14th Dalai Lama

Drawing on more that 2,500 years of Buddhist tradition and teaching, the spiritual leader demonstrates how to confront the negative emotions, stresses, and obstacles of everyday life in order to find the source of inner peace.

A Handbook for Living

The Art of Happiness

Andy Sporring

My favorite book and the book (beside the Bible) that I return too. It has helped me during hardships and troubled times. I also had the pleasure to meet with HHDL and have a talk with him.

Katerina Thorson

5/5

After reading through The Art of Happiness, I have come to a few conclusions that I took away from this book - seeking happiness is a life long journey. Just as leading a life of good health, and loving others. Happiness is our fundamental right as humans. However, if we want to achieve happiness there are so many aspects. 

While the book is said to be written by His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIV - this book is interviews and seminars that were attended by a psychologist, Howard C. Culter. While I understand his questions and the ending to the book - what frustrated me most was that he wasn't taking away the teachings of a man who has been studying human kindness since he was 5 years old. Instead he wanted to keep pushing his Western Views and get his point across. Almost as if he was waiting for the Dalai Lama to falter and change his mind. 

I understand wanting to challenge and see how someone counter acts but it was like he was afraid that the Dalai Lama would destroy the foundation of psychology. So many times the Dalai Lama connected Western ideas to Buddhism and how we as human beings (putting aside the background of race, religion, gender, or otherwise) can find a true happiness without the destruction of ourselves and others.

However, apparently Cutler was not too interested in these thoughts - no instead he kept saying "well in psychology we use this"....that's great but for thousands of years we never really used psychology or even modern medicine to fix our problems. These concepts are barely 100 years old.

Today my mother was so upset and frustrated with everything - my younger sibling, her grandchildren, the drivers of our town. So upset that she said "I just do not have any more patience to give." And I thought about that - why is it that people think patience has a limit. The Dalai Lama talked in abundance about patience and compassion and how we need to take a step back and allow it into our life when we feel out of control.

I finally said to her, "You have the choice to not have any more patience, that is your choice". She at first said I was right but then when she once again repeated her lack of patience, I repeated, like a broken record ,"this is your choice." Of course no mother likes to have a child that knows more about patience than them, so the conversation was dropped and she fumed in silence.

But that word "Choice" it resonated through me as I dived further into the Dalai Lama's words. We have a choice to be happy or unhappy. We have the choice to let the past effect us or not. We have the choice to fix relationships or just let them sputter out like a candle. I breathed in the words he spoke as if he was right next to me saying it himself. I realized that I was holding onto anger from past relationships, I was holding onto the abuse from past relationships and expecting them to happen again, I was holding onto death. 

And when I finished The Art of Happiness I just felt like a load was swept away from me. Now will I need to continue my work with meditation, yoga, ayurveda, spiritual healing, and so forth to guide myself into a life of pure happiness. ABSOLUTELY. But isn't that the fun of a new adventure, seeing what is around the next corner?

The Art of Happiness A Handbook for Living

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