The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living

by Dalai Lama XIV

The method, the daily practice, involves gradually increasing our awareness and understanding of what truly leads to happiness and what doesn’t.

When life becomes too complicated and we feel overwhelmed, it’s often useful just to stand back and remind ourselves of our overall purpose, our overall goal. When faced with a feeling of stagnation and confusion, it may be helpful to take an hour, an afternoon, or even several days to simply reflect on what it is that will truly bring us happiness, and then reset our priorities on the basis of that. This can put our life back in proper context, allow a fresh perspective, and enable us to see which direction to take.

So, I feel a sense of intimacy and connection with my friends. Of course it’s sometimes easier for me to establish a connection with others because they’re often very happy to share their suffering or joy with the ‘Dalai Lama,’

reminds me of polyamory

“But personally I feel it is very helpful, because then the other person participates and we can face the problem or suffering together.”

making connections through vulnerability

By broadening our definition of intimacy, we open ourselves to discovering many new and equally satisfying ways of connecting with others.

reflect on how they feel when someone is kind to them and so on.

This technique involves the capacity to temporarily suspend insisting on your own viewpoint but rather to look from the other person’s perspective, to imagine what would be the situation if you were in his shoes, how you would deal with this.

“Whenever I meet people I always approach them from the standpoint of the most basic things we have in common. We each have a physical structure, a mind, emotions. We are all born in the same way, and we all die. All of us want happiness and do not want to suffer. Looking at others from this standpoint rather than emphasizing secondary differences such as the fact that I am Tibetan, or a different color, religion, or cultural background, allows me to have a feeling that I’m meeting someone just the same as me. I find that relating to others on that level makes it much easier to exchange and communicate with one another.”

Begin by visualizing a person who is acutely suffering, someone who is in pain or is in a very unfortunate situation. For the first three minutes of the meditation, reflect on that individual’s suffering in a more analytic way—think about their intense suffering and the unfortunate state of that person’s existence. After thinking about that person’s suffering for a few minutes, next, try to relate that to yourself, thinking, ‘that individual has the same capacity for experiencing pain, joy, happiness, and suffering that I do.’ Then, try to allow your natural response to arise—a natural feeling of compassion towards that person. Try to arrive at a conclusion: thinking how strongly you wish for that person to be free from that suffering. And resolve that you will help that person to be relieved from their suffering. Finally, place your mind single-pointedly on that kind of conclusion or resolution, and for the last few minutes of the meditation try to simply generate your mind in a compassionate or loving state.” With that, the Dalai Lama assumed a

On the other hand, if your basic outlook accepts that suffering is a natural part of your existence, this will undoubtedly make you more tolerant towards the adversities of life.

it makes sense in my head, but i still experience anxiety and fear e.g. at the dentist

if they worried too much, allowing themselves to be too overwhelmed by the sense of loss and sorrow, and if they carried on with that feeling of being overwhelmed, not only would it be very destructive and harmful to themselves, ruining their health, but also it would not have any benefit to the person who has passed away.

“Initially, of course, feelings of grief and anxiety are a natural human response to a loss. But if you allow these feelings of loss and worry to persist, there’s a danger; if these feelings are left unchecked, they can lead to a kind of self-absorption. A situation where the focus becomes your own self. And when that happens you become overwhelmed by the sense of loss, and you get a feeling that it’s only you who is going through this. Depression sets in. But in reality, there are others who will be going through the same kind of experience. So, if you find yourself worrying too much, it may help to think of the other people who have similar or even worse tragedies. Once

Of course, the same can apply to when we have an attachment towards a particular person; we can feed that by thinking about how beautiful he or she is, and as we keep thinking about the projected qualities that we see in the person, the attachment becomes more and more intense. But this shows how through constant familiarity and thinking, we ourselves can make our emotions more intense and powerful.

Our friends do not ordinarily test us and provide the opportunity to cultivate patience; only our enemies do this. So, from this standpoint we can consider our enemy as a great teacher, and revere them for giving us this precious opportunity to practice patience.

But in order to reap those rewards, we must begin our search for meaning when things are going well. A tree with strong roots can withstand the most violent storm, but the tree can’t grow roots just as the storm appears on the horizon.

‘May my suffering be a substitute for the suffering of all other sentient beings. By experiencing this, may I be able to save all other sentient beings who may have to undergo similar suffering.’ So you use your suffering as an opportunity for the practice of taking others’ suffering upon yourself.

‘May I, by experiencing this pain and suffering, be able to help other people and save others who may have to go through the same experience.’

it is the feeling of unpleasantness that galvanizes and compels the entire organism to attend and act. It also sears the experience into the memory and serves to protect us in the future.

we can begin to think of pain as a “speech your body is delivering about a subject that is of vital importance to you, in the most effective way of getting your attention,” then our attitude about pain will begin to change.

focus your attention on the needy and desperate people. Direct all your positive energy to them. Mentally give them your successes, your resources, your collection of virtues. And after you have done that, visualize taking upon yourself their suffering, their problems, and all their negativities.

the fact that the other person is a human being and you, yourself, are a human being allows your natural capacity for empathy to emerge and enable you to reach out.

begin by first imagining your own future suffering and, with an attitude of compassion, take your own future suffering upon yourself right now, with the sincere wish of freeing yourself from all future suffering. After you gain some practice in generating a compassionate state of mind towards yourself, you can then expand the process to include taking on the suffering of others. “When you do the visualization of‘taking upon yourself,’ it is useful to visualize these sufferings, problems, and difficulties in the form of poisonous substances, dangerous weapons, or terrifying animals—things the very sight of which normally makes you shudder. So, visualize the suffering in these forms, and then absorb them directly into your heart.

We talk about how much potential lies within our body, how meaningful it can be, the good purposes it can be used for, the benefits and advantages of having a human form, and so on. And these discussions are there to instill a sense of confidence and courage and to induce a sense of commitment to use our human body in a positive way.

in order to generate a sense of urgency to engage in spiritual practices, the practitioner is reminded of our impermanence, of death.

it relies more heavily on reasoning and training the mind than on faith.

“We cannot overcome anger and hatred simply by suppressing them. We need to actively cultivate the antidotes to hatred: patience and tolerance.

you can prepare ahead of time by constantly working toward building inner contentment and cultivating kindness and compassion. This brings about a certain calmness of mind that can help prevent anger from arising in the first place. And then when a situation does arise that makes you angry, you should directly confront your anger and analyze it.

actively challenging, logically analyzing, and reappraising the thoughts that trigger the anger can help dissipate it.

the past is past, so there is no use continuing to feel anger and hatred, which do not change the situation but just cause a disturbance within your mind and cause your continued unhappiness.

reflect upon the immediate effects of the person’s rage. You’ll see a physical transformation happening to that person. This person whom you feel close to, whom you like, the very sight of whom gave you pleasure in the past, now turns into this ugly person, even physically speaking.

analyze the situation and relate the circumstances to your own experience. See that you yourself have been in this state many times. Resolve that ‘I shall never let myself fall under the sway of such intense anger and hatred, because if I do that, I will be in the same position. I will also suffer all these consequences, lose my peace of mind, lose my composure, assume this ugly physical appearance,’ and so on. So once you make that decision, then for the last few minutes of the meditation focus your mind on that conclusion; without further analysis, simply let your mind remain on your resolution not to fall under the influence of anger and hatred.”

Begin by visualizing someone whom you dislike, someone who annoys you, causes a lot of problems for you, or gets on your nerves. Then, imagine a scenario in which the person irritates you, or does something that offends you or annoys you. And, in your imagination, when you visualize this, let your natural response follow; just let it flow naturally. Then see how you feel, see whether that causes the rate of your heartbeat to go up, and so on. Examine whether you are comfortable or uncomfortable; see if you immediately become more peaceful or if you develop an uncomfortable mental feeling. Judge for yourself; investigate.

if you discover that ‘Yes, it is of no use to allow that irritation to develop. Immediately I lose my peace of mind,’ then say to yourself, ‘In the future, I will never do that.’ Develop that determination. Finally, for the last few minutes of the exercise, place your mind single-pointedly upon that conclusion or determination.

The adaptive side of worry is that it allows us to anticipate danger and take preventative action.

you need to first use your faculty of reasoning and try to discover whether there is a valid basis for your fear or not.”

If the situation or problem is such that it can be remedied, then there is no need to worry about it. In other words, if there is a solution or a way out of the difficulty, then one needn’t be overwhelmed by it. The appropriate action is to seek its solution. It is more sensible to spend the energy focusing on the solution rather than worrying about the problem. Alternatively, if there is no way out, no solution, no Possibility of resolution, then there is also no point in being worried about it, because you can’t do anything about it anyway.

“I think prayer is, for the most part, a simple daily reminder of your deeply held principles and convictions. I, myself, repeat certain Buddhist verses every morning. The verses may look like prayers, but they are actually reminders. Reminders of how to speak to others, how to deal with other people, how to deal with problems in your daily life, things like that. So, for the most part, my practice involves reminders—reviewing the importance of compassion, forgiveness, all these things.

True spirituality is a mental attitude that you can practice at any time.

human warmth, affection, and compassion in people’s physical health, happiness, and peace of mind.