Preserving your balance | Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

Happiness Is a Conscious Choice | Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill | Matthieu Ricard

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	• Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill Matthieu Ricard Little, Brown and Company, 2006 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 38 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An amazing book.

Even just reading this book is enough to make you want to live your life in a more positive way for it's own sake. I'm only 16 years of age, but the sense of benevolence I am already wanting to develop is very encouraging. This book is 1337

Preserving your balance

A few days after finishing "Happiness" I ran into author Matthieu Ricard. The art school at which I study is in the same building as his office at Shechen Monastery, so it's not all that unusual to pass him in the hall or on the stairs. I said that I wanted to thank him for his recording of his most recent book, "Happiness." He smiled and shrugged and replied in a self-effacing manner that I must have been bored listening to it.

On the contrary, I found it quite engaging. Marketed as an audio book, the 2-CD, 160 minute recording sounds more relaxed and informal than a reading, as if Ricard were speaking to you over a pot of tea. Highlighted by stories of his travels across the world with the Dalai Lama, whom he serves as his official French interpreter, as well as numerous insights from his study of science and Buddhist literature, Ricard has a simple message, that happiness is not what you own, not your job, not your spouse or family, not your one month summer vacation, nor your collection of rare antiques. Happiness is a state of mind.

We know this is true, he points out, because of the miserable people in the world who by modern standards should be incredibly happy. They have immense wealth, exciting jobs, freedom to come and go as they please, the power to attract desirable spouses. And yet they are unhappy. Conversely, we know people living under very adverse circumstances able to maintain a sense of well-being and equanimity. It is therefore not external conditions that produce happiness, Ricard concludes, but our inner translation of the external experience. In other words, our way of viewing the world makes us happy, or not.

The good news for those that are unhappy, and even those who aren't, is that we're not stuck with the way we view our world. Ricard presents a few simple examples of Buddhist techniques for managing anger, jealousy, and desire, techniques that in no way require one to become a Buddhist or believe in Buddhist precepts. When we get angry, for example, we practice to disassociate from the experience, to see anger as not belonging to the self, not as an expression of self, but as a process happening to the self. In this way we cut off anger from its fuel and render it harmless. (Later on, you might practice by remembering that there is in fact no self, only thoughts, feelings, awareness, will, and form.)

In working with the mind we gradually begin the process of transforming ourselves, of uncovering our potential for true happiness, which Ricard defines as ...

"...a way of being that can suffuse all emotional states and help us preserve our balance, our sense of meaning, our desire to live, and give us the resources to deal with the ups and downs of life. It is a way of life less vulnerable to outer circumstances because of its depth and ability to withstand surface conditions."

In realizing this state of happiness, we make the world a better place. And that's not only because we reduce the number of miserable people negatively influencing others. It's primarily because the characteristics of genuine happiness, of genuine well-being, are compassion, empathy, and benevolence. Selfish happiness, the excessive concern for oneself, is not only a magnet for dissatisfaction and suffering, it is, Ricard says, entirely contradictory.

This 2-cd set would make a wonderful gift for nearly anyone, especially those going through a rather rough spell in life. It might help to remind them that feelings are just feelings, something we can look at dispassionately and learn to manage, rather than letting them manage us.

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Happiness Is a Conscious Choice

You don't have to be a Buddhist to get a LOT of out Mattieu Ricard's book; you just have to realize that happiness as a way of life is a choice that must be regularly cultivated like a garden -- it doesn't just 'happen' to us. One of the best books I've read on this most salient of topics while doing my own ongoing research. Buy this book; it will help you as it helped me.

THE LITTLE BOOK OF HAPPINESS, 2nd EDITION: Quotes By History's Icons, Celebrities, and Saints

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Very impressive

Most points have been made by the other reviews, I don't disagree with them. This book offers insight with the feel-good factor, all explained both thoroughly and clearly. It avoids chocolatey platitudes and the psychological cushions of the self-help industry - although the language is occasionally a little soapy (hence four stars rather than five). Overall, an excellent book, and one I recommend highly for anyone in need of a meaningful lift.

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This is revolutionary look at happiness, deep and tremendously engaging, from one of the world?s most compelling voices on the subject. As a young man in France, Matthieu Ricard found himself looking for a different approach to living. The son of a prominent French philosopher, Ricard grew up among the famous thinkers and artists of his parents? generation. He chose the path of science, studying molecular biology under a Nobel winning scientist. Then, on his first trip to India in 1967, a seed was planted for a very new sort of future, a future in which seeking inner happiness took precedent over all other goals. This book is the fruit of that seed ? a revolutionary look at happiness. Matthieu Ricard combines science with spirit, bringing modern psychological research together with Buddhist thought and bridging the dialogue between East and West. He makes a passionate case for happiness as a goal that deserves at least as much energy as any other in our lives. Wealth? Fitness? Career success? How can we possibly place these above true and lasting well-being? Drawing from works of fiction and poetry, contemporary western philosophy, Buddhist thought, current psychological and scientific research and personal experience, Ricard weaves an inspirational and forward looking account of how we can begin to rethink our realities in a fast moving modern world. Ricard?s insights could not be more timely or essential, as evidence grows of well-being?s profound and measurable effects on the body and mind. With revelatory lessons and exercises that blaze a clear path for readers, this is an eloquent and groundbreaking guide to a happier life.

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