The Compassionate Life
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"The key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion." --His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Giving and receiving affection is the key to happiness, and compassion is the key that opens our hearts to affection. Illuminating themes touched upon in The Good Heart and The Art of Happiness, this generous and gentle book contains some of the most beloved teachings on compassion that the Dalai Lama has ever offered. Touching and transformative, The Compassionate Life is a personal invitation from one of the world's most gifted teachers to live a life of happiness, joy, and true prosperity.
Collected here for the first time are four of the Dalai Lama's most accessible and inspiring teachings on compassion. The purpose of life is to be happy, His Holiness reminds us. To be happy, we should devote ourselves to developing our own peace of mind; the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own peace of mind. Therefore, we must develop compassion for others in order to be truly happy.
In these four teachings--imbued with the gentle humor and extraordinary kindness of this incomparable teacher--His Holiness explores altruism and the need for compassion on an individual as well as a global scale. He offers specific practices for developing loving-kindness and compassion in even the most difficult situations.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
While similar in content and approach to another fall title by the Dalai Lama (Little, Brown's An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life), some things clearly bear repeating. His Holiness begins the book quite generally, reflecting on human interdependence and the need for "compassion without attachment" (i.e., compassion that is genuinely altruistic and not generated by one's own desires). He expounds upon the need for compassion on an individual level, as people learn to control anger and self-centeredness and think of others, and also on a global one, as nations recognize their mutual reliance and need for conflict resolution. He calls for compassion in addressing religious pluralism, noting that a brave new world of interdependence will rely upon compassion as "the universal religion" that undergirds all faiths. From such generalities the Dalai Lama moves toward the specifics of Buddhism, a religion that he notes is grounded in compassion. He offers a brief chapter on the basics of Buddhist beliefs and practices, then another on "The Bodhisattva Way," quoting extensively from the eighth-century Indian master Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life to explain how Buddhism places a high premium on the happiness of others. The book is simple but not simplistic; His Holiness clearly understands the difficulties of practicing the truths he espouses, occasionally criticizing himself as "lazy" or easily irritated. Readers will enjoy this gentle, lucid call to the compassionate life.
