The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living

by Dalai Lama XIV

Both these people illustrate the essential point that happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind than by external events.

On the other hand, if you can maintain a calm, peaceful state of mind, then you can be a very happy person even if you have poor health. Or, even if you have wonderful possessions, when you are in an intense moment of anger or hatred, you feel like throwing them, breaking them.

The second, and more reliable, method is not to have what we want but rather to want and appreciate what we have.

So through this process of learning, of analyzing which thoughts and emotions are beneficial and which are harmful, we gradually develop a firm determination to change, feeling,

“Now the secret to my own happiness, my own good future, is within my own hands. I must not miss that opportunity!”

If you maintain a feeling of compassion, loving kindness, then something automatically opens your inner door. Through that, you can communicate much more easily with other people. And that feeling of warmth creates a kind of openness.

‘So, anyway, I think that cultivating positive mental states like kindness and compassion definitely leads to better psychological health and happiness.’

It was absolutely practical and rational: identify and cultivate positive mental states; identify and eliminate negative mental states.

It is felt that a disciplined mind leads to happiness and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering, and in fact it is said that bringing about discipline within one’s mind is the essence of the Buddha’s teaching.

Scientists are discovering that those who lack close social ties seem to suffer from poor health, higher levels of unhappiness, and a greater vulnerability to stress.

After interviewing thousands of people, the various investigators all seem to have reached the same conclusion: close relationships do, in fact, promote health.

The Dalai Lama replied, ‘Compassion can be roughly defined in terms of a state of mind that is nonviolent, nonharming, and nonaggressive. It is a mental attitude based on the wish for others to be free of their suffering and is associated with a sense of commitment, responsibility, and respect towards others.

‘In generating compassion, you start by recognizing that you do not want suffering and that you have a right to have happiness. This can be verified or validated by your own experience. You then recognize that other people, just like yourself, also do not want to suffer and they have a right to have happiness. So this becomes the basis of your beginning to generate compassion. ‘So . . . let us meditate on compassion today. 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.’

Our attitude towards suffering becomes very important because it can affect how we cope with suffering when it arises. Now, our usual attitude consists of an intense aversion and intolerance of our pain and suffering. However, if we can transform our attitude towards suffering, adopt an attitude that allows us greater tolerance of it, then this can do much to help counteract feelings of mental unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and discontent.

According to Buddhist thought, the root causes of suffering are ignorance, craving, and hatred. These are called the “three poisons of the mind.”

‘We also often add to our pain and suffering by being overly sensitive, overreacting to minor things, and sometimes taking things too personally

This conviction to change then develops into determination. Next, one transforms determination into action

This premise is based on the fact that our positive states of mind can act as antidotes to our negative tendencies and delusory states of mind. So, the second premise is that as you enhance the capacity of these antidotal factors, the greater their force, the more you will be able to reduce the force of the mental and emotional afflictions, the more you will be able to reduce the influences and effects of these things.

the cultivation of certain specific positive mental qualities such as patience, tolerance, kindness, and so on, can act as specific antidotes to negative states of mind such as anger, hatred, and attachment. Applying antidotes such as love and compassion can significantly reduce the degree or influence of the mental and emotional afflictions, but since they seek to eliminate only certain specific or individual afflictive emotions, in some sense they can be seen as only partial measures. These afflictive emotions, such as attachment and hatred, are ultimately rooted in ignorance – misconception of the true nature of reality.

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

‘For reasons such as these, hatred is compared to an enemy. This internal enemy, this inner enemy, has no other function than causing us harm. It is our true enemy, our ultimate enemy. It has no other function than simply destroying us, both in the immediate term and in the long term.

‘The only factor that can give you refuge or protection from the destructive effects of anger and hatred is your practice of tolerance and patience.’

An end result, or a product of patience and tolerance is forgiveness. When you are truly patient and tolerant, then forgiveness comes naturally.

I personally find useful to reduce that kind of worry is to cultivate the thought: 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 it’s 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. In that case, the sooner you accept this fact, the easier it will be on you. This formula, of course, implies directly confronting the problem. Otherwise you won’t be able to find out whether there is a resolution to the problem or not.’

reminding oneself, If there is a solution to the problem, there is no need to worry. If there is no solution, there is no sense in worrying either.

‘I think that generally, being honest with oneself and others about what you are or are not capable of doing can counteract that feeling of lack of self-confidence.

there’s no question that every one of us wants to be happy. So, if our definition of love is based on a genuine wish for someone’s happiness, then each of us does in fact love himself or herself – every one of us sincerely wishes for his or her own happiness.

so long as we know and maintain an awareness that we have this marvelous gift of human intelligence, and a capacity to develop determination and use it in positive ways, in some sense we have this underlying mental health. An underlying strength, that comes from realizing we have this great human potential.

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