JOY in Our Time
It is at times like this that I go back to this wonderful little book put together by Douglas Abrams who arranged for the two Nobel Peace Laureates and giants of their different religions to meet in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate the Dalai Lama’s eightieth birthday and to create what they hoped would be a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question: How do we find joy in the face of life's inevitable suffering?
They spent five days together and shared stories and spiritual practices. The book describes how they laughed and teased each other and yet looked into the pain and suffering of their lives and our world to show us how to live a life brimming with joy. I was moved again and again by the words of these gentlemen. Surely, we too can find joy in our time of hardship.
“Adversity, illness, and death are real and inevitable. We chose whether to add to these unavoidable facts of life with the suffering that we create in our own minds and hearts... the chosen suffering. The more we make a different choice, to heal our own suffering, the more we can turn to others and help to address their suffering with the laughter-filled, tear-stained eyes of the heart. And the more we turn away from our self-regard to wipe the tears from the eyes of another, the more- incredibly- we are able to hear, to heal, and to transcend our own suffering. This is the true secret to joy.”
― Dalai Lama XIV
In this book they offer eight pillars of Joy: Perspective, Humility, Humor, Acceptance, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Compassion and Generosity. Surely each of us, even without this book, can meditate on these topics and look for their relationship to joy in our own lives.
The book quotes Brother Steindl-Rast, an American theologian,
“Joy is happiness that does not depend on what happens. It is the grateful response to the opportunity that life offers you at this moment.”
There is so much more in this wonderful book that I commend it to you. If you cannot get hold of it then download it on Audible or the Library and listen to the wise words from these two extraordinary elders of our world.
Zara Harris
