The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

by Dalai Lama XIV

We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people.

“If something can be done about the situation, what need is there for dejection?

“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”

‘Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.’”

There are going to be frustrations in life. The question is not: How do I escape? It is: How can I use this as something positive?

if you are setting out to be joyful you are not going to end up being joyful. You’re going to find yourself turned in on yourself. It’s like a flower. You open, you blossom, really because of other people. And I think some suffering, maybe even intense suffering, is a necessary ingredient for life, certainly for developing compassion.

“You know, when Nelson Mandela went to jail he was young and, you could almost say, bloodthirsty. He was head of the armed wing of the African National Congress, his party. He spent twenty-seven years in jail, and many would say, Twenty-seven years, oh, what a waste. And I think people are surprised when I say no, the twenty-seven years were necessary. They were necessary to remove the dross. The suffering in prison helped him to become more magnanimous,

the Archbishop continued, “it is how we face all of the things that seem to be negative in our lives that determines the kind of person we become.

“When I spoke about mothers and childbirth, it seems to be a wonderful metaphor, actually, that nothing beautiful in the end comes without a measure of some pain, some frustration, some suffering. This is the nature of things.

But actually, even in the midst of that pain, you can recognize the gentleness of the nurse who is looking after you. You can see the skill of the surgeon who is going to be performing the operation on you.

“Too much self-centered thinking is the source of suffering. A compassionate concern for others’ well-being is the source of happiness.

Then as we approached Patna, under a hut I saw an old man lying on the ground. His hair was disheveled, his clothes were dirty, and he looked sick. He had no one to take care of him. Really, he looked as if he were dying. All the way to the hospital, I was thinking of this man and felt his suffering, and I completely forgot about my own pain. By simply shifting my focus to another person, which is what compassion does, my own pain was much less intense. This is how compassion works even at the physical level.

In fact, taking care of others, helping others, ultimately is the way to discover your own joy and to have a happy life. So that is what I call wise selfishness.”

influence on increasing our happiness are our ability to reframe our situation more positively, our ability to experience gratitude, and our choice to be kind and generous.

There is a Buddhist saying that trying to seek happiness through sensory gratification is like trying to quench your thirst by drinking saltwater.

Tibetan Buddhist prayer that often is said before a meal: “Viewing this meal as a medicine, I shall enjoy it without greed or anger, not out of gluttony nor out of pride, not to fatten myself, but only to nourish my body.”

“This is the value of compassion, of having compassionate feelings for others. Even, you see, ten minutes or thirty minutes of meditating on compassion, on kindness for others, and you will see its effects all day. That’s the way to maintain a calm and joyous mind.

In many ways, hedonism is the default philosophy of most people and certainly has become the dominant view of consumer “shop till you drop” culture.

The first bowl of ice cream is sublime, the second bowl tasty, and the third causes indigestion.

Perhaps more sobering, it has also hardwired us to cooperate with and be kind to those who look like our caregivers, who presumably kept us safe. We are more wary of others who look different: these are the unconscious roots of prejudice. Our empathy does not seem to extend to those who are outside our “group,” which is perhaps why the Archbishop and the Dalai Lama are constantly reminding us that we are, in fact, one group—humanity.

mean simply to say that ultimately our greatest joy is when we seek to do good for others.”

the concept of Ubuntu. It says: A person is a person through other persons.

You don’t have to be a believer in anything. I mean I could not speak as I am speaking without having learned it from other human beings. I could not walk as a human being. I could not think as a human being, except through learning it from other human beings. I learned to be a human being from other human beings. We belong in this delicate network. It is actually quite profound.

The reality, as the Archbishop mentioned, is that human beings are social animals. One individual, no matter how powerful, how clever, cannot survive without other human beings. So the best way to fulfill your wishes, to reach your goals, is to help others, to make more friends. “How do we create more friends?” he now asked rhetorically. “Trust. How do you develop trust? It’s simple: You show your genuine sense of concern for their well-being. Then trust will come.

in a surprising way, what the Archbishop and the Dalai Lama were saying is that the way we heal our own pain is actually by turning to the pain of others. It is a virtuous cycle. The more we turn toward others, the more joy we experience, and the more joy we experience, the more we can bring joy to others.

With a self-centered attitude, you become distanced from others, then distrust, then feel insecure, then fear, then anxiety, then frustration, then anger, then violence.”

“Think about it this way. If your health is strong, when viruses come they will not make you sick. If your overall health is weak, even small viruses will be very dangerous for you. Similarly, if your mental health is sound, then when disturbances come, you will have some distress but quickly recover. If your mental health is not good, then small disturbances, small problems will cause you much pain and suffering. You will have much fear and worry, much sadness and despair, and much anger and aggravation.

Even if someone criticizes you or attacks you, then you have to think: Why did this happen? This person is not your enemy from birth. Certain circumstances caused the person to be negative toward you. There may be many causes, but usually your own attitude is an important contributing factor that cannot be ignored. You realize that this happened because you have done something in the past that this person didn’t like. So then when you realize your own part in the other person’s criticizing or attacking you, the intensity of your frustration and anger automatically reduces.

How sad that this person is out of control, or having such a negative feeling. Instead of frustration and anger you feel sorry for the other person and concern for them.”

One of my favorite quotes that we included in Mandela’s book Notes to the Future was on courage: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt fear more times than I can remember, but I hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

“Stress and anxiety often come from too much expectation and too much ambition,”

Once again, the path of joy was connection and the path of sorrow was separation. When we see others as separate, they become a threat. When we see others as part of us, as connected, as interdependent, then there is no challenge we cannot face—together.

“When I meet someone,” the Dalai Lama said, returning to what was becoming an important theme, “I always try to relate to the person on the basic human level. On that level, I know that, just like me, he or she wishes to find happiness, to have fewer problems and less difficulty in their life.

In contrast, if I see myself primarily in terms of myself as a fellow human, I will then have more than seven billion people who I can feel deep connection with. And this is wonderful, isn’t it? What do you need to fear or worry about when you have seven billion other people who are with you?”

One way out of anger, then, is to ask, What is the hurt that has caused our anger, what is the fear that we have? Psychologists often call anger a secondary emotion, because it comes as a defense to feeling threatened. When we can acknowledge and express the fear—how we are feeling threatened—then we are often able to soothe the anger.

What is particularly interesting is that brief sadness might generate more empathy or generosity. Participants in the study played a game, part of which involved deciding how much money to give themselves and how much to give others. The sad participants gave significantly more to the other participants.

“We don’t really get close to others if our relationship is made up of unending hunky-dory-ness. It is the hard times, the painful times, the sadness and the grief that knit us more closely together.”

“The way through the sadness and grief that comes from great loss is to use it as motivation and to generate a deeper sense of purpose.

grief is the reminder of the depth of our love.

“You show your humanity,” the Archbishop began, “by how you see yourself not as apart from others but from your connection to others. I have frequently wept about the things such as the ones you have mentioned.

“When a disaster such as 9/11 happens, we realize we are family. We are family. Those people in the Twin Towers are our sisters and brothers. And even more startlingly, the people who were piloting those planes, they are our sisters and brothers.

You know human beings are basically good. You know that’s where we have to start. That everything else is an aberration. Anything that swerves away from that is the exception—even when now and again they can be very frustrating.

“When someone is warmhearted, they are always completely relaxed. If you live with fear and consider yourself as something special, then automatically, emotionally, you are distanced from others. You then create the basis for feelings of alienation from others and loneliness.

“This excessive self-focus is also bad for your health. Too much fear and distrust, too much focus on yourself leads to stress and high blood pressure.

“You want to make the person feel really as they are, special. And accepted as they are and help to open them. I can very well understand the incredible anguish and pain that someone must feel who is cooped up in a room because they are scared of going out and being rejected.

There is a Tibetan Buddhist teaching that says what causes suffering in life is a general pattern of how we relate to others: “Envy toward the above, competitiveness toward the equal, and contempt toward the lower.”

Mudita is so important in Buddhism that it is considered one of the Four Immeasurables, qualities we can cultivate infinitely. The other three are loving-kindness, compassion, and equanimity. Jinpa had explained how mudita works: If someone has something that we want, say, a bigger house, we can consciously take joy in their good fortune by telling ourselves: “Good for him. Just like me, he, too, wants to be happy. He, too, wants to be successful. He, too, wants to support his family. May he be happy. I congratulate him and want him to have more success.” Mudita recognizes that life is not a zero-sum game, that there is not just one slice of cake in which someone else’s taking more means we get less. Mudita sees joy as limitless.

“Firstly, we should recognize our shared humanity. These are our human brothers and sisters, who have the same right and the same desire to have a happy life. This is not a spiritual thing. It is simply common sense.

For example, the major source of anger is frustration and dissatisfaction. At the moment when an emotion like anger is full-blown, even if we try to use our experience and our knowledge to reduce it, we will find it is very difficult to stop. At that point it is like a flood. During monsoon season, it is too late to stop the flooding. We need to start early in the spring and investigate what is causing the flooding and try to build flood walls to prevent disaster.

you will be surprised by the joy the minute you stop being too self-regarding.