Cultivating Happiness
How does one cultivate happiness? It is easy to be happy when life matches our desires and expectations. But how does one maintain happiness in the face of adversity? How does one create peace and joy in the midst of anger and fear?
In my quest to find peace, joy, and happiness one of my most valuable teachers was His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. I attended a lecture on “Cultivating Happiness” when the Dali Lama visited Vancouver a couple of years ago. I benefited from the wisdom of this remarkable individual who has learned the secrets to happiness.
His success is impressive given the Dalai Lama has been in forced exile from his country, home, and people for all of his adult life. If anyone has justification to be angry, hurt, resentful or retaliatory, the Dalai Lama has more than enough reason. Yet, the Dalai Lama does not carry resentment. He does not hold hatred. He does not condemn. He does not advocate for war. Instead he speaks of compassion and peace. When asked if the use of force is warranted to remove the occupying Chinese military from Tibet, the Dalai Lama replied, “Why would I advocate aggression against the Chinese? They are my brothers and sisters. They just don’t know it yet.”
How do we cultivate happiness? How do we create peace? How do we develop harmony on the planet? The current wisdom is to use force to create peace. The Dalai Lama offers another solution – “Recognize others as human beings. Treat them as your brothers and sisters. Acknowledge that mentally, emotionally, and physically we are all the same.“ He explains, “Wars occur because we mentally divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’. Force is no way to deal with differences. Differences will always exist.” The secret to peace and harmony is to recognize the similarities. Success in relationships occurs when we find common ground.
The Dalai Lama listed the many wars that have occurred in the last century and are occurring now. He described this as “the century of destruction”. Then he invited each of us to participate in a new century – “a century of dialogue”. “The use of force is out of date”, he declares. “You cannot promote human values through force.”
So, what might this look like? What steps ought we take to move toward a peaceful world? The Dalai Lama’s advice is simple - ”Educate the heart. Create peace through inner peace”. A calm mind is essential to deal with complex issues. Address the world’s issues from a calm mind, not a reactive one. Secondly, narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. The Dalai Lama informs us that the large gap between those that ‘have’ and those that ‘have not’ is not only morally wrong, it is practically wrong as well. You will never create peace in the world when your brother or sister is without food, shelter, clean drinking water, and dignity.
Some might dismiss the Dalai Lama’s message as naive, overly optimistic, even foolish. Yet something must be done. It’s clear that the current method is not working. It is self evident that polarizing the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ does not work. Our allied governments have spent trillions of dollars on their current strategy of using force to solve our differences. Many of us use force to solve differences in our personal lives at home and work. We impose our solution rather than create solutions together through dialogue as equal partners.
Its time we experimented with a new strategy. Its time we tried the solution offered by the Dalai Lama. Its time we ‘educated the heart’ and recognized the humanity in each and every one. Its time we experimented with dropping food rather than bombs; exchanged ideas rather than insults; increased access to water, food, and medicine rather than imposed sanctions to limit the necessities of life; opened up dialogue rather than silenced others.
Its time we realized we are all are brothers and sisters.
Editor’s Note: Ted began writing his column in December 2007. This is the fourth column in his series. So far he has written 18 monthly columns. We will be re-publishing these columns on Sunday each week until we catch up with him in December 2009. We are looking forward to your edification and enjoyment. Please share your thoughts with Ted via comments.
