Books by Dalai Lama XIV
The Art of Happiness is the book in our library by the Dalai Lama, written with Howard C. Cutler. It is structured as a conversation, and its argument is that happiness is closer to a skill you practise than a destination you locate.
The conversational form is doing work rather than decorating the argument. The interviewer pushes back, asks for evidence and reports failures, which lets the book address the obvious objection, that this is easy to say and hard to do, instead of avoiding it.
How to read it. Read it as a conversation rather than as instruction, and read it alongside the more practical books in this bundle rather than instead of them.
It sits in the Mindfulness and Happiness bundle as the only book here built around an interview, which is what stops it becoming a set of assertions you either accept or reject.
The book
The Art of Happiness
Dalai Lama XIV and Howard C. CutlerHappiness treated as a practice rather than as a discovery. The useful argument is that it depends more on how you meet circumstances than on which circumstances you are given, which is the direct opposite of the search-for-purpose framing. The interview format keeps it honest.
What it argues- Happiness depends more on how you meet circumstances than on which ones you get.
- It is a practice you build rather than a state you find.
- Warmth towards others is treated as a source of wellbeing rather than a virtue.
- Suffering is examined directly rather than avoided, which is what makes the advice usable.
- The form is a conversation, so the objections get raised rather than skipped.
Suited to a reader who finds the practical books thin and wants the underlying case, and to anyone who has pursued a goal and found the feeling missing. Not a method, and it should not be read as one.
Where to start
Read it slowly, and read the passages where the interviewer disagrees with the answer. Those are where the argument does its work, and they are what distinguish this book from the rest of the shelf. If the opening chapters seem agreeable to the point of being obvious, keep going: the useful part is where the book is asked what to do when the advice does not work, which is a question most writing on this subject avoids.
Where this fits
This is the philosophical book of the shelf. Ikigai makes the same case in a shorter and more contemporary form, Self-Compassion supplies the practical version, and The Power of Now makes the argument about attention instead of about happiness. Read this one for the reasoning and the others for the practice, since the practice is what this book deliberately leaves to you.
The rest of this shelf
The Mindfulness and Happiness shelf holds 5 books in total. These are the others, each condensed into a guide you can finish in about 15 minutes:
- Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles
- The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
- Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn
- Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff
Read it with the other four
The Art of Happiness is in the Mindfulness and Happiness bundle with Ikigai, The Power of Now, Wherever You Go, There You Are and Self-Compassion.
Five complete guides, about 15 minutes each.
Explore Mindfulness and HappinessHappiness is practised, not located.