True happiness comes only from having peace of mind.  

Many things are a source of pleasure, joy, and self-fulfillment, but these are temporary conditions. The happiness from having peace of mind is unconditioned.  

When consciousness encounters the world, or thoughts, you experience either pleasure or discomfort.

What knows the pleasure or pain is your awareness. The perceptions are ever changing, but your awareness does not change. It is the same with all the other senses (i.e., awareness is not the musical sounds or the taste of the food). 

The same occurs with thoughts and memories. These cause pleasure or discomfort, but they are also impermanent. Your awareness is not the thoughts or memories that you are aware of.

You can be aware of what you are seeing, then be aware of a sound. The awareness focuses on one or the other, but it is always the same. It does not change with the sensations.

With the experience of pleasure, there is often a desire for more. This desire to have, or not have, the ever-changing things of the world causes frustration and unhappiness.

When awareness comes in contact with the world, it becomes that contact for a while. The mind gets lost in the world of things, constantly becoming and suffering.

This is because awareness (consciousness or mind) is not anything. It is pure knowing and intention. We desire the world because we want to be some-thing.

When you become aware of your awareness, as not being the world, then you find peacefulness and contentment. This is the aim of Buddhism.

But how does awareness become aware of itself? 

Meditation and the practice of mindfulness work to realize this awareness of being aware. The objective is to know things (phenomena) without getting involved with them. With practice you realize that everything that you can be conscious of, aware of, is not what you are.

When you realize (make real) that all things are not your true self, then you are not affected by them. Then you can enjoy the pleasures of life and put up with the pains without suffering them.

The mind not affected by desire is naturally moral, kind, and content.

Life always comes with problems and discomfort. They cannot be done away with. However, these are also impermanent, not lasting. We suffer when we want to have or want not to have things, or thoughts. Once we accept the way things are, then you are at peace.

What you are is pure awareness, pure knowing, pure being. We exist in the world to realize our individual awareness and find true happiness.