What does the Dalai Lama have to do with a local bride's choice of a wedding dress?
The Art of happiness by the Dalai Lama, a Tibetan holy man, is a runaway best seller. Folks are on the waiting list for the book at all libraries (but you can check the Gilpin Library Book Mobile on Friday), some big book stores can’t keep the book in stock, and his public appearances are mobbed. The old joke is: “I’d like to be that happy, but I’ll wait till the book comes out in paperback”. In fact, we Americans are not waiting for the paperback. How does a Tibetan holy man capture our interest like this? It’s not about Tibetan Buddhism, it’s something about what the man says. Basically the message we all get from the media, schools, friends, our whole culture, is that happiness will come when we get what we want. Once we marry the perfect mate, develop the toned up body, have plenty of friends, a great job, a nice house, a dog that doesn’t get in the garbage and so on, we will be happy. But for most Americans that doesn’t work. We get all that we want, or most of it, and still are not happy when we open our eyes in the morning. The Dalai Lama’s basic message is that we need to appreciate what we have and who we are right now. Our state of happiness doesn’t depend upon what’s around us, but on how we perceive our situation. Our state of mind is the key to inner contentment. So how do we get to that inner quality of calmness of mind, that degree of stability? That’s a particular problem for one bride I know.
A young woman I know is a strong believer in hemp fabric. Hemp, along with organic cotton, are fabrics that she believes in wearing. They are bio-degradable and economically sustainable fabrics. People who want to promote the well being of our planet can certainly find and wear these products. But, she has a dilemma. Can she really find an elegant looking frock to get married in that is made from hemp or organic cotton? I can’t tell her, though perhaps someone will write a letter to the editor solving her problem. There’s another problem with her wedding dress. Most little girls dream of their wedding day . It’s a day out of Princess Bride. The bride is absolutely the center of attention, and she is wearing a really big and frilly satin white gown. So far as I know, hemp and organic cotton dresses just don’t have all those frills and bustles and who knows what. The Dalai Lama would suggest that she has a problem with comparisons. So long as she compares her lovely hemp dress with commercial satin dresses she’ll be in the dilemma. Quitting the comparisons will lead to her happiness. Learning to quit comparing could be her first step in mind training. A next step could be to ask if she’s after pleasure or happiness in her marriage.
The Dalai Lama thinks that most of us seek pleasure rather than happiness. An interesting aspect of the book is the way Howard C. Cutler, a psychiatrist, presents the Dalai Lama’s ideas and then gives examples from his own practice. Cutler tells of a woman who is given the option of leaving Phoenix, (which she thinks is a pit of a city), for another job in a lovely mountain town. Trouble is, her job in Phoenix is one in which she feels she’s giving a lot back to the community and to individuals. She gives up the pleasure of the mountains for the happiness of her job in Phoenix. Knowing the difference between pleasure and happiness calls for a calm, somewhat centered mind. Not an easy thing to develop. The bride I talked about earlier is in a difficult place when it comes to making decisions with a centered mind. She’s obviously deep in lovely love! Love is a great way to begin a marriage, but romantic love, as the Dalai Lama reminds, fades sooner or later. The mind needs to be trained to see other aspects of the relationship. What won’t fade is an attitude of compassion toward your spouse. And that attitude of compassion comes only slowly with a lot of mind training and a lot of sense of humor. Learning to live with a spouse over the long haul calls for plenty of mind training and lots of laughing at the two of you, but it is worth it. Little by little we can come to choose happiness over pleasure. Eventually we get to tackle even bigger metal problems like victimization.
“That jerk was unfair to me and I’ll have him fired for it!--I’m a victim!” That’s a real quote I heard in the Stage Stop not long ago. Here was a person really suffering, someone who felt victimized by life. The Dalai Lama agrees that to some extent there is always suffering, we’ll always feel like victims for a moment. But don’t indulge it, says he. A person close to me always says: “suffer in silence or don’t suffer at all!” That’s funny, but there’s a point there. Seeing oneself as a victim just takes energy away from solving problems. We all have the basic problem solving equipment—a mind. We can train that mind to select and focus on positive mental states and challenge negative mental states. Making the conscious decision to turn toward happiness in a systematic manner is the first step beyond being a victim. The Dalai Lama gives several brief exercises to do when we’ve got a lot of anger, or anxiety, or suffering going on. One I like is simply to focus on the problem, then say: “If the situation or problem is such that it can be remedied, then there is no need to worry about it. If there is no possibility of resolution, then there’s nothing to worry about.” It helps us get beyond being victims.
Another one of his suggestions is to break big problems down into little steps. For instance, the bride and her wedding dress: either she finds it or she doesn’t. It might help if she breaks her big solid problem called THE WEDDING into little bits. First she calls a bridal outfit, then she goes for a walk, then she talks to her Mom, then she goes to work, and so on. Broken down into the little pieces of life it all goes easier, the problem softens.
Some of my fellow mountain-plains book group members were skeptical about this book when we discussed it last week. On fellow said: “But could you sell this book and those ideas in Rollinsville? On Wednesday night at 6:15 at the regular meeting of The Rollinsville Community Church, right there in the stove store, I tried it! Along with the usual prayer circle and reading from the Bible we did one of the Dalai Lama’s exercises. This exercise was his “meditation on anger”. It was a very pleasant, peaceful experience and folks want another of his meditations next week. Apparently for the first time since the Church got started in 1933 we’ve invited in the head of Tibetan Buddhism. His advice for happiness does seem practical and even sells in Rollinsville, but would he suggest getting involved in the hardest part of the world: politics?
We read that Nederland is involved in one of the biggest political debates in years. Should the citizens of Ned annex Mud Lake or not? Would the Dalai Lama get involved in that kind of a debate? He would. He reminds us that taking action in the world is important. Just do it with a loving heart and a sense of humor. He was deeply involved in politics when the Chinese took over Tibet. In fact, he was exiled! Somehow he kept his sense of compassion and even felt this toward the Chinese political leaders. So, he would definitely stay involved in the Mud Lake issue if he lived in Nederland. But, he’d do it a little, then come back to his basically sane and happy mind, then go do it some more. Good advice that. But let’s not forget about the hump wedding dress.
Since beginning this article I’ve had a phone call from another bride. I’m performing the ceremony for this bride outside over at the Crystal Rose on Lookout Mountain. She assures me that wedding dresses made from hemp do indeed exist and fit in perfectly at the gazeebo there. She may or may not wear one, but I’m looking forward to that wedding anyway. The Dalai Lama’s book is truly remarkable, so stop by the library or buy the book. The Art of Happiness was written to remind us that the purpose of life is happiness. Please, be happy!