It is, unfortunately, for a book we don't currently have in our collection. Bethany Keats has reviewed The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama. If you wanted to borrow it, there's a chance it be found in a number of local libraries, or we could get it in for you on an Inter-Library Loan.
If there is a book, book chapter, journal article or other item you need and we don't have it, we can still get it from another library. There is a fee involved, as we have to pay the other libraries for their administration costs, the costs involved in sending it to us and the use of their resources, so you may want to ask yourself whether you really want it, but it can be done.
And while we may not have The Art of Happiness, we do have several other books by the Dalai Lama.
Can we interest you in, perhaps, How to See Yourself as You Really Are? Or How to Expand Love: Widening the Circle of Loving Relationships? Maybe Worlds in Harmony: Compassionate Action for a Better World? (that one's an ebook - you could read it now!)
Bethany Keats read The Art of Happiness, by HH The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutter.
Have you ever read those magazine
articles where you can tell the writer has a bit of a crush on the interview
subject? The ones where they meet for the interview in a trendy cafe and
document the encounter with ridiculous details that say more about the
starry-eyed writer than their interviewee?
The Art of Happiness reads like
that.
Details about the Dalai Lama's
"butterscotch-coloured Rockports" do not inspire happiness. I
understand the intent was probably to make the Dalai Lama feel relatable and
like a normal person, but it sounded to me like a wannabe influencer fawning
over a football WAG who is nonchalantly stirring her decaf soy latte.
The front cover's claim that it's by HH
The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutter is a bit misleading. It doesn’t feel like a
joint effort at all. I was expecting a book that discusses the similarities
between Buddhist philosophy and Western psychology, and that’s what it is, but
the delivery is one-sided in the form of an interview and not a co-authored
book.
But presentation aside, it’s worth
persevering. Dotted through the magazine-like profile of the Nobel Laureate and
spiritual leader of Tibet are useful vignettes to take away and ponder.
Warning: it does contain some truth
bombs. And they may hurt. One in particular, about happiness versus pleasure,
really hit home and I haven't stopped thinking about it. It doesn’t help that
the example it gave is also similar to my own situation.
So, after reading The Art of Happiness,
am I on the path to happiness? Maybe. But to be honest, I'm still hurting from
the truth bomb.
Non-fiction, an author I haven't read
before.
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