The Art Of Happiness: A Handbook For Living

by Dalai Lama, Howard C. Cutler M.D., Howard C. Cutler M.D. (Read by)

Overview

Nearly every time you see him, he's laughing, or at least he's smiling. And he makes everyone else around him feel like smiling. He's the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, the Nobel Prize winner, and increasingly popular speaker and statesman. Why is he so popular? Even after spending just a few minutes in his presence you can't help feeling just a little bit happier.
The Dalai Lama is probably one of the only people in the world who if you ask him if he's happy, even though he's suffered the loss of his country, will give you an unconditional "yes." What's more, he'll tell you that happiness is the purpose of life, and that "the very motion of our life is towards happiness." How to get there has always been the question. He's tried to answer it before, but he's never had the help of a psychiatrist to get the message across in a context we can easily understand.
Through meditations, stories and the meeting of Buddhism and psychology, the Dalai Lama shows us how to defeat day-to-day depression, anxiety, anger, jealousy, or just an ordinary bad mood. He discusses relationships, health, family, work, and spirituality to show us how to ride through life's obstacles on a deep abiding source of inner peace. Based on 2500 years of Buddhist meditations mixed with a healthy dose of common sense, The Art of Happiness is an audiobook that crosses the boundaries of all traditions to help listeners with the difficulties common to all human beings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780743506304
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Audio
Publication date:	11/01/1998
Edition description:	Abridged
Sales rank:	855,161
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 5.75(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He frequently describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk. Born in northeastern Tibet in 1935, he was as a toddler recognized as the incarnation of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and brought to Tibet's capital, Lhasa. In 1950, Mao Zedong's Communist forces made their first incursions into eastern Tibet, shortly after which the young Dalai Lama assumed the political leadership of his country. He passed his scholastic examinations with honors at the Great Prayer Festival in Lhasa in 1959, the same year Chinese forces occupied the city, forcing His Holiness to escape to India. There he set up the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, working to secure the welfare of the more than 100,000 Tibetan exiles and prevent the destruction of Tibetan culture. In his capacity as a spiritual and political leader, he has traveled to more than sixty-two countries on six continents and met with presidents, popes, and leading scientists to foster dialogue and create a better world. In recognition of his tireless work for the nonviolent liberation of Tibet, the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. In 2012, he relinquished political authority in his exile government and turned it over to democratically elected representatives.

His Holiness frequently states that his life is guided by three major commitments: the promotion of basic human values or secular ethics in the interest of human happiness, the fostering of interreligious harmony, and securing the welfare of the Tibetan people, focusing on the survival of their identity, culture, and religion. As a superior scholar trained in the classical texts of the Nalanda tradition of Indian Buddhism, he is able to distill the central tenets of Buddhist philosophy in clear and inspiring language, his gift for pedagogy imbued with his infectious joy. Connecting scientists with Buddhist scholars, he helps unite contemplative and modern modes of investigation, bringing ancient tools and insights to bear on the acute problems facing the contemporary world. His efforts to foster dialogue among leaders of the world's faiths envision a future where people of different beliefs can share the planet in harmony. Wisdom Publications is proud to be the premier publisher of the Dalai Lama's more serious and in-depth works.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

THE RIGHT TO
HAPPINESS

* * *

I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is towards happiness ..."

    With these words, spoken before a large audience in Arizona, the Dalai Lama cut to the heart of his message. But his claim that the purpose of life was happiness raised a question in my mind. Later, when we were alone, I asked, "Are you happy?"

    "Yes," he said. He paused, then added, "Yes ... definitely." There was a quiet sincerity in his voice that left no doubt—a sincerity that was reflected in his expression and in his eyes.

    "But is happiness a reasonable goal for most of us?" I asked. "Is it really possible?"

    "Yes. I believe that happiness can be achieved through training the mind."

    On a basic human level, I couldn't help but respond to the idea of happiness as an achievable goal. As a psychiatrist, however, I had been burdened by notions such as Freud's belief that "one feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be 'happy' is not included in the plan of 'Creation.'" This type of training had led many in my profession to the grim conclusion that the most one could hope for was "the transformation of hysteric misery into common unhappiness." From that standpoint, the claim that there was aclearly defined path to happiness seemed like quite a radical idea. As I looked back over my years of psychiatric training, I could rarely recall having heard the word "happiness" even mentioned as a therapeutic objective. Of course, there was plenty of talk about relieving the patient's symptoms of depression or anxiety, of resolving internal conflicts or relationship problems, but never with the expressly stated goal of becoming happy.

    The concept of achieving true happiness has, in the West, always seemed ill defined, elusive, ungraspable. Even the word "happy" is derived from the Icelandic word happ, meaning luck or chance. Most of us, it seems, share this view of the mysterious nature of happiness. In those moments of joy that life brings, happiness feels like something that comes out of the blue. To my Western mind, it didn't seem the sort of thing that one could develop, and sustain, simply by "training the mind."

    When I raised that objection, the Dalai Lama was quick to explain. "When I say 'training the mind,' in this context I'm not referring to 'mind' merely as one's cognitive ability or intellect. Rather, I'm using the term in the sense of the Tibetan word Sem, which has a much broader meaning, closer to 'psyche' or 'spirit'; it includes intellect and feeling, heart and mind. By bringing about a certain inner discipline, we can undergo a transformation of our attitude, our entire outlook and approach to living.

    "When we speak of this inner discipline, it can of course involve many things, many methods. But generally speaking, one begins by identifying those factors which lead to happiness and those factors which lead to suffering. Having done this, one then sets about gradually eliminating those factors which lead to suffering and cultivating those which lead to happiness. That is the way."

The Dalai Lama claims to have found some measure of personal happiness. And throughout the week he spent in Arizona, I often witnessed how this personal happiness can manifest as a simple willingness to reach out to others, to create a feeling of affinity and goodwill, even in the briefest of encounters.

    One morning after his public lecture the Dalai Lama was walking along an outside patio on the way back to his hotel room, surrounded by his usual retinue. Noticing one of the hotel housekeeping staff standing by the elevators, he paused to ask her, "Where are you from?" For a moment she appeared taken aback by this foreign-looking man in the maroon robes and seemed puzzled by the deference of the entourage. Then she smiled and answered shyly, "Mexico." He paused briefly to chat with her a few moments and then walked on, leaving her with a look of excitement and pleasure on her face. The next morning at the same time, she appeared at the same spot with another of the housekeeping staff, and the two of them greeted him warmly as he got into the elevator. The interaction was brief, but the two of them appeared flushed with happiness as they returned to work. Every day after that, they were joined by a few more of the housekeeping staff at the designated time and place, until by the end of the week there were dozens of maids in their crisp gray-and-white uniforms forming a receiving line that stretched along the length of the path that led to the elevators.

Our days are numbered. At this very moment, many thousands are born into the world, some destined to live only a few days or weeks, and then tragically succumb to illness or other misfortune. Others are destined to push through to the century mark, perhaps even a bit beyond, and savor every taste life has to offer: triumph, despair, joy, hatred, and love. We never know. But whether we live a day or a century, a central question always remains: What is the purpose of our life? What makes our lives meaningful?

    The purpose of our existence is to seek happiness. It seems like common sense, and Western thinkers from Aristotle to William James have agreed with this idea. But isn't a life based on seeking personal happiness by nature self-centered, even self-indulgent? Not necessarily. In fact, survey after survey has shown that it is unhappy people who tend to be most self-focused and are often socially withdrawn, brooding, and even antagonistic. Happy people, in contrast, are generally found to be more sociable, flexible, and creative and are able to tolerate life's daily frustrations more easily than unhappy people. And, most important, they are found to be more loving and forgiving than unhappy people.

    Researchers have devised some interesting experiments demonstrating that happy people exhibit a certain quality of openness, a willingness to reach out and help others. They managed, for instance, to induce a happy mood in a test subject by arranging to have the person unexpectedly find money in a phone booth. Posing as a stranger, one of the experimenters then walked by and "accidentally" dropped a load of papers. The investigators wanted to see whether the subject would stop to help the stranger. In another scenario, the subjects' spirits were lifted by listening to a comedy album, and then they were approached by someone in need (also in cahoots with the experimenter) wanting to borrow money. The investigators discovered that the subjects who were feeling happy were more likely to help someone or to lend money than another "control group" of individuals who were presented with the same opportunity to help but whose mood had not been boosted ahead of time.

    While these kinds of experiments contradict the notion that the pursuit and achievement of personal happiness somehow lead to selfishness and self-absorption, we can all conduct our own experiment in the laboratory of our own daily lives. Suppose, for instance, we're stuck in traffic. After twenty minutes it finally begins moving again, at around parade speed. We see someone in another car signaling that she wants to pull into our lane ahead of us. If we're in a good mood, we are more likely to slow down and wave them on ahead. If we're feeling miserable, our response may be simply to speed up and close the gap. "Well, I've been stuck here waiting all this time; why shouldn't they?"

    We begin, then, with the basic premise that the purpose of our life is to seek happiness. It is a vision of happiness as a real objective, one that we can take positive steps toward achieving. And as we begin to identify the factors that lead to a happier life, we will learn how the search for happiness offers benefits not only for the individual but for the individual's family and for society at large as well.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: The Purpose of Life

Chapter 1: The Right to Happiness

Chapter 2: The Sources of Happiness

Chapter 3: Training the Mind for Happiness

Chapter 4: Reclaiming Our Innate State of Happiness

Part II: Human Warmth and Compassion

Chapter 5: A New Model for Intimacy

Chapter 6: Deepening Our Connection to Others

Chapter 7: The Value and Benefits of Compassion

Part III: Transforming Suffering

Chapter 8: Facing Suffering

Chapter 9: Self-Created Suffering

Chapter 10: Shifting Perspective

Chapter 11: Finding Meaning in Pain and Suffering

Part IV: Overcoming Obstacles

Chapter 12: Bringing About Change

Chapter 13: Dealing with Anger and Hatred

Chapter 14: Dealing with Anxiety and Building Self-Esteem

Part V: Closing Reflections on Living A Spiritual Life

Chapter 15: Basic Spiritual Values

Acknowledgments

Selected titles by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Editorial Reviews

In this guide toward personal happiness, His Holiness the Dalai Lama offers daily meditations and stories to aid listeners in regaining lost happiness in their daily lives. Working closely with him is Dr. Howard C. Cutler, a renowned psychiatrist and neurologist, who takes a closer look at the psychology of our happiness and blocks that may keep us from it. His reassuring voice is supplemented with the masterful tones of Ernest Abuba, best known for his acting work in theater and film. THE ART OF HAPPINESS is not only an excellent supplement to daily self-awareness practices, it is also an indispensable educational tool. R.A.P. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine

OCT/NOV 00 - AudioFile

The Barnes & Noble Review
In recent months, numerous new books have attempted to draw connections between the traditions of East and West, particularly between Buddhist philosophy and spiritual practice and contemporary psychological thought. Most of these books have been written by conventionally educated Western psychologists and psychiatrists who have sought to fill in what are perceived as gaps in their practices — the sense that their scientific and medical knowledge just can't explain everything — by turning to some aspect of Eastern spiritual practice, whether meditation or Zen or other forms of Buddhist philosophy.

Dr. Howard Cutler, an Arizona-based psychiatrist and the author of The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living, is no exception to this trend. What makes his book unique, however, is Dr. Cutler's source for the Buddhist thought he explores: his coauthor, Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of the people of Tibet.

Through a series of in-depth conversations with the Dalai Lama, and through a number of the Dalai Lama's public addresses, Dr. Cutler explores what Tibetan Buddhism might have to offer to Western conceptions of happiness. Dr. Cutler begins with the Dalai Lama's words on the subject:

"I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we are all seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is toward happiness..."

As their furtherconversationreveals, however, Western notions of happiness have become confused with pleasure and the satisfaction of desire. Only by separating happiness from less durable forms of contentment can we truly achieve the happiness that the Dalai Lama believes is the goal of our lives:

"...from my point of view, the highest happiness is when one reaches the stage of Liberation, at which there is no more suffering. That's genuine, lasting happiness. True happiness relates more to the mind and heart. Happiness that depends mainly on physical pleasure is unstable; one day it's there, the next day it may not be."

Attaining this kind of happiness, according to Buddhist thought, requires training. The Art of Happiness, through sections on intimacy and compassion, on transforming suffering, and on overcoming the obstacles to happiness, attempts to provide the reader with a thoughtful basis for the work of finding a peaceful, happy existence in the world. Through their conversations, Dr. Cutler and the Dalai Lama seek common ground in their understandings of human anger and aggression, of self-esteem, and of love. The book closes with a section on spiritual values, a call to take this pursuit of happiness to a higher and more personal level.

The Art of Happiness provides an ideal introduction to the philosophical and spiritual connections of East and West, while at the same time offering the reader already acquainted with these traditions fresh insight from the wisdom of the Dalai Lama. Dr. Cutler admits in his introduction that he had originally hoped to produce a traditional self-help-style book, but what he has created in The Art of Happiness is something more indeed — it is, as the subtitle claims, truly a handbook for living.
—Kathleen Fitzpatrick

The Art of Happiness is read like an enchanting Indian tale by Howard Cutler and Ernest Abuba. Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is the spiritiual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people. Cutler helps to blend psychology with the Dalai Lamas Buddhist meditations and stories. Gyatso talks about how to defeat depression, anxiety, anger, and jealousy through meditation. He discusses relationships, health, family, work, and spirituality and how to find inner peace while facing these struggles. His tireless efforts on behalf of human rights and world peace have brought him international recognition. He is the recipient of the Wallenberg Award (conferred by the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Foundation), the Albert Schweitzer Award, and the Nobel Peace Prize. Recommended for world religion collections.Ravonne A. Green, Virginia Polytechnic Inst. & State Univ., Blacksburg

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