“I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness”-the Dalai Lama
The ‘Art of Happiness’ is a book by the 14th Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, a psychiatrist who questioned the Dalai Lama with his topics covering a wide spectrum on the conduct of life.
I always had two conflicts in my mind- what is the purpose of life and what is essential in to live life. What I was seeking, sought me out through this book. Both these questions were answered without any delay, in the first line of the book itself that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. If you ever scrutinize the definition or concept of happiness provided by various spiritual institutes or in various holy books, the commonality of it all is that happiness is not dependent on any extrinsic factors but is to be created intrinsically.
Gradually with the teachings of the Dalai Lama and further important reflections of H.Cutler from the point of view of a psychiatrist, our perceptions are altered through this book.
Sources of happiness
The Dalai Lama expounds on the simplest sources of happiness in life which includes inculcating self-worth in our character, sense of gratitude and elimination of our tendency to compare every aspect of our life with others’.
Every individual ought to make a choice for pleasure or happiness and that shall itself lead the way to happiness in life.
Training the mind for happiness
The Dalai Lama emphasizes on kindness, warmth and compassion as fundamental character of an individual. Without cultivating those, happiness can be a far-fetched goal. Additionally, he asserts that empathy promotes health. He teaches us to identify and eliminate negative mental states like hatred, anger, intolerance because in reality, such negative states occur with our failure to achieve love and affection.
Hence we ought to reset your priorities in life with the ultimate aim- ‘happiness’
Relationship
The Dalai Lama clearly states that a relationship built primarily on sexual desire is like a house built on a foundation of ice; as soon as the ice melts, the building collapses. Watching romantic movies, we have learned to idealize love even with the harsh reality of love being complicated in front of us. We have to see the real picture, beyond the false representations of the ‘high’ with falling in love because such ‘high’ is just like the high induced by the drug; they will go away with time.
So in order to make a relationship succeed, we just need the true foundations of mutual respect, compassion and affection.
Suffering
There is an in-built instant aversion and intolerance to suffering in us. We would go to any length to avoid it but will not accept a simple reality that suffering and pain is the underlying state of our existence. In Buddha’s own public teachings, the first thing taught was the principle of the four noble truths, the first of which is the truth of suffering. We often face problems in life but not finding a solution to it and an incessant worry, rejection or re-enforcement of it creates more suffering and pain.
So embrace the impermanence of things because life is change, the more we hold on to what was, the more grotesque life becomes.
Conceptually, pain is important to warn of the danger that lies ahead and to be heard, it has to be unpleasant!
Bringing about change
Inner- discipline is the keyword to bring about any change in oneself. We should be able to establish new behaviour patterns which don’t happen overnight and takes years to develop. Coupled with realistic expectations and positive states of mind in response to any negative state of mind, change can be brought about. With introspection and a little common sense, we can easily find antidotes to any negativity in us. For example, sincere motivation can be an antidote to anxiety, honesty to oneself counteracts lack of self-confidence like love for hate and change is inevitable.
Overall the book provides such simple but beautiful insights to life. Though the author has rambled for many pages (about 350!) about such easy concepts that could be explained in a paragraph, but for people who won’t easily believe in what the author has to say, such substantiating can be beneficial. It’s quite an easy but a life changing read.
The finesse of the book is in how the Dalai Lama has simplified living life with the cultivation of most basic qualities like positivity and affection like a child. It efficiently breaks our notion that adulthood is difficult because being childlike helps to live our lives better.
It seems at the outset of the book that we will be diving into the Buddhist religious principles but reading the book, but you will not find any imposition of Buddhism but there seems to be an easy flow in throwing light about the fundamentals of living life.
I give it 4/5 stars!
