Dalai Lama: “What is the purpose of life? After much consideration, I believe that the purpose of life is to find happiness… The ultimate source of happiness is within us. Not money, not power, not status… Sadly, many of the things that undermine our joy and happiness we create ourselves. Often it comes from the negative tendencies of the mind, emotional reactivity, or from our inability to appreciate and utilize the resources that exist within us…We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people.”
Desmond Tutu: “Discovering more joy does not, I’m sorry to say, save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily, too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreak without being broken.”
These 2 quotes are from “The Book of Joy” which we finished reading last week with my book club. It’s an account of a week-long meeting between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu during which they celebrated the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday and discussed the question: “How do we find joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering?”
I loved reading about the sweet, funny and teasing interactions between the two, showing how fond they are of each other and how joyful they truly are. There are also great practices at the end of the book on how to overcome obstacles to joy and cultivate the 8 Pillars of Joy:
- Perspective
- Humility
- Humor
- Acceptance
- Forgiveness
- Gratitude
- Compassion
- Generosity
Some practices are internal, but some of them require us to remember and embrace the fact that in essence, we are all the same human beings.
“Once again, the path of joy was connection and the path of sorrow was separation. When we see others as separate, they become a threat. When we see others as part of us, as connected, as interdependent, then there is no challenge we cannot face—together.”
Wishing you all more joy in your life!
Manuela loves helping smart and compassionate professionals create a career and life they love, while feeling more confident and fulfilled! You can visit Manuela’s Website for Success Life and Career Coaching.