Quote

For example, the Dalai Lama once had to cancel giving a talk and go to the hospital with severe stomach pains. On the way to the clinic, he saw a sick, old man on the street. Knowing the man would probably soon die and feeling his agony, it was easier for him to muscle through.

There was n...

While the two addressed many obstacles to joy, along with eight pillars that enable it, I’d like to use the following 3 lessons to address the root issue and how to move past it:

1. A life without suffering does not exist.
2. Since we can’t control suffering, we must practice our r...

Whether you’re compassionate with yourself and let yourself off the hook, or someone else holds your hand and tells you that things will be okay, it’s a powerful way of immediately dissolving anger.

As for sadness, it is an emotion that allows us to

While you can’t prevent these darker aspects of life, there is a corresponding element you do control: your reaction to those events. Suffering often leads to fear and frustration, but those are creations of our minds, not reality, as the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu agree

In 2015, Desmond Tutu , a former South African Archbishop and anti-apartheid pioneer, traveled to Dharamsala, a place in India and home to His Holiness the Dalai Lama , for his 80th bir...

I know The Book Of Joy isn’t the most actionable book in the world, because it’s hard to practice feelings, but I believe it all starts with education. Learn the process of turning suffering into joy, let it sink...

Especially in the Western world, we are constantly being sold on the idea that it’s possible to remove all suffering from your life. There’s a pill for every ill, money solves most problems, and once you finally have that spouse, the home and the two kids, you’ll be happy forever.

But, spea...

Indeed, a long sit-down it was. Tutu stayed for seven days, during which he and the Dalai Lama intensely discussed this issue. Douglas Abrams, Tutu’s long-time co-writer and editor, documented the conversation, so that one year later, their answers would be available to the rest of the world in t...

Focusing intensely on your own pain only makes it grow, while looking to others helps you deal with it in two ways:

1. If you go out of your way to help someone, you forget about your own problems and feel better, because you’...

Self-awareness helps a lot when dealing with suffering, because it allows you to see what you control and what you cannot influence. A lot of pain is inflicted upon us externally, for example through unlucky events, natural disasters, sick...

Birth is just the most obvious example, however. If you think back to your most formative experiences, chances are there was some anger, frustration or sadness involved, which ultimately helped you grow tremendously.

The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu agreed on the importance of suffering, but...