The Dalai Lama's Cat

by David Michie

“It is the wonderful paradox,” he continued, “that the best way to achieve happiness for oneself is to give happiness to others.”

happiness was sought by cultivating inner qualities, beginning with mindfulness but also including such things as generosity, equanimity, and a good heart. Down the hill, happiness was sought from external things—restaurant food, stimulating holidays, and lightning-quick technology.

the wish to give happiness to others, which Buddhists define as love, and second, the wish to help free others from dissatisfaction or suffering, which we define as compassion.

experience and the words of Geshe Wangpo: “If we focus too much on ourselves, we make ourselves sick.”

a lack of self-confidence was considered, in Buddhism, to be a form of laziness,