Book Review: The Art Of Happiness in a Troubled World

Blending common sense and modern psychiatry, The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World applies Buddhist tradition to twenty-first-century struggles in a relevant way. The result is a wise approach to dealing with human problems that is both optimistic and realistic, even in the most challenging times. How can we expect to find happiness and meaning in our lives when the modern world seems such an unhappy place? His Holiness the Dalai Lama has suffered enormously throughout his life, yet he always seems to be smiling and serene. How does he do it? In The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World, Dr. Cutler walks readers through the Dalai Lama's philosophy on how to achieve peace of mind and come to terms with life's inherent suffering. Together, the two examine the roots of many of the problems facing the world and show us how we can approach these calamities in a way that alleviates suffering, and helps us along in our personal quests to be happy. Through stories, meditations, and in-depth conversations, the Dalai Lama teaches readers to identify the cultural influences and ways of thinking that lead to personal unhappiness, making sense of the hardships we face personally, as well as the afflictions suffered by others.

I am all about reading books on how to be more happy and how to make this world a better place. I first heard about this book from unfinished Person. I had high expectations of this book buts sadly I felt sort of let down. I thought this book would be all about the Dalai Lama and how to better achieve happiness but rather it was more of the author Howard Cutler M.D writing about his experience with the Dalai Lama and then as an after thought what the Dali Lama says about how to live.

To be fair the book does have some good ideas about how to discuss poverty and violence and such. It talks about how the Dali Lama uses nonviolence to try to bring change and freedom to his people. I could have done without Howard C Cutler interjecting his thoughts and how he feels about stuff in the book. I wanted to read the book because I was interested in what the Dalai Lama had to say not some unknown American Dr. Cutler talks about some of his patients and how what the Dali Lama says can benefit depressed people and such. While I am interested in such, this is not the reason that I picked up this book so I was conflicted about this. There are times when a book goes off tangents that it turns out well but this was not one of those times.