Dalai lama the art of happiness pdf download

And I think that if that human ability, that human intelligence, develops in an unbalanced way, without being properly counterbalanced with compassion, then it can become destructive. It can lead to disaster. When human intelligence and human goodness or affection are used together, all human actions become constructive. The notion that human behavior is essentially egoistic, that fundamentally we are all out for ourselves, is deeply ingrained in Western thought.

The idea that not only are we inherently selfish but also that aggression and hostility are part of basic human nature has dominated our culture for centuries. Of course, historically there were plenty of people with the opposite view.

But for some reason the more pessimistic view of humanity has taken root in our culture, at least since the seventeenth century, under the influence of philosophers like Thomas Hobbes, who had a pretty dark view of the human species. He saw the human race as being violent, competitive, in continual conflict, and concerned only with self-interest.

Hobbes, who was famous for discounting any notion of basic human kindness, was once caught giving money to a beggar on the street. Beginning in the earliest days of modern scientific psychology, there was a general underlying assumption that all human motivation is ultimately egoistic, based purely on self-interest.

After implicitly accepting the premise of our essential selfishness, a number of very prominent scientists over the past hundred years have added to this a belief in the essential aggressive nature of humans. Over the past two or three decades, there have been literally hundreds of scientific studies indicating that aggression is not essentially innate and that violent behavior is influenced by a variety of biological, social, situational, and environmental factors.

In that statement, they of course acknowledged that violent behavior does occur, but they categorically stated that it is scientifically incorrect to say that we have an inherited tendency to make war or act violently.

That behavior is not genetically programmed into human nature. Investigators such as C. Daniel Batson or Nancy Eisenberg at Arizona State University have conducted numerous studies over the past few years that demonstrate that humans have a tendency toward altruistic behavior. Some scientists, such as soci ologist Dr.

Linda Wilson, seek to discover why this is so. She has theorized that altruism may be part of our basic survival instinct—the very opposite to ideas of earlier thinkers who theorized that hostility and aggression were the hallmark of our survival instinct. Wilson found a strong pattern of altruism among disaster victims, which seemed to be part of the recovery process. She found that working together to help each other tended to ward off later psychological problems that might have resulted from the trauma.

The tendency to closely bond with others, acting for the welfare of others as well as oneself, may be deeply rooted in human nature, forged in the remote past as those who bonded together and became part of a group had an increased chance of survival. This need to form close social ties persists up to the present day.

In studies, such as one conducted by Dr. Scientists are discovering that those who lack close social ties seem to suffer from poor health, higher levels of unhappiness, and a greater vulnerability to stress.

Reaching out to help others may be as fundamental to our nature as communication. One could draw an analogy with the development of language which, like the capacity for compassion and altruism, is one of the magnificent features of the human race.

Particular areas of the brain are specifically devoted to the potential for language. With this idea in mind, researchers are now seeking to discover the optimal environmental conditions that will allow the seed of caring and compassion to ripen in children.

Revising our basic assumptions about the underlying nature of human beings, from hostile to helpful, can open up new possibilities. At birth, infants appear to be programmed with only one thing on their minds: the gratification of their own needs—food, physical comfort, and so on.

But if we suspend that basic egoistic assumption, a whole new picture begins to emerge. By just observing a healthy infant, it would be hard to deny the underlying gentle nature of human beings. And from this new vantage point, we could make a good case that the capacity to bring pleasure to another, the caregiver, is inborn. For example, in a newborn infant the sense of smell is developed to perhaps only 5 percent that of an adult, and the sense of taste is developed very little.

But what does exist of these senses in the newborn is geared toward the smell and taste of breast milk. The act of nursing not only provides nutrients for the baby; it also serves to relieve tension in the breast.

So, we could say that the infant is born with an innate capacity to bring pleasure to the mother, by relieving the tension in the breast.

An infant is also biologically programmed to recognize and respond to faces, and there are few people who fail to find genuine pleasure in having a young baby gazing innocently into their eyes and smile. Once we conclude that the basic nature of humanity is compassionate rather than aggressive, our relationship to the world around us changes immediately. Seeing others as basically compassionate instead of hostile and selfish helps us relax, trust, live at ease.

It makes us happier. From that perspective, our task becomes one of discarding the things that lead to suffering and accumulating the things that lead to happiness. When faced with a feeling of stagnation and confusion, it may be helpful to take an hour, an afternoon, or even several days to simply reflect on what it is that will truly bring us happiness, and then reset our priorities on the basis of that.

This can put our life back in proper context, allow a fresh perspective, and enable us to see which direction to take. From time to time we are faced with pivotal decisions that can affect the entire course of our lives. The firm resolve to become happy —to learn about the factors that lead to happiness and take positive steps to build a happier life—can be just such a decision. The turning-toward happiness as a valid goal and the conscious decision to seek happiness in a systematic manner can profoundly change the rest of our lives.

He summarized his beliefs in the following words that can be used as a meditation. Proper utilization of time is so important. While we have this body, and especially this amazing human brain, I think every minute is something precious. Our day-to-day existence is very much alive with hope, although there is no guarantee of our future. But still we are working for that purely on the basis of hope.

So, we need to make the best use of our time. I believe that the proper utilization of time is this: if you can, serve other people, other sentient beings. If not, at least refrain from harming them. I think that is the whole basis of my philosophy. The purpose of our life needs to be positive. For our life to be of value, I think we must develop basic good human qualities—warmth, kindness, compassion.

Then our life becomes meaningful and more peaceful—happier. As tea was poured, he slipped off a pair of butterscotch-colored Rockports and settled comfortably into an oversized chair.

He smiled, but remained silent. I was unprepared for this response. I never expected to confront anyone who never felt lonely. This attitude immediately creates a feeling of affinity, a kind of connectedness.

So because that kind of fear and apprehension is normally absent, there is a kind of openness. Are there specific methods that an average person could use to develop this attitude?

If you approach others with the thought of compassion, that will automatically reduce fear and allow an openness with other people. It creates a positive, friendly atmosphere. That kind of openness at least allows the possibility of having a meaningful conversation with them. But without the attitude of compassion, if you are feeling closed, irritated, or indifferent, then you can even be approached by your best friend and you just feel uncomfortable.

So, if you wish to overcome that feeling of isolation and loneliness, I think that your underlying attitude makes a tremendous difference. And approaching others with the thought of compassion in your mind is the best way to do this. In the past twenty years, psychologists have begun to study loneliness in a scientific manner, conducting a fair number of surveys and studies on the subject.

One of the most striking findings of these studies is that virtually all people report that they do experience loneliness, either currently or in the past. In one large survey, one-fourth of U. Although we often think of chronic loneliness as an affliction particularly widespread among the elderly, isolated in empty apartments or in the back wards of nursing homes, research suggests that teenagers and young adults are just as likely to report they are lonely as the elderly.

Because of the widespread occurrence of loneliness, investigators have begun to examine the complex variables that may contribute to loneliness. For instance, they have found that lonely individuals often have problems with self- disclosure, have difficulty communicating with others, are poor listeners, and lack certain social skills such as picking up conversational cues knowing when to nod, to respond appropriately, or to remain silent.

This research suggests that one strategy for overcoming loneliness would be to work on improving these social skills. And there was evidence to support his claim. Often enough, I had witnessed his first interaction with a stranger, which was invariably positive.

I sensed that he had spent a great deal of time thinking about the importance of compassion, carefully cultivating it, and using it to enrich and soften the ground of his everyday experience, making that soil fertile and receptive to positive interactions with others—a method that can, in fact, be used by anyone who suffers from loneliness.

However, compassion is required in order to activate that seed which is inherent in our hearts and minds Addressing an audience of fifteen hundred people, counting among them a fair proportion of dedicated students of Buddhism, he then began to discuss the Buddhist doctrine of the Field of Merit.

The Dalai Lama explained that a Field of Merit is a source or foundation from which a person can accumulate Merit. He explained that Buddhist doctrine specifies two Fields of Merit: the field of the Buddhas and the field of other sentient beings. One method of accumulating Merit involves generating respect, faith, and confidence in the Buddhas, the Enlightened beings.

The other method involves practicing actions like kindness, generosity, tolerance, and so on and conscious restraint from negative actions like killing, stealing, and lying. That second method of acquiring Merit requires interaction with other people, rather than interaction with the Buddhas. On that basis, the Dalai Lama pointed out, other people can be of great help to us in accumulating Merit. His lucid reasoning and the conviction behind his words combined to give special power and impact to his talk that afternoon.

As I looked around the room, I could see that many members of the audience were visibly moved. I, myself, was less enthralled. As a result of our earlier conversations, I was in the rudimentary stages of appreciating the profound importance of compassion, yet I was still heavily influenced by years of rational, scientific conditioning that made me regard any talk of kindness and compassion as being a bit too sentimental for my taste.

I started furtively looking around the room, searching for famous, interesting, or familiar faces. Having eaten a big meal just before the talk, I started to get sleepy.

I drifted in and out. Factors such as good health, material goods, friends, and so on. To maintain good health, you rely on medicines made by others and health care provided by others. Many people are involved in making those things possible. Others are indispensable. So, despite the fact that the process of relating to others might involve hardships, quarrels, and cursing, we have to try to maintain an attitude of friendship and warmth in order to lead a way of life in which there is enough interaction with other people to enjoy a happy life.

Prided myself on this quality in fact. Yet that afternoon, as I listened to the Dalai Lama, something happened. Tuning in for a moment, I listened as he mentioned the many people who are involved in making all our material possessions. As he said this, I began to think about how many people were involved in making my shirt. I started by imagining the farmer who grew the cotton. Then, for that matter, the hundreds or even thousands of people involved in manufacturing that tractor, including the people who mined the ore to make the metal for each part of the tractor.

And all the designers of the tractor. Then, of course, the people who processed the cotton, the people who wove the cloth, and the people who cut, dyed, and sewed that cloth.

The cargo workers and truck drivers who delivered the shirt to the store and the salesperson who sold the shirt to me. My precious self-reliance was a complete illusion, a fantasy. As this realization dawned on me, I was overcome with a profound sense of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings.

I felt a softening. It made me want to cry. At the same time that our culture is caught up in the celebration of fierce independence, we also yearn for intimacy and connection with a special loved one. We focus all our energy on finding the one person who we hope will heal our loneliness yet prop up our illusion that we are still independent. Though this connection is difficult to achieve with even one person, I would find out that the Dalai Lama is capable of and recommends maintaining closeness with as many people as possible.

In fact, his aim is to connect with everyone. But in examining our relationship with others, there are really so many different ways in which we can relate to one another, different kinds of relationships People feel that unless they have a relationship of this kind that there is something missing in their lives I assume that people were in awe of you, perhaps even a bit nervous or frightened to be in your presence.

I never felt a lack of intimacy. Of course my father passed away many years ago, but I felt quite close to my mother, my teachers, my tutors, and others. And with many of these people I could share my deepest feelings, fears, and concerns. At other times, for example, I used to spend time in the kitchen and I became quite close with some of the kitchen staff and we could joke or gossip or share things and it would be quite relaxed, without that sense of formality or distance.

I think a lot of this has to do with my nature. But on a personal level, being open and sharing things can be very useful. So, I feel a sense of intimacy and connection with my friends. For instance, in the past, if I felt disappointed or unhappy with Tibetan government policy or I was concerned with other problems, even the threat of Chinese invasion, then I would return to my rooms and share this with the person who sweeps the floor.

From one point of view it may seem quite silly to some that the Dalai Lama, the head of the Tibetan government, facing some international or national problems, would share them with a sweeper. From these intimate attachments a person draws his strength and enjoyment of life and, through what he contributes, he gives strength and enjoyment to others. These are matters about which current science and traditional wisdom are at one.

In looking at the health benefits of intimate relationships, medical researchers have found that people who have close friendships, people whom they can turn to for affirmation, empathy, and affection, are more likely to survive health challenges such as heart attacks and major surgery and are less likely to develop diseases such as cancer and respiratory infections.

For example, one study of over a thousand heart patients at Duke University Medical Center found that those who lacked a spouse or close confidant were three times more likely to die within five years of the diagnosis of heart disease as those who were married or had a close friend. And a study at the University of Nebraska School of Medicine of several hundred elderly people found that those with an intimate relationship had better immune function and lower cholesterol levels.

Over the course of the past several years there have been at least a half- dozen massive investigations conducted by a number of different researchers looking at the relationship between intimacy and health.

After interviewing thousands of people, the various investigators all seem to have reached the same conclusion: close relationships do, in fact, promote health. Intimacy is equally as important in maintaining good emotional health. He believed that the experience of separateness, first encountered in infancy, is the source of all anxiety in human life.

He felt that separation and interpersonal loss are at the very roots of the human experiences of fear, sadness, and sorrow. So, given the vital importance of intimacy, how do we set about achieving intimacy in our daily lives? Perhaps the most striking feature of even a cursory review of the various studies on intimacy is the wide diversity of definitions and theories about exactly what intimacy is.

At the most concrete end of the spectrum is the author Desmond Morris, who writes about intimacy from the perspective of a zoologist trained in ethology. In my terms, the act of intimacy occurs whenever two individuals come into bodily contact. He sees touch as the vehicle through which we comfort one another and are comforted, via hugs or clasps of the hand and, when those avenues are not available to us, more indirect means of physical contact such as a manicure.

He even theorizes that the physical contacts we have with objects in our environment, from cigarettes to jewelry to waterbeds, act as substitutes for intimacy. Most investigators are not so concrete in their definitions of intimacy, agreeing that intimacy is more than just physical closeness. Their definition is so broad, in fact, that it includes our relationship with inanimate objects—trees, stars, and even space. But this model of intimacy is not universally accepted among all cultures.

For instance, the Japanese seem to rely more on friendships to gain intimacy, whereas Americans seek it more in romantic relationships with a boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse. In noting this, some researchers have suggested that Asians who tend to be less focused on personal feelings such as passion and are more concerned with the practical aspects of social attachments appear less vulnerable to the kind of disillusionment that leads to the crumbling of relationships.

In colonial America, the level of physical intimacy and proximity was generally greater than it is today, as family and even strangers shared close spaces and slept together in one room and used a common room for bathing, eating, and sleeping. Only a century later, love and marriage became highly romanticized and intimate self-disclosure was expected to be an ingredient in any loving partnership. Ideas of what is considered to be private and intimate behavior have also changed over time.

How people express their emotions has also changed. In the Middle Ages it was considered normal to publicly express a wide range of feelings with great intensity and directness—joy, rage, fear, piety, and even pleasure at torturing and killing enemies. Extremes of hysterical laughter, passionate weeping, and violent rage were expressed much more than would be accepted in our society. But the commonplace expression of emotions and feelings in that society ruled out the concept of emotional intimacy; if one is to display all emotions openly and indiscriminately, then there are no private feelings left to express to a special few.

Clearly, the notions we take for granted about intimacy are not universal. So where does this leave us in our quest to understand what intimacy is? I think that the implication is clear: There is an incredible diversity among human lives, infinite variations among people with respect to how they can experience a sense of closeness. This realization alone offers us a great opportunity. It means that at this very moment we have vast resources of intimacy available to us. Intimacy is all around us.

Today, so many of us are oppressed by a feeling of something missing in our lives, intensely suffering from a lack of intimacy. But we have within our power the means to avoid this; we need only courageously expand our concept of intimacy to include all the other forms that surround us on a daily basis. It makes me wonder. At the very moment that those people were composing their ads, struggling to find just the right words that would bring romance into their lives and end the loneliness, how many of those people were already surrounded by friends, family, or acquaintances—relationships that could easily be cultivated into genuine and deeply satisfying intimate relationships?

Many, I would guess. I was a few minutes early. I assumed my familiar post outside his hotel suite door and used the time to review my notes in preparation for our session, trying at the same time to avoid the suspicious gaze of a security guard—the same look perfected by convenience store clerks for use on junior high school students loitering around the magazine racks. Within a few moments, the door opened and a well-dressed middle-aged couple were shown out. They looked familiar.

I remembered that I had been briefly introduced to them several days earlier. We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you or not. Some of the techniques listed in The Art of Happiness may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.

Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. The art of happiness : a handbook for living Item Preview. EMBED for wordpress. True compassion is universal in scope. It is accompanied by a feeling of responsibility, said the Dalai Lama.

This text provides a philosophy for our troubled times, and reveals a clear path to spiritual growth and enlightenment. It covers such themes as peace, love, religion, and justice. This new guide to finding a happier way of life draws on the ancient wisdom of the stoics to reveal lasting truths and proven strategies for enhanced well-being. By learning what stoicism is, you can revolutionize your life, learning how to - properly - 'seize the day', how to cope in the face of adversity, and how to come to terms with whatever situation you're in.

The third in an introductory series to fine art curated by theme for young children Emotions are part of every toddler's day Each image is accompanied by a brief, tender, read-aloud text, and the work's title and artist's name are included as secondary material for true integration of narrative and information.

It's a perfect introduction to this wonderful emotion for families of all kinds. Ages Skip to content. The Art of Happiness. The Art of Happiness Book Review:. The Art of Happiness at Work.

The Art of Happiness 10th Anniversary Edition. Zen and the Art of Happiness. Zen and the Art of Happiness Book Review:. The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World. Stoicism and the Art of Happiness. Stoicism and the Art of Happiness Book Review:. Happiness and the Art of Being. Happiness and the Art of Being Book Review:. The Book of Joy. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator.

We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you.