The Art Of Happiness

The Art Of Happiness is the result of a psychiatrist interviewing the Dalai Lama on how he personally achieved inner peace, calmness, and happiness.

My uncle’s body will be cremated. Do you know how long the Wikipedia article for cremation is? It’s a widely spread, religious practice, used in many cultures, Western or Eastern.

I don’t know much about it. No one in my family is very religious, some of us are even atheists. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be spiritual.

The Dalai Lama says it doesn’t matter which religion you belong to, or whether you belong to any, for that matter.

He believes in basic spirituality, being compassionate, a good person, and caring for one another.

I spent a lot of time thinking yesterday. I took a long walk with my roommate, and we talked about life. My Mum called, and I spoke to my cousin as well.

We each have our own way of dealing with suffering, and none of them are right or wrong.

To me, being spiritual means seeing the bigger picture, understanding that there is a meaning behind everything, and learning from both good and bad events.

Only then can I take what I learned and use it for both my own and the greater good.

Ask yourself: What does being spiritual mean to you?

And then don’t let anyone tell you you’re wrong.

When asked about suffering, the Dalai Lama shares a big mistake we “Westerners” make: thinking it’s unnatural.

Suffering is a part of life, he says, but by rejecting that we make ourselves into victims and start assigning blame, when there really is none to be assigned.

The only constant thing is change.

As contradictory as it may sound, it means we have to learn to let go.

Resistance to change leads to suffering. As a matter of fact, it is the root cause of suffering.

Once you accept the change, you can openly address it, find the meaning in it, and learn from it.

You can bitch and moan about slamming your car door and hurting your hand, yell at the cashier for being too slow, or cry for hours after a loved one dies.

But the second you accept the change, that’s when progress happens. It’s when you calm down and turn the situation around. And that’s the path to happiness.

There are a lot of different approaches to building confidence, most of them based on challenging yourself (including mine). The Dalai Lama has a great alternative point of view here. He says to know your limits. Be honest with yourself and others about what you can and cannot do. If you’re okay with not knowing everything, then you…