zuomiriam 's review for:

The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by Howard C. Cutler, Dalai Lama XIV

4.0

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A lot of super interesting material to think about. The Dalai Lama's portions of this book center around his belief that warmth and compassion should be central in our interactions with others and that these qualities can be actively cultivated (e.g. via a compassion-generating meditation). He goes on to talk about how happiness is not random but rather something we can practice by developing positive emotions and reducing negative ones like anger and hatred; he offers compelling justification on his ideas and largely practical advice on how to implement it into your own life. Cutler intersperses Western psychology research and his own experience as a psychiatrist between the edited responses the Dalai Lama gave to Cutler's questions. This sort of Q&A writing style took a few chapters for me to get used to, but it does the job of delivering the content, which I think is worth reading and reflecting on.