The Art of Happiness

by Dalai Lama

  ‘Yes, I think that’s important.’ He paused, deftly and automatically rotating his rosary between his fingers as he reflected. ‘There are some people who, right from the beginning, have suffered much and have lacked other’s affection – so that later in life it seems almost as if they have no human feeling, no capacity for compassion and affection, those who are hardened and brutal . . .’ The Dalai Lama paused again, and for several moments seemed to earnestly ponder the question. As he bent over his tea, even the contour of his shoulders suggested that he was deep in thought. He showed no inclination to continue immediately, however, and we drank our tea in silence. Finally he shrugged his shoulders, as if acknowledging that he had no solution.

  ‘So do you think that techniques to enhance empathy and develop compassion would not be helpful to people with that sort of difficult background?’

  ‘There are always different degrees of benefit that one might receive from practicing various methods and techniques, depending on one’s particular circumstances,’ he explained. ‘It’s also possible that in some cases these techniques may not be effective at all . . . ’

  Trying to clarify, I interrupted, ‘And the specific techniques to enhance compassion that you’re referring to are . . . ?’

  ‘Just what we have been talking about. First, through learning, thoroughly understanding the value of compassion – this gives you a feeling of conviction and determination. Then, employing methods to enhance empathy, such as using your imagination, your creativity, to visualize yourself in another’s situation. And later this week in the public talks we’ll talk about certain exercises or practices that you can undertake, such as the practice of Tong-Len, that serves to strengthen your compassion. But I think it’s important to remember that these techniques, such as the practice of Tong-Len, were developed to help as many as possible, at least some portion of the human population. But it was never expected that these techniques could help 100 per cent of people, the entire human population.

  ‘But the main point really – if we are talking about various methods to develop compassion – the important thing is that people make a sincere effort to develop their capacity for compassion. The degree to which they will actually be able to cultivate compassion depends on so many variables, who can tell? But if they make their best efforts to be kinder, to cultivate compassion and make the world a better place, then at the end of the day they can say, “At least I’ve done my best!” ’

  The Benefits of Compassion

  In recent years there have been many studies that support the idea that developing compassion and altruism has a positive impact on our physical and emotional health. In one well-known experiment, for example, David McClelland, a psychologist at Harvard University, showed a group of students a film of Mother Teresa working among Calcutta’s sick and poor. The students reported that the film stimulated feelings of compassion. Afterward, he analyzed the students’ saliva and found an increase in immunoglobulin-A, an antibody that can help fight respiratory infections. In another study done by James House at the University of Michigan Research Center, investigators found that doing regular volunteer work, interacting with others in a warm and compassionate way, dramatically increased life expectancy, and probably overall vitality as well. Many other researchers in the new field of mind-body medicine have demonstrated similar findings, documenting that positive states of mind can improve our physical health.

  In addition to the beneficial effects on one’s physical health, there is evidence that compassion and caring behavior contributes to good emotional health. Studies have shown that reaching out to help others can induce a feeling of happiness, a calmer mind, and less depression. In a thirty-year study of a group of Harvard graduates, researcher George Vaillant concluded, in fact, that adopting an altruistic lifestyle is a critical component of good mental health. Another survey by Allan Luks, conducted with several thousand people who were regularly involved in volunteer activities that helped others, revealed that over 90 per cent of these volunteers reported a kind of ‘high’ associated with the activity, characterized by a feeling of warmth, more energy, and a kind of euphoria. They also had a distinct feeling of calmness and enhanced self-worth following the activity. Not only did these caring behaviors provide an interaction that was emotionally nourishing, but it was also found that this ‘helper’s calm’ was linked to relief from a variety of stress-related physical disorders as well.

  While the scientific evidence clearly backs up the Dalai Lama’s position on the very real and practical value of compassion, one needn’t rely solely on experiments and surveys to confirm the truth of this view. We can discover the close links between caring, compassion, and personal happiness in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. Joseph, a sixty-year-old building contractor whom I first met some years ago, serves as a good illustration of this. For thirty years Joseph rode the gravy train, capitalizing on a seemingly limitless construction boom in Arizona to become a multimillionaire. In the late 1980s, however, came the biggest real estate crash in Arizona’s history. Joseph was heavily leveraged and lost everything. He ended up declaring bankruptcy. His financial problems created a strain on his marriage, which finally resulted in a divorce after twenty-five years of marriage. Not surprisingly, Joseph didn’t take all this very well. He started drinking heavily. Fortunately, he was able to eventually quit drinking with the help of AA. As part of his AA program he became a sponsor and helped other alcoholics stay sober. He discovered that he enjoyed his role as a sponsor, reaching out to help others, and started volunteering in other organizations as well. He put his business knowledge to use in helping the economically underprivileged. In talking about his current life, Joseph said, ‘I own a very small remodeling business now. It brings a modest income, but I realize that I’ll never be as rich as I once was. The funny thing is, though, that I don’t really want that kind of money again. I much prefer spending my time volunteering for different groups, working directly with people, helping them out the best I can. These days, I get more pure enjoyment out of one day than I did in a month when I was makin’ the big money. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life!’

  Meditation on Compassion

  As promised during the course of our conversations, true to his word, the Dalai Lama concluded one public talk in Arizona with a meditation on compassion. It was a simple exercise. Yet in a powerful and elegant way, he seemed to summarize and crystallize his previous discussion of compassion, turning it into a formal five-minute exercise that was direct and to the point.

  ‘In generating compassion, you start by recognizing that you do not want suffering and that you have a right to have happiness. This can be verified or validated by your own experience. You then recognize that other people, just like yourself, also do not want to suffer and they have a right to have happiness. So this becomes the basis of your beginning to generate compassion.

  ‘So . . . let us meditate on compassion today. Begin by visualizing a person who is acutely suffering, someone who is in pain or is in a very unfortunate situation. For the first three minutes of the meditation, reflect on that individual’s suffering in a more analytic way – think about their intense suffering and the unfortunate state of that person’s existence. After thinking about that person’s suffering for a few minutes, next, try to relate that to yourself, thinking, “That individual has the same capacity for experiencing pain, joy, happiness, and suffering that I do.” Then, try to allow your natural response to arise – a natural feeling of compassion towards that person. Try to arrive at a conclusion: thinking how strongly you wish for that person to be free from that suffering. And resolve that you will help that person to be relieved from their suffering. Finally, place your mind single-pointedly on that kind of conclusion or resolution, and for the last few minutes of the meditation try to simply generate your mind in a compassionate or loving state.’

  With that, the Dalai Lama assumed a cross-legged meditation posture, remaining completely immob
ile as he practiced the meditation along with the audience. Stark silence. But there was something quite stirring about sitting among the assembly that morning. I imagine that even the most hardened individual could not help being moved by being surrounded by fifteen hundred people, every one of them holding the thought of compassion in their minds. After a few minutes, the Dalai Lama broke into a low Tibetan chant, his voice deep, melodic, gently breaking and falling in tones that soothed, comforted.

  PART 3

  Transforming Suffering

  CHAPTER 8

  Facing Suffering

  In the time of the Buddha, a woman named Kisagotami suffered the death of her only child. Unable to accept it, she ran from person to person, seeking a medicine to restore her child to life. The Buddha was said to have such a medicine.

  Kisagotami went to the Buddha, paid homage, and asked, ‘Can you make a medicine that will restore my child?’

  ‘I know of such a medicine,’ the Buddha replied. ‘But in order to make it, I must have certain ingredients.’

  Relieved, the woman asked, ‘What ingredients do you require?’

  ‘Bring me a handful of mustard seed,’ said the Buddha.

  The woman promised to procure it for him, but as she was leaving, he added, ‘I require that the mustard seed be taken from a household where no child, spouse, parent, or servant has died.’

  The woman agreed and began going from house to house in search of the mustard seed. At each house the people agreed to give her the seed, but when she asked them if anyone had died in that household, she could find no home where death had not visited – in one house a daughter, in another a servant, in others a husband or parent had died. Kisagotami was not able to find a home free from the suffering of death. Seeing she was not alone in her grief, the mother let go of her child’s lifeless body and returned to the Buddha, who said with great compassion, ‘You thought that you alone had lost a son; the law of death is that among all living creatures there is no permanence.’

  Kisagotami’s search taught her that no one lives free from suffering and loss. She hadn’t been singled out for this terrible misfortune. This insight didn’t eliminate the inevitable suffering that comes from loss, but it did reduce the suffering that came from struggling against this sad fact of life.

  Although pain and suffering are universal human phenomena, that doesn’t mean we have an easy time accepting them. Human beings have devised a vast repertoire of strategies for avoiding having to experience suffering. Sometimes we use external means, such as chemicals – deadening and medicating our emotional pain with drugs or alcohol. We have an array of internal mechanisms as well – psychological defenses, often unconscious, that buffer us from feeling too much emotional pain and anguish when we are confronted with problems. Sometimes these defense mechanisms can be quite primitive, such as simply refusing to recognize that a problem exists. At other times, we may vaguely recognize that we have a problem but immerse ourselves in a million distractions or entertainments to avoid thinking about it. Or, we might use projection – unable to accept that we have a problem, we unconsciously project it onto others and blame them for our suffering: ‘Yeah, I’m miserable. But it’s not me that has the problem; it’s someone else who has the problem. If it wasn’t for that damn boss constantly giving me a hard time [or “my partner ignoring me” or . . . ], I’d be fine.’

  Suffering can only be avoided temporarily. But like a disease that’s left untreated (or perhaps superficially treated with medication that just masks the symptoms but doesn’t cure the underlying condition), the disease invariably festers and worsens. The high from drugs or alcohol certainly eases our pain for a while, but with continued use, the physical damage to our bodies and the social damage to our lives can cause far more suffering than the diffuse dissatisfaction or the acute emotional pain that led us to these substances in the first place. The internal psychological defenses like denial or repression may shield and protect us from feeling the pain a bit longer, but it still doesn’t make the suffering disappear.

  Randall lost his father to cancer a little over a year ago. He was quite close to his father, and at the time everyone was surprised by how well he was taking the death. ‘Of course I’m sad,’ he explained in a stoic tone. ‘But really I’m fine. I’ll miss him, but life goes on. And anyway, I can’t focus on missing him right now; I have to arrange the funeral and take care of his estate for my mom. But I’ll be fine,’ he reassured everyone. One year later, however, shortly after the anniversary of his father’s death, Randall began to spiral into a severe depression. He came to see me and explained, ‘I just can’t understand what is causing this depression. Everything seems to be going well right now. It can’t be the death of my father; he died over a year ago, and I’ve already come to terms with his death.’ With very little therapy it became clear, however, that in struggling to keep a tight reign on his emotions, in order to ‘be strong,’ he had never fully dealt with his feelings of loss and grief. These feelings continued to grow until finally manifesting as an overpowering depression that he was forced to deal with.

  In Randall’s case, his depression lifted rather quickly as we focused on his pain and feelings of loss, and he was able to fully confront and experience his grief. Sometimes, however, our unconscious strategies to avoid facing our problems are more deep seated – deeply ingrained coping mechanisms that can become embedded into our personality and are hard to extract. Most of us know a friend, acquaintance, or family member, for example, who avoids problems by projecting onto others and blaming them – accusing others of having faults that are, in fact, his or her own. This certainly isn’t an effective method of eliminating problems, however, and many of these individuals are condemned to a lifetime of unhappiness as long as they continue in that pattern.

  The Dalai Lama detailed his approach to human suffering – an approach that ultimately includes a belief in the possibility of freedom from suffering, but starts with accepting suffering as a natural fact of human existence, and courageously facing our problems head-on.

  ‘In our daily lives problems are bound to arise. The biggest problems in our lives are the ones that we inevitably have to face, like old age, illness, and death. Trying to avoid our problems or simply not thinking about them may provide temporary relief, but I think that there is a better approach. If you directly confront your suffering, you will be in a better position to appreciate the depth and nature of the problem. If you are in a battle, as long as you remain ignorant of the status and combat capability of your enemy, you will be totally unprepared and paralyzed by fear. However, if you know the fighting capability of your opponent, what sort of weapons they have and so on, then you’re in a much better position when you engage in the war. In the same way, if you confront your problems rather than avoid them, you will be in a better position to deal with them.’

  This approach to one’s problems was clearly reasonable, but pressing the issue a bit further, I asked, ‘Yes, but what if you directly confront a problem, and find out that there’s no solution? That’s pretty tough to face . . .’

  ‘But I think it’s still better to face it,’ he replied with a martial spirit. ‘For example, you might consider things like old age and death as negative, unwanted, and simply try to forget about them. But eventually these things will come anyway. And if you’ve avoided thinking about these things, when the day comes that any of these events occur, it will come as a shock causing an unbearable mental uneasiness. However, if you spend some time thinking about old age, death, and these other unfortunate things, your mind will be much more stable when these things happen as you have already become acquainted with these problems and kinds of suffering and have anticipated that they will occur.

  ‘That’s why I believe it can be useful to prepare yourself ahead of time by familiarizing yourself with the kinds of suffering you might encounter. To use the battle analogy again, reflecting on suffering could be seen like a military exercise. People who never heard of war, g
uns, bombing, and so on might faint if they had to go into battle. But through military drills you could familiarize your mind with what might occur, so if a war erupted, it would not be so hard on you.’

  ‘Well, I can see how familiarizing ourselves with the kinds of suffering we might encounter would have some value in reducing fear and apprehension, but it still seems that sometimes certain dilemmas present no option but the possibility of suffering. How can we avoid worry in those circumstances?’

  ‘A dilemma such as?’

  I stopped to consider. ‘Well, let’s say, for example, that a woman is pregnant and they do an amniocentesis or sonogram and find out that the child will have a significant birth defect. They discover that the child will have some extreme mental or physical handicap. So, obviously the woman is filled with anxiety because she doesn’t know what to do. She can choose to do something about the situation and get an abortion, to save the baby from a life of suffering, but then she will experience a feeling of great loss and pain and perhaps she will also experience other feelings such as guilt. Or, she can choose to let nature take its course and have the baby. But then, she may be faced with a lifetime of hardship and suffering for herself and the child.’

  The Dalai Lama listened intently as I spoke. With a somewhat wistful tone, he replied, ‘Whether one approaches these problems from the Western or the Buddhist perspective, these kinds of dilemmas are very difficult, very difficult. Now your example regarding the decision to abort the fetus with a birth defect – nobody really knows what would be better in the long run. Even if a child is born with a defect, maybe in the long run it would be better for the mother or the family or the child itself. But also there’s the possibility that taking into account the long-term consequences, it is better to abort maybe that could be more positive in the long run. But then who decides? It’s very difficult. Even from the Buddhist viewpoint, that sort of judgment is beyond our rational ability.’ He paused, then added, ‘I think, though, that their background and beliefs would play a role in how particular individuals might respond to this kind of difficult situation . . .’