The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Douglas Carlton Abrams

Overview

2017 Books for a Better Life Award Winner—Spiritual Category

Two great spiritual masters share their own hard-won wisdom about living with joy even in the face of adversity.
 
The occasion was a big birthday. And it inspired two close friends to get together in Dharamsala for a talk about something very important to them. The friends were His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The subject was joy. Both winners of the Nobel Prize, both great spiritual masters and moral leaders of our time, they are also known for being among the most infectiously happy people on the planet.

From the beginning the book was envisioned as a three-layer birthday cake: their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. Both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu have been tested by great personal and national adversity, and here they share their personal stories of struggle and renewal. Now that they are both in their eighties, they especially want to spread the core message that to have joy yourself, you must bring joy to others.

Most of all, during that landmark week in Dharamsala, they demonstrated by their own exuberance, compassion, and humor how joy can be transformed from a fleeting emotion into an enduring way of life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399185045
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/20/2016
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	567
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk. He is the spiritual leader of Tibet.  He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.  He lives in exile in Dharamsala, India. He was born in 1935 to a poor farming family in northeastern Tibet and was recognized at the age of two as the reincarnation of his predecessor, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama.  He travels extensively, speaking in favor of ecumenical understanding, kindness and compassion, respect for the environment, and, above all, world peace.  For more information, please visit www.dalailama.com.
 
Desmond Mpilo Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Southern Africa, became a prominent leader in the crusade for justice and racial conciliation in South Africa.  He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.  In 1994, Tutu was appointed as Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where he pioneered a new way for countries to move forward after experiencing civil conflict and oppression.  Archbishop Tutu is regarded as an elder world statesman, a leading moral voice, and an icon of hope.  Throughout his life, he has cared deeply about the needs of people around the world, teaching love and compassion for all. For more information please visit www.tutu.org.za.
 
Douglas Abrams is an author, editor, and literary agent.  He is the Founder and President of Idea Architects, a creative book and media agency helping visionaries to create a wiser, healthier, and more just world.  Doug has worked with Desmond Tutu as his co-writer and editor for over a decade, and before founding his own literary agency, he was a Senior Editor at HarperCollins and also served for nine years as the Religion Editor at the University of California Press.  He believes strongly in the power of books and media to catalyze the next stage of global evolutionary culture.  For more information please visit www.ideaarchitects.com.

Read an Excerpt

“Is joy a feeling that comes and surprises us, or is it a more dependable way of being?” I asked. “For the two of you, joy seems to be something much more enduring. Your spiritual practice hasn’t made you somber and serious. It’s made you more joyful. So how can people cultivate that sense of joy as a way of being, and not just a temporary feeling?”
 
The Archbishop and the Dalai Lama looked at each other and the Archbishop gestured to the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama squeezed the Archbishop’s hand and began. “Yes, it is true. Joy is something different from happiness. When I use the word happiness, in a sense I mean satisfaction. Sometimes we have a painful experience, but that experience, as you’ve said with birth, can bring great satisfaction and joyfulness.”
 
“Let me ask you,” the Archbishop jumped in. “You’ve been in exile fifty-what years?”
“Fifty-six.”
“Fifty-six years from a country that you love more than anything else. Why are you not morose?”
“Morose?” the Dalai Lama asked, not understanding the word. As Jinpa hurried to translate morose into Tibetan, the Archbishop clarified, “Sad.”
 
The Dalai Lama took the Archbishop’s hand in his, as if comforting him while reviewing these painful events. The Dalai Lama’s storied discovery as the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama meant that at the age of two, he was swept away from his rural home in the Amdo province of eastern Tibet to the one-thousand-room Potala Palace in the capital city of Lhasa. There he was raised in opulent isolation as the future spiritual and political leader of Tibet and as a godlike incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion. After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, the Dalai Lama was thrust into politics. At the age of fifteen he found himself the ruler of six million people and facing an all-out and desperately unequal war. For nine years he tried to negotiate with Communist China for his people’s welfare, and sought political solutions as the country came to be annexed. In 1959, during an uprising that risked resulting in a massacre, the Dalai Lama decided, with a heavy heart, to go into exile. The odds of successfully escaping to India were frighteningly small, but to avoid a confrontation and a bloodbath, he left in the night dressed as a palace guard. He had to take off his recognizable glasses, and his blurred vision must have heightened his sense of fear and uncertainty as the escape party snuck by garrisons of the People’s Liberation Army. They endured sandstorms and snowstorms as they summited nineteen-thousand-foot mountain peaks during their three-week escape.
 
“One of my practices comes from an ancient Indian teacher,” the Dalai Lama began answering the Archbishop’s question. “He taught that when you experience some tragic situation, think about it. If there’s no way to overcome the tragedy, then there is no use worrying too much. So I practice that.” The Dalai Lama was referring to the eighth-century Buddhist master Shantideva, who wrote, “If something can be done about the situation, what need is there for dejection? And if nothing can be done about it, what use is there for being dejected?”
 
The Archbishop cackled, perhaps because it seemed almost too incredible that someone could stop worrying just because it was pointless.
 
“Yes, but I think people know it with their head.” He touched both index fingers to his scalp. “You know, that it doesn’t help worrying. But they still worry.”
 
 “Many of us have become refugees,” the Dalai Lama tried to explain, “and there are a lot of difficulties in my own country. When I look only at that,” he said, cupping his hands into a small circle, “then I worry.” He widened his hands, breaking the circle open. “But when I look at the world, there are a lot of problems, even within the People’s Republic of China. For example, the Hui Muslim community in China has a lot of problems and suffering. And then outside China, there are many more problems and more suffering. When we see these things, we realize that not only do we suffer, but so do many of our human brothers and sisters. So when we look at the same event from a wider perspective, we will reduce the worrying and our own suffering.”
 
I was struck by the simplicity and profundity of what the Dalai Lama was saying. This was far from “don’t worry, be happy,” as the popular Bobby McFerrin song says. This was not a denial of pain and suffering, but a shift in perspective—from oneself and toward others, from anguish to compassion—seeing that others are suffering as well. The remarkable thing about what the Dalai Lama was describing is that as we recognize others’ suffering and realize that we are not alone, our pain is lessened.
 
Often we hear about another’s tragedy, and it makes us feel better about our own situation. This is quite different from what the Dalai Lama was doing. He was not contrasting his situation with others, but uniting his situation with others, enlarging his identity and seeing that he and the Tibetan people were not alone in their suffering. This recognition that we are all connected—whether Tibetan Buddhists or Hui Muslims—is the birth of empathy and compassion.
 
I wondered how the Dalai Lama’s ability to shift his perspective might relate to the adage “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” Was it truly possible to experience pain, whether the pain of an injury or an exile, without suffering? There is a Sutta, or teaching of the Buddha, called the Sallatha Sutta, that makes a similar distinction between our “feelings of pain” and “the suffering that comes as a result of our response” to the pain: “When touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed, ordinary person sorrows, grieves, and laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical and mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another one, so that he feels the pain of two arrows.” It seems that the Dalai Lama was suggesting that by shifting our perspective to a broader, more compassionate one, we can avoid the worry and suffering that is the second arrow.
 
“Then another thing,” the Dalai Lama continued. “There are different aspects to any event. For example, we lost our own country and became refugees, but that same experience gave us new opportunities to see more things. For me personally, I had more opportunities to meet with different people, different spiritual practitioners, like you, and also scientists. This new opportunity arrived because I became a refugee. If I remained in the Potala in Lhasa, I would have stayed in what has often been described as a golden cage: the Lama, holy Dalai Lama.” He was now sitting up stiffly as he once had to when he was the cloistered spiritual head of the Forbidden Kingdom.
 
“So, personally, I prefer the last five decades of refugee life. It’s more useful, more opportunity to learn, to experience life. Therefore, if you look from one angle, you feel, oh how bad, how sad. But if you look from another angle at that same tragedy, that same event, you see that it gives me new opportunities. So, it’s wonderful. That’s the main reason that I’m not sad and morose. There’s a Tibetan saying: ‘Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.’”

Table of Contents

The Invitation to Joy ix

Introduction 1

Arrival: We Are Fragile Creatures 11

Day 1 The Nature of True Joy 27

Why Are You Not Morose? 29

Nothing Beautiful Comes Without Some Suffering 43

Have You Renounced Pleasure? 51

Our Greatest Joy 59

Lunch: The Meeting of Two Mischievous People Is Wonderful 67

Days 2&3 The Obstacles to Joy 81

You Are a Masterpiece in the Making 83

Fear, Stress, and Anxiety: I Would Be Very Nervous 93

Frustration and Anger: I Would Shout 101

Sadness and Grief: The Hard Times Knit Us More Closely Together 109

Despair: The World Is in Such Turmoil 115

Loneliness: No Need for Introduction 125

Envy: That Guy Goes Past Yet Again in His Mercedes-Benz 135

Suffering and Adversity: Passing through Difficulties 145

Illness and Fear of Death: I Prefer to Go to Hell 159

Meditation: Now I'll Tell You a Secret Thing 171

Days 4&5 The Eight Pillars of Joy 191

1 Perspective: There Are Many Different Angles 193

2 Humility: I Tried to Look Humble and Modest 203

3 Humor: Laughter, Joking Is Much Better 215

4 Acceptance: The Only Place Where Change Can Begin 223

5 Forgiveness: Freeing Ourselves from the Past 229

6 Gratitude: I Am Fortunate to Be Alive 241

7 Compassion: Something We Want to Become 251

8 Generosity: We Are Filled with Joy 263

Celebration: Dancing in the Streets of Tibet 277

Departure: A Final Goodbye 291

Joy Practices 307

Acknowledgments 349

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the 2016 Books for a Better Life Award in Spirituality

“The question may be timeless, but their answer has urgent significance.”
—Time Magazine

"[An] exquisite book...An intimate glimpse into the minds of two of the world's spiritual guides, and their foundation for an attainable and practical approach to experiencing a more enriching and sustainable life of abundant joy."
—Shelf Awareness

"This sparkling, wise, and immediately useful gift to readers from two remarkable spiritual masters offers hope that joy is possible for everyone even in the most difficult circumstances, and describes a clear path for attaining it."
—Publishers Weekly

"The world needs joy and compassion more than ever before – and who better than Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama to show us how it is done. This beautiful book takes us on the journey of their friendship and gives us the gift of their wisdom. A bright spot of hope and love in this world."
—Sir Richard Branson

"It's a book that transports you deep within the intimate friendship that binds these two incredible souls. And it’s a book that vividly probes the very nature of joy itself — the illusions that eclipse it, the obstacles that obscure it, the practices that cultivate it, and the pillars that sustain it."
—Rich Roll, The Rich Roll Podcast 

From the Publisher