CONTENTS TITLE PAGE COPYRIGHT THE INVITATION TO JOY INTRODUCTION Arrival: We Are Fragile Creatures DAY 1 The Nature of True Joy Why Are You Not Morose? Nothing Beautiful Comes Without Some Suffering Have You Renounced Pleasure? Our Greatest Joy Lunch: The Meeting of Two Mischievous People Is Wonderful DAYS 2 & 3 The Obstacles to Joy You Are a Masterpiece in the Making Fear, Stress, and Anxiety: I Would Be Very Nervous Frustration and Anger: I Would Shout Sadness and Grief: The Hard Times Knit Us More Closely Together Despair: The World Is in Such Turmoil Loneliness: No Need for Introduction Envy: That Guy Goes Past Yet Again in His Mercedes-Benz Suffering and Adversity: Passing through Difficulties Illness and Fear of Death: I Prefer to Go to Hell Meditation: Now I’ll Tell You a Secret Thing DAYS 4 & 5 The Eight Pillars of Joy 1. Perspective: There Are Many Different Angles 2. Humility: I Tried to Look Humble and Modest 3. Humor: Laughter, Joking Is Much Better 4. Acceptance: The Only Place Where Change Can Begin 5. Forgiveness: Freeing Ourselves from the Past 6. Gratitude: I Am Fortunate to Be Alive 7. Compassion: Something We Want to Become 8. Generosity: We Are Filled with Joy Celebration: Dancing in the Streets of Tibet Departure: A Final Goodbye Joy Practices ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AUTHOR BIOS The Invitation to Joy T o celebrate one of our special birthdays, we met for a week in Dharamsala to enjoy our friendship and to create something that we hope will be a birthday gift for others. There is perhaps nothing more joyous than birth, and yet so much of life is spent in sadness, stress, and suffering. We hope this small book will be an invitation to more joy and more happiness. No dark fate determines the future. We do. Each day and each moment, we are able to create and re-create our lives and the very quality of human life on our planet. This is the power we wield. Lasting happiness cannot be found in pursuit of any goal or achievement. It does not reside in fortune or fame. It resides only in the human mind and heart, and it is here that we hope you will find it. Our cowriter, Douglas Abrams, has kindly agreed to assist us in this project and interviewed us over the course of a week in Dharamsala. We have asked him to weave our voices together and offer his own as our narrator so that we can share not only our views and our experience but also what scientists and others have found to be the wellsprings of joy. You don’t need to believe us. Indeed, nothing we say should be taken as an article of faith. We are sharing what two friends, from very different worlds, have witnessed and learned in our long lives. We hope you will discover whether what is included here is true by applying it in your own life. Every day is a new opportunity to begin again. Every day is your birthday. May this book be a blessing for all sentient beings, and for all of God’s children—including you. TENZIN GYATSO, HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA DESMOND TUTU, ARCHBISHOP EMERITUS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA INTRODUCTION By Douglas Abrams A s we stepped off the plane at the small airport, the howl of the jet engines deafening and the snowcapped foothills of the Himalayas looming behind us, two old friends embraced. The Archbishop touched the Dalai Lama’s cheeks tenderly, and the Dalai Lama pursed his lips as if blowing the Archbishop a kiss. It was a moment of enormous affection and friendship. In the yearlong preparations for this visit, we were quite aware of what the meeting might mean for the world, but we never realized what a week together might mean for the two of them. It has been a profound privilege and a daunting responsibility to convey the remarkable week of dialogues that took place in Dharamsala, India, at the Dalai Lama’s residence in exile. In this book I have tried to share with you their intimate conversations, which were filled with seemingly endless laughter and punctuated by many poignant moments of recalling love and loss. Although they had met only half a dozen times, the men shared a bond that transcended these brief visits, and each considered the other his “mischievous spiritual brother.” Never before, or likely after, would they have a chance to spend so much time in each other’s company, reveling in the joy of their friendship. The heavy footsteps of mortality were never far from our conversations. Our trip itinerary had to be reworked twice so that the Archbishop could attend funerals for his peers. As health and global politics have conspired to keep them apart, we recognized that this might be their last time together. For a week we sat in a pool of soft light, arranged carefully to avoid hurting the Dalai Lama’s sensitive eyes, as five video cameras filmed around us. During our quest to understand joy, we explored many of the most profound subjects in life. We were in search of true joy that was not dependent on the vicissitudes of circumstance. We knew that we would need to tackle the obstacles that can so often make joy elusive. During the dialogues they outlined eight pillars of joy— four pillars of the mind and four pillars of the heart. These two great leaders agreed on the most important principles, and offered illuminating differences, as we attempted to gather insights that might help readers to find lasting happiness in an ever-changing, and often aching, world. We had an opportunity each day to sip warm Darjeeling tea and to break bread—Tibetan flat bread. All who were working on filming the interviews were invited to join these daily teas and lunches. One exceptional morning, the Dalai Lama even introduced the Archbishop to his meditation practice in his private residence, and the Archbishop gave the Dalai Lama communion, a rite generally reserved for those who are within the Christian faith. Finally, at the end of the week, we celebrated the Dalai Lama’s birthday at the Tibetan Children’s Village, one of the boarding schools for children who have fled Tibet, where the Chinese authorities have prevented them from receiving an education based on Tibetan culture and language. The children are sent by their parents over the mountain passes with guides who promise to deliver them to one of the Dalai Lama’s schools. It is hard to imagine the heartbreak of parents sending their children away, knowing that they will not see them again for more than a decade, if ever. In the midst of this traumatized school, more than two thousand students and their teachers cheered as the Dalai Lama, who is prohibited by his monastic vows from dancing, took his first tentative shimmy encouraged by the Archbishop’s irrepressible boogie. • • • T he Dalai Lama and the Archbishop are two of the great spiritual masters of our time, but they are also moral leaders who transcend their own traditions and speak always from a concern for humanity as a whole. Their courage and resilience and dogged hope in humanity inspire millions as they refuse to give in to the fashionable cynicism that risks engulfing us. Their joy is clearly not easy or superficial but one burnished by the fire of adversity, oppression, and struggle. The Dalai Lama and the Archbishop remind us that joy is in fact our birthright and even more fundamental than happiness. “Joy,” as the Archbishop said during the week, “is much bigger than happiness. While happiness is often seen as being dependent on external circumstances, joy is not.” This state of mind—and heart—is much closer to both the Dalai Lama’s and the Archbishop’s understanding of what animates our lives and what ultimately leads to a life of satisfaction and meaning.