Read Online The Art of Happiness by The Dalai Lama - Free Book Online

I‘dreally be happy working with that clientele. I really do get a lot of satisfaction working with the kids at my job....”
    Simply reframing her dilemma in terms of “Will it bring me happiness?” seemed to provide a certain clarity. Suddenly it became much easier to make her decision. She decided to remain in Phoenix. Of course, she still complained about the summer heat. But, having made the conscious decision to remain there on the basis of what she felt would ultimately make her happier, somehow made the heat more bearable.
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    Everyday we are faced with numerous decisions and choices. And try as we may, we often don’t choose the thing that we know is “good for us.” Part of this is related to the fact that the “right choice” is often the difficult one—the one that involves some sacrifice of our pleasure.
    In every century, men and women have struggled with trying to define the properrole that pleasure should play in their lives—a legion of philosophers, theologists, and psychologists, all exploring our relationship with pleasure. In the third century B.C., Epicurus based his system of ethics on the bold assertion that “pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life.” But even Epicurus acknowledged the importance of common sense and moderation, recognizing that unbridled devotion to sensual pleasures could sometimes lead to pain instead. In the closing years of the nineteenth century, Sigmund Freud was busy formulating his own theories about pleasure. According to Freud, the fundamental motivating force for the entire psychic apparatus was the wish to relieve the tension caused by unfulfilled instinctual drives ; in other words, our underlying motive is to seek pleasure. In the twentieth century, many researchers have chosen to side-step more philosophical speculations, and, instead, a host of neuroanatomists have taken to poking around the brain’s hypothalamus and limbic regions with electrodes, searching for the spot that produces pleasure when electrically stimulated.
    None of us really need dead Greek philosophers, nineteenth-century psychoanalysts, or twentieth-century scientists to help us understand pleasure. We know it when we feel it. We know it in the touch or smile of a loved one, in the luxury of a hot bath on a cold rainy afternoon, in the beauty of a sunset. But many of us also know pleasure in the frenetic rhapsody of a cocaine rush, the ecstasy of a heroin high, the revelry of an alcohol buzz, the bliss of unrestrained sexual excess, the exhilaration of a winning streak in Las Vegas. These are also very real pleasures—pleasures that many in our society must come to terms with.
    Although there are no easy solutions to avoiding these destructive pleasures, fortunately we have a place to begin: the simple reminder that what we are seeking in life is happiness. As the Dalai Lama points out, that is an unmistakable fact. If we approach our choices in life keeping that in mind, it is easier to give up the things that are ultimately harmful to us, even if those things bring us momentary pleasure. The reason why it is usually so difficult to “Just say no!” is found in the word “no”; that approach is associated with a sense of rejecting something, of giving something up, of denying ourselves.
    But there is a better approach: framing any decision we face by asking ourselves, “Will it bring me happiness?” That simple question can be a powerful tool in helping us skillfully conduct all areas of our lives, not just in the decision whether to indulge in drugs or that third piece of banana cream pie. It puts a new slant on things. Approaching our daily decisions and choices with this question in mind shifts the focus from what we are denying ourselves to what we are seeking—ultimate happiness. A kind of happiness, as defined by the Dalai Lama, that is stable and persistent. A state of happiness