Described elsewhere as the “happiest man in the world,” Tibetan Buddhist master Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche reminds his audience what we inherently know and usually forget: Happiness lies within.

I heard Yongey Mingyur speak at a recent Portland State University event on “sustainable happiness.” As a sustainability advocate and a sometimes meditator, I couldn’t resist attending.

We in the US might want to listen to what Yongey Mingyur has to say. Despite being a country that enshrined the pursuit of happiness in its Declaration of Independence, the US ranks down most lists of the happiest countries. Probably not surprising given how we’ve managed to conflate happiness with having or buying more things.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

A 2,500-year-old practice mastered by the likes of Yongey Mingyur suggests the cultivation of mindfulness as an alternative path to happiness. And what happens to be on my mind as I blog today is this: Does happiness have anything to do with business?

Fair question, it seems, given the ongoing economic upheaval. These are hard times in many workplaces. Employees who withstood layoffs now asked to do more. Wage rollbacks or miniscule raises. Desperate competitors slashing prices and everyone’s profit margins. And now, worry about a double-dip recession. What’s there to be happy about — other than still being in business or having a job?

In my experience as a business owner, consultant and employee, happiness eludes most businesses even in the best of times. Best, in this case, means periods of rapid revenue and profit growth. It’s the rare company in the midst of a boom cycle that declares, “Enough. We’re happy with what have.” Most cling to the notion that if your business isn’t growing, it’s dying.

Survival of the paranoid

In good times and bad, business is a practice in survival. And as Andy Grove, founder of one of the world’s most successful companies, Intel, famously asserts, “Only the paranoid survive.” He may have a point. Intel CEO Paul Otellini last month declared Q2 2010 “the best quarter in the company’s 42-year history.” And that’s in the midst of the Great Recession!

So should we be nurturing “Intel Inside” all of our businesses, rather than happiness? If we did, we might find the company voice within sounding something like Andy Grove when he writes:

Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction. The more successful you are, the more people want a chunk of your business and then another chunk and then another until there is nothing left. I believe that the prime responsibility of a manager is to guard constantly against other people’s attacks and to inculcate this guardian attitude in the people under his or her management.

Not exactly a happy-sounding voice. But maybe happiness is something we pursue only in our off hours. And maybe Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain was speaking for business when he sang: “Just because you’re paranoid don’t mean they’re not after you.”

FUD instead of happiness?

Or maybe we should be listening to Yongey Mingyur whose tradition maintains: “The basic concern shared by all beings—humans, animals, and insects alike—is the desire to be happy and to avoid suffering.”

We don’t avoid suffering by inviting fear and paranoia to rule our lives. Why would it be any different in business?

Truth is, we’re not very practiced at cultivating happiness, at work or outside of work. In fact, we’re much more skilled at sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt. In business parlance, it’s simply called FUD. Surround your competitors with FUD so your customers are more apt to choose you. Contrary to human nature, business doesn’t avoid FUD; it rewards it!

So back to my question: Does happiness have anything to do with business? Sure. We all want delighted customers. Even Andy Grove. And yet how many of us believe the purpose of business is to help others—customers, employees, partners, neighbors—be happy? I’m guessing, not many. In other words, happiness doesn’t have that much to do with business.

What if…

What if business was all about happiness? What if we were to follow the lead of the happy country of Bhutan, as hotelier and author Chip Conley recommended in his recent TED talk, and create “a habitat for happiness” in our businesses?

For starters, we might catch up with our customers, more of whom are realizing the futile chase for happiness through more stuff. As the New York Times reported this month, more Americans are responding to today’s economic realities by simplifying their lives, spending more on experiences than possessions and generally getting in touch with what really matters, like relationships with family and friends.

So what do you think? Does business have any business cultivating happiness? Or is it true, only the paranoid survive?