The Book of Joy
Rate it:
Open Preview
Read between June 10 - August 19, 2020
2%
Flag icon
Lasting happiness cannot be found in pursuit of any goal or achievement. It does not reside in fortune or fame. It resides only in the human mind and heart,
2%
Flag icon
Every day is a new opportunity to begin again. Every day is your birthday.
2%
Flag icon
We were in search of true joy that was not dependent on the vicissitudes of circumstance. We knew that we would need to tackle the obstacles that can so often make joy elusive.
3%
Flag icon
Their joy is clearly not easy or superficial but one burnished by the fire of adversity, oppression, and struggle. The Dalai Lama and the Archbishop remind us that joy is in fact our birthright and even more fundamental than happiness.
3%
Flag icon
While happiness is often seen as being dependent on external circumstances, joy is not.” This state of mind—and heart—is much closer to both the Dalai Lama’s and the Archbishop’s understanding of what animates our lives and what ultimately leads to a life of satisfaction and meaning.
3%
Flag icon
how we can transform joy from an ephemeral state into an enduring trait, from a fleeting feeling into a lasting way of being.
3%
Flag icon
so much of human suffering occurs within our own head and heart.
4%
Flag icon
It was fascinating that the most asked question was not about how we could discover our own joy but how we could possibly live with joy in a world filled with so much suffering.
4%
Flag icon
These two men remind us that how we choose to act each day is what matters.
4%
Flag icon
Even holy men have to act like holy men. But
4%
Flag icon
Suffering is inevitable, they said, but how we respond to that suffering is our choice. Not even oppression or occupation can take away this freedom to choose our response.
4%
Flag icon
“WE ARE FRAGILE creatures, and it is from this weakness, not despite it, that we discover the possibility of true joy,”
5%
Flag icon
“Discovering more joy does not, I’m sorry to say,” the Archbishop added, as we began our descent, “save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily, too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreak without being broken.”
5%
Flag icon
“ONE GREAT QUESTION underlies our existence,” the Dalai Lama had said before the trip. “What is the purpose of life? After much consideration, I believe that the purpose of life is to find happiness.
5%
Flag icon
From the moment of birth, every human being wants to discover happiness and avoid suffering. No differences in our culture or our education or our religion affect this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire joy and contentment. But so often these feelings are fleeting and hard to find, like a butterfly that lands on us and then flutters away.
5%
Flag icon
“The ultimate source of happiness is within us. Not money, not power, not status.
5%
Flag icon
Power and money fail to bring inner peace. Outward attainment will not bring real inner joyfu...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
5%
Flag icon
Often it comes from the negative tendencies of the mind, emotional reactivity, or from our inability to appreciate and utilize the resources that exist within us.
5%
Flag icon
The suffering from a natural disaster we cannot control, but the suffering from our daily disasters we can. We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy.
7%
Flag icon
To tease someone is a sign of intimacy and friendship, to know that there is a reservoir of affection from which we all drink as funny and flawed humans.
7%
Flag icon
never really putting the other down, but constantly reinforcing their bond and their friendship.
7%
Flag icon
I was beginning to see how central friendship, and relationship more generally, was in our experience of joy.
9%
Flag icon
“Mind and heart. Materialistic values cannot give us peace of mind. So we really need to focus on our inner values, our true humanity. Only this way can we have peace of mind—and more peace in our world. A lot of the problems we are facing are our own creation, like war and violence. Unlike a natural disaster, these problems are created by humans ourselves.
9%
Flag icon
“In order to develop our mind, we must look at a deeper level. Everyone seeks happiness, joyfulness, but from outside—from money, from power, from big car, from big house. Most people never pay much attention to the ultimate source of a happy life, which is inside, not outside. Even the source of physical health is inside, not outside.
10%
Flag icon
So one need not depend on religious faith to educate our inner values.”
10%
Flag icon
“It’s wonderful to discover that what we want is not actually happiness.
10%
Flag icon
It is not actually what I would speak of. I would speak of joy. Joy subsumes happiness. Joy is the far greater thing. Think of a mother who is going to give birth. Almost all of us want to escape pain. And mothers know that they are going to have pain, the great pain of giving birth. But they accept it. And even after the most painful labor, once the baby is out, you can’t measure the mother’s joy. It is one of those incredible things that joy can come so quickly from suffering.
10%
Flag icon
WHAT IS THIS thing called joy, and how is it possible that it can evoke such a wide range of feelings? How can the experience of joy span from those tears of joy at a birth to an irrepressible belly laugh at a joke to a serenely contented smile during meditation?
10%
Flag icon
contentment (a calmer kind of satisfaction)
10%
Flag icon
gratitude (the appreciation of a selfless act of which one is the beneficiary)
10%
Flag icon
spiritual radiance (a serene joy born from deep well-being and benevolence)
11%
Flag icon
“Yes, it is true. Joy is something different from happiness. When I use the word happiness, in a sense I mean satisfaction. Sometimes we have a painful experience, but that experience, as you’ve said with birth, can bring great satisfaction and joyfulness.”
11%
Flag icon
“He taught that when you experience some tragic situation, think about it. If there’s no way to overcome the tragedy, then there is no use worrying too much. So I practice that.”
11%
Flag icon
“If something can be done about the situation, what need is there for dejection? And if nothing can be done about it, what use is there for being dejected?”
11%
Flag icon
When we see these things, we realize that not only do we suffer,
11%
Flag icon
so do many of our human brothers and sisters. So when we look at the same event from a wider perspective, we will reduce the worrying and our own suffering.”
11%
Flag icon
This was not a denial of pain and suffering, but a shift in perspective—from oneself and toward others, from anguish to compassion—seeing that others are suffering as well. The remarkable thing about what the Dalai Lama was describing is that as we recognize others’ suffering and realize that we are not alone, our pain is lessened.
12%
Flag icon
He was not contrasting his situation with others, but uniting his situation with others, enlarging his identity and seeing that he and the Tibetan people were not alone in their suffering. This recognition that we are all connected—whether Tibetan Buddhists or Hui Muslims—is the birth of empathy and compassion.
12%
Flag icon
“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”
12%
Flag icon
“When touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed, ordinary person sorrows, grieves, and laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical and mental.
12%
Flag icon
It seems that the Dalai Lama was suggesting that by shifting our perspective to a broader, more compassionate one, we can avoid the worry and suffering that is the second arrow.
12%
Flag icon
“There are different aspects to any event.
Sulaxmi Prasad
An event eventhough painful can be turned into an opportunity
12%
Flag icon
“So, personally, I prefer the last five decades of refugee life. It’s more useful, more opportunity to learn, to experience life.
12%
Flag icon
‘Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.’”
12%
Flag icon
“Also,” the Dalai Lama continued, “whoever gives you love, that’s your parent.
12%
Flag icon
Anguish and sadness in many ways are things that you cannot control.
12%
Flag icon
They happen.
12%
Flag icon
The pain causes an anguish in you and an anger, and you might...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
12%
Flag icon
But as you grow in the spiritual life, whether as a Buddhist or a Christian or any other tradition, you are able to accept anything that happens to you. You accept it not as the result of your being sinful, that you are blameworthy because of what has happened—it’s part of the warp and woof of life. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not. There are going to be frustrati...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
13%
Flag icon
Yet it’s not the words. It’s the spirit behind those words. It is when you sit and you tell people that suffering, frustration, are not the determinants of who we are. It is that we can use these things that are seemingly negative for a positive effect.
« Prev 1