The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living (10th Anniversary Edition)

The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living (10th Anniversary Edition)

Dalai Lama

Language: English

Pages: 170

ISBN: B00BW8V1TI

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


An updated edition of a beloved classic, the original book on happiness, with new material from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Dr. Howard Cutler.

Nearly every time you see him, he's laughing, or at least smiling. And he makes everyone else around him feel like smiling. He's the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, a Nobel Prize winner, and a hugely sought-after speaker and statesman. Why is he so popular? Even after spending only a few minutes in his presence you can't help feeling happier.

If you ask him if he's happy, even though he's suffered the loss of his country, the Dalai Lama will give you an unconditional yes. What's more, he'll tell you that happiness is the purpose of life, and that "the very motion of our life is toward happiness." How to get there has always been the question. He's tried to answer it before, but he's never had the help of a psychiatrist to get the message across in a context we can easily understand.

The Art of Happiness is the book that started the genre of happiness books, and it remains the cornerstone of the field of positive psychology.

Through conversations, stories, and meditations, the Dalai Lama shows us how to defeat day-to-day anxiety, insecurity, anger, and discouragement. Together with Dr. Howard Cutler, he explores many facets of everyday life, including relationships, loss, and the pursuit of wealth, to illustrate how to ride through life's obstacles on a deep and abiding source of inner peace. Based on 2,500 years of Buddhist meditations mixed with a healthy dose of common sense, The Art of Happiness is a book that crosses the boundaries of traditions to help readers with difficulties common to all human beings. After being in print for ten years, this book has touched countless lives and uplifted spirits around the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

more than a few feet away, it was impossible to see him. He appeared to be lost in a sea of heads. From a distance one could still detect his path, however, from the subtle shift in the crowd’s movement as he passed along. It was as if he had ceased to be a visible object and had simply become a felt presence. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book would not exist without the efforts and kindness of many people. First, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai

as long as he or she can afford it. Having a more expensive car than your neighbors might be a problem for them—they might be jealous and so on—but having a new car would give you, yourself, a feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment.” The Dalai Lama shook his head and replied firmly, “No.... Self-satisfaction alone cannot determine if a desire or action is positive or negative. A murderer may have a feeling of satisfaction at the time he is committing the murder, but that doesn’t justify the act.

are still very powerful. However, eventually, as you gradually build up the positive practices, the negative behaviors are automatically diminished. So, actually the practice of Dharma1 is a constant battle within, replacing previous negative conditioning or habituation with new positive conditioning.” Continuing he said, “No matter what activity or practice we are pursuing, there isn’t anything that isn’t made easier through constant familiarity and training. Through training, we can change; we

cultivation of happiness, the genuine inner transformation by deliberately selecting and focusing on positive mental states and challenging negative mental states—is possible because of the very structure and function of the brain. We are born with brains that are genetically hardwired with certain instinctual behavior patterns; we are predisposed mentally, emotionally, and physically to respond to our environment in ways that enable us to survive. These basic sets of instructions are encoded in

poor or inaccurate self-knowledge. Over the years, I’ve often witnessed the Dalai Lama’s illustrating how self-confidence comes from being honest and straightforward about one’s abilities. It came as quite a surprise to me when I first heard him say in front of a large audience simply “I don’t know” in response to a question. Unlike what I was used to with academic lecturers or those who set themselves up as authorities, he admitted his lack of knowledge without embarrassment, qualifying

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