The
Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living
By Dalai Lama
Pub Date: 11/98
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Binding: Hard Cover, 322pp.
ISBN: 1573221112
Our Price $23.95
Publisher
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 an increasingly
popular speaker and statesman. What's more, he'll tell you that
happiness is the purpose of life, and that "the very motion of our
life is towards 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. Through conversations, stories, and meditations, the Dalai
Lama shows us how to defeat day-to-day anxiety, insecurity, anger, and
discouragement. Together with Dr. 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.
In recent months,
numerous new books have attempted to draw connections between the
traditions of East and West, particularly between Buddhist philosophy
and spiritual practice and contemporary psychological thought. Most of
these books have been written by conventionally educated Western
psychologists and psychiatrists who have sought to fill in what are
perceived as gaps in their practices -- the sense that their scientific
and medical knowledge just can't explain everything -- by turning to
some aspect of Eastern spiritual practice, whether meditation or Zen or
other forms of Buddhist philosophy.
Dr. Howard Cutler, an Arizona-based psychiatrist and the author of The
Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living, is no exception to this
trend. What makes his book unique, however, is Dr. Cutler's source for
the Buddhist thought he explores: his coauthor, Tenzin Gyatso, His
Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of
the people of Tibet.
Through a series of in-depth conversations with the Dalai Lama, and
through a number of the Dalai Lama's public addresses, Dr. Cutler
explores what Tibetan Buddhism might have to offer to Western
conceptions of happiness. Dr. Cutler begins with the Dalai Lama's words
on the subject:
"I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek
happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not,
whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we are all
seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our
life is toward happiness..."
As their further conversation reveals, however, Western notions of
happiness have become confused with pleasure and the satisfaction of
desire. Only by separating happiness from less durable forms of
contentment can we truly achieve the happiness that the Dalai Lama
believes is the goal of our lives:
"...from my point of view, the highest happiness is when one
reaches the stage of Liberation, at which there is no more suffering.
That's genuine, lasting happiness. True happiness relates more to the
mind and heart. Happiness that depends mainly on physical pleasure is
unstable; one day it's there, the next day it may not be."
Attaining this kind of happiness, according to Buddhist thought,
requires training. The Art of Happiness, through sections on
intimacy and compassion, on transforming suffering, and on overcoming
the obstacles to happiness, attempts to provide the reader with a
thoughtful basis for the work of finding a peaceful, happy existence in
the world. Through their conversations, Dr. Cutler and the Dalai Lama
seek common ground in their understandings of human anger and
aggression, of self-esteem, and of love. The book closes with a section
on spiritual values, a call to take this pursuit of happiness to a
higher and more personal level.
The Art of Happiness
provides an ideal introduction to the
philosophical and spiritual connections of East and West, while at the
same time offering the reader already acquainted with these traditions
fresh insight from the wisdom of the Dalai Lama. Dr. Cutler admits in
his introduction that he had originally hoped to produce a traditional
self-help-style book, but what he has created in The Art of Happiness
is something more indeed -- it is, as the subtitle claims, truly a
handbook for living.
—Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Library
Journal
The Art of
Happiness is read like an enchanting Indian tale by Howard Cutler and
Ernest Abuba. Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is the
spiritiual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people. Cutler helps to
blend psychology with the Dalai Lamas Buddhist meditations and stories.
Gyatso talks about how to defeat depression, anxiety, anger, and
jealousy through meditation. He discusses relationships, health, family,
work, and spirituality and how to find inner peace while facing these
struggles. His tireless efforts on behalf of human rights and world
peace have brought him international recognition. He is the recipient of
the Wallenberg Award (conferred by the U.S. Congressional Human Rights
Foundation), the Albert Schweitzer Award, and the Nobel Peace Prize.
Recommended for world religion collections.Ravonne A. Green, Virginia
Polytechnic Inst. & State Univ., Blacksburg
The
Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living