The Art of Happiness Read online

  ‘But is happiness a reasonable goal for most of us?’ I asked. ‘Is it really possible?’

  ‘Yes. I believe that happiness can be achieved through training the mind.’

  On a basic human level, I couldn’t help but respond to the idea of happiness as an achievable goal. As a psychiatrist, however, I had been burdened by notions such as Freud’s belief that ‘one feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be “happy” is not included in the plan of “Creation.” ’ This type of training had led many in my profession to the grim conclusion that the most one could hope for was ‘the transformation of hysteric misery into common unhappiness.’ From that standpoint, the claim that there was a clearly defined path to happiness seemed like quite a radical idea. As I looked back over my years of psychiatric training, I could rarely recall having heard the word ‘happiness’ even mentioned as a therapeutic objective. Of course, there was plenty of talk about relieving the patient’s symptoms of depression or anxiety, of resolving internal conflicts or relationship problems, but never with the expressly stated goal of becoming happy.

  The concept of achieving true happiness has, in the West, always seemed ill defined, elusive, ungraspable. Even the word ‘happy’ is derived from the Icelandic word happ, meaning luck or chance. Most of us, it seems, share this view of the mysterious nature of happiness. In those moments of joy that life brings, happiness feels like something that comes out of the blue. To my Western mind, it didn’t seem the sort of thing that one could develop, and sustain, simply by ‘training the mind.’

  When I raised that objection, the Dalai Lama was quick to explain. ‘When I say “training the mind,” in this context I’m not referring to “mind” merely as one’s cognitive ability or intellect. Rather, I’m using the term in the sense of the Tibetan word Sem, which has a much broader meaning, closer to “psyche” or “spirit”; it includes intellect and feeling, heart and mind. By bringing about a certain inner discipline, we can undergo a transformation of our attitude, our entire outlook and approach to living.

  ‘When we speak of this inner discipline, it can of course involve many things, many methods. But generally speaking, one begins by identifying those factors which lead to happiness and those factors which lead to suffering. Having done this, one then sets about gradually eliminating those factors which lead to suffering and cultivating those which lead to happiness. That is the way.’

  The Dalai Lama claims to have found some measure of personal happiness. And throughout the week he spent in Arizona, I often witnessed how this personal happiness can manifest as a simple willingness to reach out to others, to create a feeling of affinity and goodwill, even in the briefest of encounters.

  One morning after his public lecture the Dalai Lama was walking along an outside patio on the way back to his hotel room, surrounded by his usual retinue. Noticing one of the hotel housekeeping staff standing by the elevators, he paused to ask her, ‘Where are you from?’ For a moment she appeared taken aback by this foreign looking man in the maroon robes and seemed puzzled by the deference of the entourage. Then she smiled and answered shyly, ‘Mexico.’ He paused briefly to chat with her for a few moments and then walked on, leaving her with a look of excitement and pleasure on her face. The next morning at the same time, she appeared at the same spot with another of the housekeeping staff, and the two of them greeted him warmly as he got into the elevator. The interaction was brief, but the two of them appeared flushed with happiness as they returned to work. Every day after that, they were joined by a few more of the housekeeping staff at the designated time and place, until by the end of the week there were dozens of maids in their crisp gray-and-white uniforms forming a receiving line that stretched along the length of the path that led to the elevators.

  Our days are numbered. At this very moment, many thousands are born into the world, some destined to live only a few days or weeks, and then tragically succumb to illness or other misfortune. Others are destined to push through to the century mark, perhaps even a bit beyond, and savor every taste life has to offer: triumph, despair, joy, hatred, and love. We never know. But whether we live a day or a century, a central question always remains: What is the purpose of our life? What makes our lives meaningful?

  The purpose of our existence is to seek happiness. It seems like common sense, and Western thinkers from Aristotle to William James have agreed with this idea. But isn’t a life based on seeking personal happiness by nature self-centered, even self-indulgent? Not necessarily. In fact, survey after survey has shown that it is unhappy people who tend to be most self-focused and are often socially withdrawn, brooding, and even antagonistic. Happy people, in contrast, are generally found to be more sociable, flexible, and creative and are able to tolerate life’s daily frustrations more easily than unhappy people. And, most important, they are found to be more loving and forgiving than unhappy people.

  Researchers have devised some interesting experiments demonstrating that happy people exhibit a certain quality of openness, a willingness to reach out and help others. They managed, for instance, to induce a happy mood in a test subject by arranging to have the person unexpectedly find money in a phone booth. Posing as a stranger, one of the experimenters then walked by and ‘accidentally’ dropped a load of papers. The investigators wanted to see whether the subject would stop to help the stranger. In another scenario, the subjects’ spirits were lifted by listening to a comedy album, then they were approached by someone in need (also in cahoots with the experimenter) wanting to borrow money. The investigators discovered that the subjects who were feeling happy were more likely to help someone or to lend money than another ‘control group’ of individuals who were presented with the same opportunity to help but whose mood had not been boosted ahead of time.

  While these kinds of experiments contradict the notion that the pursuit and achievement of personal happiness somehow leads to selfishness and self-absorption, we can all conduct our own experiment in the laboratory of our own daily lives. Suppose, for instance, we’re stuck in traffic. After twenty minutes it finally begins moving again at around parade speed. We see someone in another car signaling that she wants to pull into our lane ahead of us. If we’re in a good mood, we are more likely to slow down and wave her on ahead. If we’re feeling miserable, our response may be simply to speed up and close the gap. ‘Well, I’ve been stuck here waiting all this time; why shouldn’t they?’

  We begin, then, with the basic premise that the purpose of our life is to seek happiness. It is a vision of happiness as a real objective, one that we can take positive steps toward achieving. And as we begin to identify the factors that lead to a happier life, we will learn how the search for happiness offers benefits not only for the individual but for the individual’s family and for society at large as well.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Sources of Happiness

  Two years ago, a friend of mine had an unexpected windfall. Eighteen months before that time, she had quit her job as a nurse to go to work for two friends who were starting a small health care company. The company enjoyed meteoric success, and within eighteen months they were bought out by a large conglomerate for a huge sum. Having gotten in on the ground floor of the company, my friend emerged from the buy-out dripping with stock options – enough to be able to retire at the age of thirty-two. I saw her not long ago and asked how she was enjoying her retirement. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s great being able to travel and do the things that I’ve always wanted to do. But,’ she added, ‘it’s strange; after I got over all the excitement of making all that money, things kinda returned to normal. I mean things are different – I bought a new house and stuff – but overall I don’t think I’m much happier than I was before.’

  Just around the time that my friend was cashing in on her windfall profits, I had another friend of the same age who found out he is HIV positive. We spoke about how he was dealing with his HIV status. ‘Of course, I was devastated at first,’ he said. ‘And it took me
almost a year just to come to terms with the fact that I had the virus. But over the past year things have changed. I seem to get more out of each day than I ever did before, and on a moment-to-moment basis, I feel happier than I ever have. I just seem to appreciate everyday things more, and I’m grateful that so far I haven’t developed any severe AIDS symptoms and I can really enjoy the things I have. And even though I’d rather not be HIV positive, I have to admit that in some ways it has transformed my life . . . in positive ways . . .’

  ‘In what ways?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, for instance, you know that I’ve always tended to be a confirmed materialist. But over the past year coming to terms with my mortality has opened up a whole new world. I’ve started exploring spirituality for the first time in my life, reading a lot of books on the subject and talking to people . . . discovering so many things that I’ve never even thought about before. It makes me excited about just getting up in the morning, about seeing what the day will bring.’

  Both these people illustrate the essential point that happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind than by external events. Success may result in a temporary feeling of elation or tragedy may send us into a period of depression, but sooner or later our overall level of happiness tends to migrate back to a certain baseline. Psychologists call this process adaptation, and we can see how this principle operates in our everyday life; a pay raise, a new car, or recognition from our peers may lift our mood for a while, but we soon return to our customary level of happiness. In the same way, an argument with a friend, a car in the repair shop, or a minor injury may put us in a foul mood, but within a matter of days our spirits rebound.

  This tendency isn’t limited to trivial everyday events but persists even under more extreme conditions of triumph or disaster. Researchers surveying Illinois state lottery winners and British pools winners, for instance, found that the initial high eventually wore off and the winner returned to their usual range of moment-to-moment happiness. And other studies have demonstrated that even those who are struck by catastrophic events such as cancer, blindness, or paralysis typically recover their normal or near normal level of day-to-day happiness after an appropriate adjustment period.

  So, if we tend to return to our characteristic baseline level of happiness no matter what our external conditions are, what determines this baseline? And, more important, can it be modified, set at a higher level? Some researchers have recently argued that an individual’s characteristic level of happiness or well-being is genetically determined, at least to some degree. Studies such as one that found that identical twins (sharing the same genetic constitution) tend to have very similar levels of well-being – regardless of whether they were raised together or apart – have led these investigators to postulate a biological set point for happiness, wired into the brain at birth.

  But even if genetic make up plays a role in happiness – and the verdict is still out on how large that role is – there is general agreement among psychologists that no matter what level of happiness we are endowed with by nature, there are steps we can take to work with the ‘mind factor’ to enhance our feelings of happiness. This is because our moment-to-moment happiness is largely determined by our outlook. In fact, whether we are feeling happy or unhappy at any given moment often has very little to do with our absolute conditions, but rather, it is a function of how we perceive our situation, how satisfied we are with what we have.

  The Comparing Mind

  What shapes our perception and level of satisfaction? Our feelings of contentment are strongly influenced by our tendency to compare. When we compare our current situation to our past and find that we’re better off, we feel happy. This happens, for instance, when our income suddenly jumps from $20,000 to $30,000 a year, but it’s not the absolute amount of income that makes us happy, as we soon find out when we get used to our new income and discover that we won’t be happy again unless we’re making $40,000 a year. We also look around and compare ourselves to others. No matter how much we make, we tend to be dissatisfied with our income if our neighbor is making more. Professional athletes complain bitterly about annual salaries of $1, $2 or $3 million, citing the higher salaries of a teammate as justification for their unhappiness. This tendency seems to support H.L. Mencken’s definition of a wealthy man: one whose income is $100 a year higher than his wife’s sister’s husband.

  So we can see how our feeling of life satisfaction often depends on whom we compare ourselves to. Of course, we compare other things besides income. Constant comparison with those who are smarter, more beautiful, or more successful than ourselves also tends to breed envy, frustration, and unhappiness. But we can use this same principle in a positive way; we can increase our feeling of life satisfaction by comparing ourselves to those who are less fortunate than us and by reflecting on all the things we have.

  Researchers have conducted a number of experiments demonstrating that one’s level of life satisfaction can be enhanced simply by shifting one’s perspective and contemplating how things could be worse. In one study, women at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee were shown images of the extremely harsh living conditions in Milwaukee at the turn of the century or were asked to visualize and write about going through personal tragedies such as being burned or disfigured. After completing this exercise, the women were asked to rate the quality of their own lives. The exercise resulted in an increased sense of satisfaction with their lives. In another experiment at the State University of New York at Buffalo, subjects were asked to complete the sentence ‘I’m glad I’m not a . . .’ After five repetitions of this exercise, the subjects experienced a distinct elevation in their feelings of life satisfaction. Another group of subjects was asked by the experimenters to complete the sentence, ‘I wish I were a . . .’ This time, the experiment left the subjects feeling more dissatisfied with their lives.

  These experiments, which show that we can increase or decrease our sense of life satisfaction by changing our perspective, clearly point to the supremacy of one’s mental outlook in living a happy life.

  The Dalai Lama explains: ‘Although it is possible to achieve happiness, happiness is not a simple thing. There are many levels. In Buddhism, for instance, there is a reference to the four factors of fulfillment, or happiness: wealth, worldly satisfaction, spirituality, and enlightenment. Together they embrace the totality of an individual’s quest for happiness.

  ‘Let us leave aside for a moment ultimate religious or spiritual aspirations like perfection and enlightenment and deal with joy and happiness as we understand them in an everyday or worldly sense. Within this context, there are certain key elements that we conventionally acknowledge as contributing to joy and happiness. For example, good health is considered to be one of the necessary factors for a happy life. Another factor that we regard as a source of happiness is our material facilities, or the wealth that we accumulate. An additional factor is to have friendship, or companions. We all recognize that in order to enjoy a fulfilled life, we need a circle of friends with whom we can relate emotionally and trust.

  ‘Now, all of these factors are, in fact, sources of happiness. But in order for an individual to be able to fully utilize them towards the goal of enjoying a happy and fulfilled life, your state of mind is key. It’s crucial.

  ‘If we utilize our favorable circumstances, such as our good health or wealth, in positive ways, in helping others, they can be contributory factors in achieving a happier life. And of course we enjoy these things – our material facilities, success, and so on. But without the right mental attitude, without attention to the mental factor, these things have very little impact on our long-term feelings of happiness. For example, if you harbor hateful thoughts or intense anger somewhere deep down within yourself, then it ruins your health; thus it destroys one of the factors. Also, if you are mentally unhappy or frustrated, then physical comfort is not of much help. On the other hand, if you can maintain a calm, peaceful state of mind, then you can be a very happy
person even if you have poor health. Or, even if you have wonderful possessions, when you are in an intense moment of anger or hatred, you feel like throwing them, breaking them. At that moment your possessions mean nothing. Today there are societies that are very developed materially, yet among them there are many people who are not very happy. Just underneath the beautiful surface of affluence there is a kind of mental unrest, leading to frustration, unnecessary quarrels, reliance on drugs or alcohol, and in the worst case, suicide. So there is no guarantee that wealth alone can give you the joy or fulfillment that you are seeking. The same can be said of your friends too. When you are in an intense state of anger or hatred, even a very close friend appears to you as somehow sort of frosty, or cold, distant, and quite annoying.

  ‘All of this indicates the tremendous influence that the mental state, the mind factor, has on our experience of daily life. Naturally, then, we have to take that factor very seriously.

  ‘So, leaving aside the perspective of spiritual practice, even in worldly terms, in terms of our enjoying a happy day-to-day existence, the greater the level of calmness of our mind, the greater our peace of mind, the greater our ability to enjoy a happy and joyful life.’

  The Dalai Lama paused for a moment as if to let that idea settle, then added, ‘I should mention that when we speak of a calm state of mind or peace of mind we shouldn’t confuse that with a totally insensitive, apathetic state of mind. Having a calm or peaceful state of mind doesn’t mean being totally spaced out or completely empty. Peace of mind or a calm state of mind is rooted in affection and compassion. There is a very high level of sensitivity and feeling there.’

  Summarizing, he said, ‘As long as there is a lack of the inner discipline that brings calmness of mind, no matter what external facilities or conditions you have, they will never give you the feeling of joy and happiness that you are seeking. On the other hand, if you possess this inner quality, a calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if you lack various external facilities that you would normally consider necessary for happiness, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life.’