The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

by Dalai Lama XIV

Every day is a new opportunity to begin again. Every day is your birthday.

“Joy,” as the Archbishop said during the week, “is much bigger than happiness. While happiness is often seen as being dependent on external circumstances, joy is not.” This state of mind—and heart—is

These two men remind us that how we choose to act each day is what matters.

Suffering is inevitable, they said, but how we respond to that suffering is our choice.

Research conducted at the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow suggests that there are really only four fundamental emotions, three of which are so-called negative emotions: fear, anger, and sadness. The only positive one is joy or happiness.

‘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?

One of the good things is realizing that you are not a solitary cell. You are part of a wonderful community.

“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.

nothing beautiful in the end comes without a measure of some pain, some frustration, some suffering. This is the nature of things.

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

According to Lyubomirsky, the three factors that seem to have the greatest 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.

“So I always say to people, you have to pay more attention to the mental level of joy and happiness. Not just physical pleasure, but satisfaction at the level of mind. This is true joyfulness. When you are joyful and happy at the mental level, physical pain doesn’t matter very much. But if there is no joy or happiness at the mental level, too much worrying, too much fear, then even physical comforts and pleasure will not soothe your mental discomfort.”

A person is a person through other persons.

So being more joyful is not just about having more fun. We’re talking about a more empathic, more empowered, even more spiritual state of mind that is totally engaged with the world.

I set my intention for the day: that this day should be meaningful. Meaningful means, if possible, serve and help others. If not possible, then at least not to harm others. That’s a meaningful day.”

“Mental immunity,” the Dalai Lama explained, “is just learning to avoid the destructive emotions and to develop the positive ones.

But this being on earth is a time for us to learn to be good, to learn to be more loving, to learn to be more compassionate.

“You learn when something happens that tests you.”

You are made for perfection, but you are not yet perfect. You are a masterpiece in the making.”

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to act despite it.”

Sadness is in many ways the emotion that causes us to reach out to one another in support and solidarity. The Archbishop expressed it quite wonderfully when he explained, “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.”

grief is the reminder of the depth of our love. Without love, there is no grief. So when we feel our grief, uncomfortable and aching as it may be, it is actually a reminder of the beauty of that love, now lost.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

To choose hope is to step firmly forward into the howling wind, baring one’s chest to the elements, knowing that, in time, the storm will pass.”

Despair turns us inward. Hope sends us into the arms of others.

Compassion literally makes our heart healthy and happy.

One of the differences between empathy and compassion is that while empathy is simply experiencing another’s emotion, compassion is a more empowered state where we want what is best for the other person.

Compassion is one of the most difficult and courageous of all our motivations, but is also the most healing and elevating.”

As Martin Luther King Jr., said, ‘We must learn to live together as sisters and brothers, or we will perish together as fools.’

A person is a person through other persons.

The two leaders had told us over the course of the week that there is no joy without sorrow, that in fact it is the pain, the suffering that allows us to experience and appreciate the joy. Indeed, the more we turn toward the suffering, our own and others, the more we can turn toward the joy.

true joy is a way of being, not a fleeting emotion.