By extension, leaders who foment fear of one another instead of bringing us together deliver discontent to the people they lead.įor Buddhists, this argument is based not on aspiration, but on simple truth: Individual identity is an illusion we are, in fact, all interconnected and inseparable from one another. “Self-centered thinking … is against” nature, he told me in our conversation, and the “selfish way is actually destroying your own happy” life. On the contrary, he believes that self-centeredness represents an emotional and moral disequilibrium. The Dalai Lama rejects this negative view of human nature. Or simply consider how political leaders all around the world-including so many today on the American left and right-have embraced fear and hatred of people with different views as if it were perfectly normal.
Consider the more than $100 billion we spend each year on policing in the United States, and the $429 billion each year on tort litigation. This outlook might sound harsh, but it guides more of day-to-day modern life than you might expect. As such, coercion-or, at best, cold negotiation-is the only way we can attain our ends.
On the contrary, these thinkers and their traditions argue that people are naturally self-interested and untrustworthy.
Many Western philosophers, from Thomas Hobbes to Friedrich Nietzsche to Herbert Spencer, reject the idea that looking after one another with compassion is part of our nature. Nothing controversial there, right? Wrong. The Dalai Lama’s broad message sounded straightforward from the start of our conversation: To attain happiness, one must be able to say, “My life is something meaningful, something useful.” This, in turn, requires an understanding of our common purpose: “the taking care of each other,” which is our “human nature.” We had a public conversation in front of my graduate students and a worldwide live-streamed audience. But not this year, due to the pandemic-so, like the rest of the world, we met by Zoom. Ordinarily around this time, I visit him at his monastery in Dharamsala, India. Beyond our writing and interviews, he has given me personal advice that has deepened my religious faith, guided my career, and improved my relationships. Want to stay current with Arthur's writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out.į or the past seven years, one of my most treasured collaborative friendships has been with His Holiness. To take his message to heart means setting yourself apart from the orthodoxies that rule our culture-including, perhaps, some that you don’t even know are influencing your assumptions and limiting your thinking. In contrast, the Dalai Lama asks us to treat others gently as sisters and brothers, even if they disagree with us to love unconditionally to reject self-centeredness, which he sees as the source of unhappiness. Today, conventional wisdom too often teaches that people who disagree with us are obstacles we must coerce others to follow our wishes happiness is supposed to come from getting exactly what we want. You could easily be persuaded that he is a fairly anodyne figure, someone who endeavors only to bring peaceful, good feelings in a turbulent world, without disrupting any established dogmas.īut listen closely to his still, small voice, and you will receive transgressive truths.
His message, always delivered softly and calmly and punctuated with infectious laughter, soothes the spirit in a world of shouting. In our noisy world, they are easily missed or dismissed.Ī living example of this paradox comes from Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people and global leader of Tibetan Buddhism. We might call this the paradox of prophecy: Many of the most profound truths come not in shouting and scandal but, rather, in a whisper. Rather, He came to Elijah in a “still small voice,” which compelled Elijah to draw near, so he could hear it. As the prophet waited for God’s message to him, there was a wind so strong that it “broke the rocks in pieces,” but God was not there. I n the Old Testament, God often communicates with His people through violent events: floods, plagues, wars.
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“ How to Build a Life ” is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness.
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