A Joosr Guide to The Art of Happiness by The Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler

True happiness comes from inner contentment. But how do you go about achieving inner contentment, and therefore happiness? The most important step you can take is to start appreciating what you already have. You may not have your dream job, but you have a job that pays the bills, co-workers who are friendly, and a boss who isn’t abusive. Can you be happy about that? Or you and your partner may have recently had a huge fight, but think about why you fell in love and wanted to be with them in the first place. If this person is kind, caring, compassionate and loving and treats you with respect, you can still appreciate being in a relationship with them despite their imperfections.
When we take the time to consider the abundance of good things we already have, we begin to develop an inner contentment that leads to happiness

If you maintain a feeling of compassion, loving kindness, then something automatically opens your inner door. Through that, you can communicate more easily with other people. And that feeling of warmth creates a kind of openness…There’s less feelings of fear, self-doubt, and insecurity…I think that cultivating positive mental states like kindness and compassion definitely leads to better psychological health and happiness.”

compassionate, kindhearted, warm people are healthy.

It includes a discipline of the mind in conjunction with the heart, a complete transformation of our entire attitude and outlook

It came as a shock, then, when the Dalai Lama enlightened Dr Cutler to the concept that happiness could be developed and sustained through training the mind.

When we take the time to consider the abundance of good things we already have, we begin to develop an inner contentment that leads to happiness.

The most important step you can take is to start appreciating what you already have. You may not have your dream job, but you have a job that pays the bills, co-workers who are friendly, and a boss who isn’t abusive. Can you be happy about that?

True happiness comes from inner contentment.

What is heartbreaking about a fear of appearing foolish is that it holds people back from achieving amazing things.

There are some people, though, that prolong their suffering unnecessarily. They do this by keeping the pain alive, replaying it in their mind over and over again, and constantly feeling like a victim.