Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

by Matthieu Ricard

“When you have an interior life, it certainly doesn’t matter what side of the prison fence you’re on.

As influential as external conditions may be, suffering, like well-being, is essentially an interior state.

Changing the way we see the world does not imply naive optimism or some artificial euphoria designed to counterbalance adversity. So long as we are slaves to the dissatisfaction and frustration that arise from the confusion that rules our minds, it will be just as futile to tell ourselves “I’m happy! I’m happy!” over and over again as it would be to repaint a wall in ruins. The search for happiness is not about looking at life through rose-colored glasses or blinding oneself to the pain and imperfections of the world. Nor is happiness a state of exaltation to be perpetuated at all costs; it is the purging of mental toxins, such as hatred and obsession, that literally poison the mind.