Desmond Tutu & Dalai Lama on Joy

 

The Dalai Lama can laugh at his limited English. The Archbishop can laugh at his big nose. What can you laugh at about yourself? When you can laugh at yourself, you will let others feel closer to you and inspire them to accept their own limitations, faults, and foibles. Laugh at yourself. The next time you are in a situation where you act in a funny way, or say something in a funny way, or are just less than perfect, chuckle at yourself and make a joke of it. Humor is one of the best ways to end conflict, especially when you are able to make fun of yourself or admit that you are overreacting or being silly. Laugh at life. The next time you are delayed or something does not go your way, try being amused by the situation rather than getting angry or outraged. You will notice how your amusement puts others at ease and can often smooth the situation. Similarly, when you encounter certain ironies in your day-to-day life, try to see the humour.

A self-centered attitude brings a sense of insecurity and fear. Distrust. Too much fear brings frustration. Too much frustration brings anger. So that’s the psychology, the system of mind, of emotion, which creates a chain reaction. With a self-centered attitude, you become distanced from others, then distrust, then feel insecure, then fear, then anxiety, then frustration, then anger, then violence. Fundamentally, the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop were trying to shift our perspective from focusing on I and me and mine to we and us and ours. The Dalai Lama referenced a classic study that suggested the constant use of personal pronouns leads to a greater risk of heart attack.

So many people,” the Dalai Lama said, “seem to struggle with being kind to themselves. This is really sad. You see, if you don’t have genuine love and kindness toward yourself, how can you extend these to others? We must remind people, as the Archbishop has said, that basic human nature is good, is positive, so this can give us some courage and self-confidence. As we said, too much focus on yourself leads to fear, insecurity, and anxiety. Remember, you are not alone. You are part of a whole generation that is the future of humanity. Then you will get a sense of courage and purpose in life. 

I have been helped by my wife, Leah, who was very—is very—good at keeping me humble. Once, we were driving, and I noticed that she was a little smugger than she normally is. And then when I looked again at the car in front of us, I saw a bumper sticker that said: ‘Any woman who wants to be equal to a man has no ambition… There is a Tibetan saying that wisdom is like rainwater—both gather in the low places. There is another saying that when the spring bloom comes, where does it start? Does it start on the hilltops or down in the valleys first? Growth begins first in the low places. So similarly if you remain humble, then there is the possibility to keep learning. So I often tell people that although I’m eighty years old, I still consider myself a student.” 

I remembered a story that had been told about how at the beginning of creation, God molded us out of clay and then put us into a kiln, like you do with bricks. God put one lot in and then got busy with other things and forgot about those he had put into the kiln. And after a while he remembered and rushed to the kiln, where the whole lot was burned to cinders. They say this is how we black people came about. Everyone laughed a little. And then I said, ‘Next, God put in a second lot, and this time he was overanxious and opened the oven too quickly, and this second lot that came out was underdone. And that’s how white people came about.’” The Archbishop finished with a little laugh and then that cackle that climbs up the flagpole and back down. 

Gratitude is the recognition of all that holds us in the web of life and all that has made it possible to have the life that we have and the moment that we are experiencing. Thanksgiving is a natural response to life and may be the only way to savor it. Both Christian and Buddhist traditions, perhaps all spiritual traditions, recognize the importance of gratefulness. It allows us to shift our perspective, as the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop counseled, toward all we have been given and all that we have. It moves us away from the narrow-minded focus on fault and lack and to the wider perspective of benefit and abundance. 

Even other social animals have this same concern for each other. I think the other day I also mentioned how scientists have found that when two mice are together, if one is injured, the other will lick it. The injured mouse that is being licked by another mouse will heal much faster than a mouse that is alone. “This concern for others is something very precious. We humans have a special brain, but this brain causes a lot of suffering because it is always thinking me, me, me, me. The more time you spend thinking about yourself, the more suffering you will experience. The incredible thing is that when we think of alleviating other people’s suffering, our own suffering is reduced. This is the true secret to happiness. So this is a very practical thing. In fact, it is common sense.”

When your doorbell rings, and you’re going to open it, as a Christian, I would make the sign of a cross over whoever it is who is there, which is just to say let them be blessed. They may not be in desperate need of anything. But they might also be. And you are in that process being helped not to be so self-regarding, so constantly conscious of your anguish. As you remember, yes, compassion is absolutely essential. It is like oxygen.

One of the differences between empathy and compassion is that while empathy is simply experiencing another’s emotion, compassion is a more empowered state where we want what is best for the other person. As the Dalai Lama has described it, if we see a person who is being crushed by a rock, the goal is not to get under the rock and feel what they are feeling; it is to help to remove the rock. Many people are also afraid of receiving compassion from others because they are afraid that others will want something in return or that they will at least feel indebted. Finally, many people are even afraid of being self-compassionate because they are afraid they will become weak, that they will not work as hard, or that they will be overcome with sadness and grief. Gilbert says: Compassion can flow naturally when we understand and work to remove our fears, our blocks, and our resistances to it. Compassion is one of the most difficult and courageous of all our motivations.

I’ve sometimes joked and said God doesn’t know very much math, because when you give to others, it should be that you are subtracting from yourself. But in this incredible kind of way—I’ve certainly found that to be the case so many times—you gave and it then seems like in fact you are making space for more to be given to you. “And there is a very physical example. The Dead Sea in the Middle East receives fresh water, but it has no outlet, so it doesn’t pass the water out. It receives beautiful water from the rivers, and the water goes dank. I mean, it just goes bad. And that’s why it is the Dead Sea. It receives and does not give. And we are made much that way, too. I mean, we receive and we must give. In the end generosity is the best way of becoming more, more, and more joyful… Generosity is often something that we learn to enjoy by doing. It is probably for this reason that charity is prescribed by almost every religious tradition. It is one of the five pillars of Islam, called zakat. In Judaism, it is called tzedakah, which literally means “justice.” In Hinduism and Buddhism, it is called dana. And in Christianity, it is charity.

And you are surprised,” the Archbishop continued, “when you go to a monastery or a convent, where people live a very, very simple life, and you just have to accept that they have a peace that we who are always grabbing find elusive. Unless, of course, we sit loosely in relation to all of our wealth and all of our status, then we can be generous because we have really been made a steward of these possessions and these positions. And we don’t hold on to them for dear life… So it’s not the wealth and the status. These are neutral. It’s our attitude. It’s what we do with them that is so important. We said it on the very first day: When you become so inward looking, so self-regarding, you are going to end up a shriveled human being.

I turned to Archbishop Tutu and said, “I’d like to invite you, Archbishop, to address your readers directly and offer them a blessing.” He turned to the camera and began to speak. “Dear Child of God, you are loved with a love that nothing can shake, a love that loved you long before you were created, a love that will be there long after everything has disappeared. You are precious, with a preciousness that is totally quite immeasurable. And God wants you to be like God. Filled with life and goodness and laughter—and joy. “God, who is forever pouring out God’s whole being from all eternity, wants you to flourish. God wants you to be filled with joy and excitement and ever longing to be able to find what is so beautiful in God’s creation: the compassion of so many, the caring, the sharing. And God says, Please, my child, help me. Help me to spread love and laughter and joy and compassion. And you know what, my child? As you do this—hey, presto—you discover joy. Joy, which you had not sought, comes as the gift, as almost.

Excerpts from The Book of Joy - Lasting happiness in a changing world by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams published by Cornerstone 2016 following the two men spending a week together discussing how we find joy in the face of suffering.