On the Coffee Table: The Art of Happiness

Title: The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living
Authors: His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, M.D.

via Amazon

I've had The Art of Happiness on my shelves for several years.  Though I hadn't planned it that way, I finally got around to reading it at a good time.  Last month, I wrote about my current professional push to develop more student-directed classrooms (read here).  Empathy is essential to doing this work well.  Obviously, a teacher always needs empathy.  Beyond that, my students themselves have identified it as a need in their relationships with each other.  The Dalai Lama's teachings in The Art of Happiness all center around increasing empathy and compassion.

The book is written from the point of view of Dr. Cutler, an American psychiatrist.  The material is gathered mostly from Cutler's extensive interviews with The Dalai Lama, though it also includes excerpts from public presentations by the religious leader as well as reflections from Cutler's psychiatric practice.  Cutler's questions derive from typical Western scientific skepticism.  By the doctor's own admission, Western medicine doesn't usually address the matter of happiness.  The goal is to cure what ails - to combat the negative, rather than nurture the positive.  The Dalai Lama always responds with serene superior wisdom.

The book is quite pleasant, though not the easiest cover-to-cover read.  The actual religious material is minimal.  The Dalai Lama is a devout Buddhist, obviously, but he promotes a more universal spiritual message that extends to all major religions and, indeed, non-believers as well.  I feel I would need to read the book again to gain full benefit, though I doubt I will.