The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and Dr. Howard Cutler

How can the pursuit of happiness not be at the top of our priority list?  I ran across this book by sheer happenstance, and I'm glad that I did.

It's a collaboration between His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and American psychologist Dr. Howard Cutler.  The content consists of Cutler's interviews with the Dalai Lama on the art of happiness, followed by counter-balance and support provided by Dr. Cutler.  

The Dalai Lama approaches the pursuit of happiness from a Buddhist perspective, while Dr. Cutler provides modern, scientific evidence to support the approach.

The Dalai Lama, however, provides an approach to happiness that is deliberately accessible to the non-Buddhist.  This book was, in fact, written for the non-Buddhist, although it certainly provides broad background on the Buddhist tradition throughout.

The approach is simple in outline: Stop doing things that make you angry or upset, and treat everyone with compassion and kindness at all times.

He talks extensively about changing your perspective about the people who you encounter in life.  Don't just get angry because their not doing what you want, but try to envision why they are acting that way; try hard to understand their point of view, empathize with their situation, and shower them with kindness.  

He also advocates that we all think of strangers on the basis of our common humanity: Don't think about that which makes us different, think about our humanity, that which we all share in common.  We all have different view points, cultures, languages, politics, etc.  But at our most basic level, as humans, we all want to avoid pain and feel genuinely happy.  

One small point I picked up was his delineation between "pleasure" and "happiness," and the fact that many (most?) of us confuse the two.  We try to fill our lives with pleasure, rather than understanding what really makes us happy.  Pleasure is short-term and unsustainable, and often, in fact, leads directly to unhappiness.  Think of alcoholism or drug abuse.  This one point, to me, rendered the book invaluable.

Above all, the single-most constructive art in the pursuit of happiness is treating everyone, and that means everyone, with compassion and kindness.  Look at the world from their perspective, not our own self-centered view, and shower them with kindness and compassion.

Great book.  I'm thinking about buying it as a gift for all of my friends and family...