to awakening/enlightenment in the Buddha's teaching.
We can see that all things are impermanent, in flux, constantly changing, undependable. We can see that we have never been fulfilled for long; we experience great pleasure but remain hungry, in many cases becoming more hungry for newer and better pleasures.
IF THERE IS NO SELF, WHAT IS THERE THEN? The Buddha answered this question in terms of Dependent Origination (paticca-samupada). And it is on account of not seeing this, not grasping, not penetrating this that we have wandered so long in this painful samsara.
Will we fall under the spell of scient-ism, run to religion for shelter, or begin to see what the Buddha was getting at when he encouraged us to strive for calm and liberating-insight?
"Science can prove what it says." Can it? It redefines "happiness" as an endorphin then shows a peptide "walking," and viola, nonmaterialistic Buddhism is wrong? That's how it might seem, but it is not the case. We must look more deeply. Science fails us. And coming and seeing and investigating what the Buddha taught liberates us. Try it.
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