Alanna Thornton’s Reviews > The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World > Status Update

The Dalai Lama had said, even ten minutes of meditation on the wellbeing of others can help one to feel joyful for the whole day- even before coffee.

Aww haha

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. As the Dalai Lama has described it, if we see a person who is being crushed by a rock, the goal is not to get under the rock and feel what they are feeling; it is to help to remove the rock.

“It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy. Every moment is a gift.”

“Acceptance-whether we believe in God or not allows us to move into the fullness of joy. It allows us to engage with life on its own terms rather than rail against the fact that life is not as we would wish.”

"We are meant to live in joy," the Archbishop explained. "This does not mean that life will be easy or painless. It means that we can turn our faces to the wind and accept that this is the storm we must pass through. We cannot succeed by denying what exists. The acceptance of reality is the only place from which change can begin."

“We converged on eight pillars of joy. Four were qualities of the mind: perspective, humility, humor, and acceptance. Four were qualities of the heart: forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, and generosity.”

“I often felt like, for these two men, holiness and lightheartedness were indivisible.”