the world breathes easier these days, it seems
Common sense, good advice below from the Dalai Lama... London these days is a rainy wet soggy place...just busy studying Tibetan with a very good professor from Oxford, writing and working with a south London writer's group, reading more poetry and philosophy than I thought possible in earlier parts of my life, editing a Buddhist text, etc....starting Sanskrit. Hmmm.. what else... :) Contemplating going to India and Nepal in the spring, but Bair has made a decision he really wants to stay in the same place for a year or so... However, Nepal and India are so very inexpensive, and it is inexpensive to study there... we'll see.
In the meantime, an excellent poem from Mary Oliver:
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
In his book titled The Art of Happiness, the Dalai Lama wrote that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. For “whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we are seeking something better in life -- the very motion of our life is towards happiness”. He then proceeds to show from personal life experience the sources of genuine happiness.
A critical factor for genuine happiness is the state of the mind. He demonstrates that happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind than by external events. As important as our material facilities and success may be, without the right mental attitude and attention, these things have very little or no positive impact on our long-term aspirations for genuine happiness. The mental state and mind factor have tremendous influence on our daily life experiences. Another important source of happiness is what the Dalai Lama refers to as “Inner Contentment”, which he says is “the true antidote of greed”. And one sure and reliable way towards achieving inner contentment is to “want and appreciate what we have”.
A third source of happiness as outlined in The Art of Happiness is a sense of self-worth and human dignity that comes from our relationship and bond with fellow human beings. This bond, the Dalai Lama says, “can become a source of consolation in the event that you lose everything else”.
The Dalai Lama then progresses to show the difference between happiness and pleasure. True happiness he says relates more to the heart and mind and is lasting and genuine, whereas pleasure mainly depends on the physical and is short-lived. And the Dalai Lama then says that we must learn to approach our choices with caution, bearing in mind the fact that what we are seeking is genuine happiness and not just pleasure.
In both the Ethics for the New Millennium and The Art of Happiness, we are presented with key ingredients for achieving genuine and lasting happiness. These include a compassionate heart, seeking to make others happy, acting out of concern for others, love, forgiveness and reconciliation, inner peace, training our minds towards happiness and sincerely deepening our connection to others, friendship, self-control and inner discipline and hope, among others.
In the meantime, an excellent poem from Mary Oliver:
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
In his book titled The Art of Happiness, the Dalai Lama wrote that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. For “whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we are seeking something better in life -- the very motion of our life is towards happiness”. He then proceeds to show from personal life experience the sources of genuine happiness.
A critical factor for genuine happiness is the state of the mind. He demonstrates that happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind than by external events. As important as our material facilities and success may be, without the right mental attitude and attention, these things have very little or no positive impact on our long-term aspirations for genuine happiness. The mental state and mind factor have tremendous influence on our daily life experiences. Another important source of happiness is what the Dalai Lama refers to as “Inner Contentment”, which he says is “the true antidote of greed”. And one sure and reliable way towards achieving inner contentment is to “want and appreciate what we have”.
A third source of happiness as outlined in The Art of Happiness is a sense of self-worth and human dignity that comes from our relationship and bond with fellow human beings. This bond, the Dalai Lama says, “can become a source of consolation in the event that you lose everything else”.
The Dalai Lama then progresses to show the difference between happiness and pleasure. True happiness he says relates more to the heart and mind and is lasting and genuine, whereas pleasure mainly depends on the physical and is short-lived. And the Dalai Lama then says that we must learn to approach our choices with caution, bearing in mind the fact that what we are seeking is genuine happiness and not just pleasure.
In both the Ethics for the New Millennium and The Art of Happiness, we are presented with key ingredients for achieving genuine and lasting happiness. These include a compassionate heart, seeking to make others happy, acting out of concern for others, love, forgiveness and reconciliation, inner peace, training our minds towards happiness and sincerely deepening our connection to others, friendship, self-control and inner discipline and hope, among others.