Basically- why would you not consider living like a buddhist monk? I don't mean believing in the religious parts necessarily (rebirth etc.) I'm just referring to their way of life which involves long periods of peaceful meditation, volunteering/ helping people in need and living a simplistic minimalistic lifestyle.

A neuroscientific study showed some signs of higher happiness in the brain of buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard (obviously i know more research needs doing in this area to be able to draw any strong conclusions) and some psychologists have identified aspects of way of life that can lead to "happiness" such as helping others, good quality socialisation etc. (this is subjective though I feel and no doubt will differ between people) So why would you not live your life meditating, only owning a few posessions, helping others and learning things for yourself (and for the benefit of everyone else) when this way of life seems to fulfill many of the needs for someone to live more happily? You would barely contribute to any of the human-induced suffering in the world ( no more owning things like gadgets, cars etc. that pollute the earth and destroy habitats through mining etc.) AND you would likely still have the things needed for a human to be happy- other people to socialise with, food, shelter, opportunity to learn, higher likelihood of inner peace from the meditation etc.

I continuously think about these things and I just want to know other people's perspectives. If there is a chance to be relatively happy and cause minimal suffering in the world through living like a monk why would we not do it? Is it because temporary/materialistic pleasures (new cars, fancy computers, good food, sex) ARE NEEDED for some people's happiness? Are things like music and movies/stories/art needed for your happiness? If these things were not available in the world and everyone meditated, socialised, volunteered and lived simply all day, there would be MUCH less non-human and potentially human suffering AND we could still possibly attain happiness? Thanks everyone for your thoughts