I have read first two parts of the book "The Art of Happiness" written by doctor Howard C. Cutler and the fourteenth Dalai Lama from the 23rd of February to the 1st of March 2003. That book is really interesting to me. In that book, doctor Cutler narrates the conversation between him and the fourteenth Dalai Lama, which tells readers the right to happiness, the source of happiness, training the mind for happiness, a new model of intimacy, deepening our connection to others and the value and benefits of compassion.
The first part of the book tells the purpose of life. According to the fourteenth Dalai Lama, The purpose of our lives is to seeking happiness, but he also distinguish happiness from pleasure. People can have happiness from money, power, fame, etc. However, the happiness based on these kinds of things is not stable. If people have happiness by having money or power, they will suffer when they lose them. Similarly, people can also suffer by comparing what he/she has to what other people have. For example, someone has a good car, but he see that his neighbor has a beautiful car. If he compares his car to his neighbor's car, he will suffer. Also, if he tries to buy a new beautiful car, he will suffer more by trying to maintain it and by paying the cost of it. So, our happiness should be based on our inner contentment, our inner worth and our inner peace. Furthermore, we can attain inner happiness by training our mind. To train our mind, we firstly need to know that money and wealth don't bring stable happiness and we don't need to have more than we need. Also, by categorizing metal states into two kinds, the fourteenth Dalai Lama says that we should void our negative metal state such as hatred, jealousness or greed and develop our positive metal state: being compassionate. .
The second part of the book tells reader human warmth and compassion. According to the Dalai Lama, there are two types of love; the first type of love is based on attachment and the second type of love is detachment.
