The Art of Happiness (29 page)

“Effort” is the final factor in bringing about change. The Dalai Lama identifies effort as a necessary factor in establishing new conditioning. The idea that we can change our negative behaviors and thoughts through new conditioning is not only shared by Western psychologists, but it is in fact the cornerstone of contemporary behavior therapy. This kind of therapy is based on the basic theory that people have largely
learned
to be the way they are, and, by offering strategies to create new conditioning, behavior therapy has proven to be effective for a broad range of problems.

While science has recently revealed that one's genetic predisposition clearly plays a role in an individual's characteristic way of responding to the world, most social scientists and psychologists feel that a large measure of the way we behave, think, and feel is determined by learning and conditioning, which comes about as a result of our upbringing and the social and cultural forces around us. And since it is believed that behaviors are largely established by conditioning, and reinforced and amplified by “habituation,” this opens up the possibility, as the Dalai Lama contends, of extinguishing harmful or negative conditioning and replacing it with helpful, life-enhancing conditioning.

Making a sustained effort to change external behavior is not only helpful in overcoming bad habits but also can change our underlying attitudes and feelings. Experiments have shown that not only do our attitudes and psychological traits determine our behavior, an idea that is commonly accepted, but our behavior can also change our attitudes. Investigators found that even an artificially induced frown or smile tends to induce the corresponding emotions of anger or happiness
_;
this suggests that just “going through the motions” and repeatedly engaging in a positive behavior can eventually bring about genuine internal change. This could have important implications in the Dalai Lama's approach to building a happier life. If we begin with the simple act of regularly helping others, for instance, even if we don't
feel
particularly kind or caring, we may discover an inner transformation is taking place, as we very gradually develop genuine feelings of compassion.

In bringing about genuine inner transformation and change, the Dalai Lama emphasizes the importance of making a sustained effort. It is a gradual process. This is in sharp contrast to the proliferation of “quick fix” self-help techniques and therapies that have become so popular in Western culture in recent decades—techniques ranging from “positive affirmations” to “discovering your inner child.”

The Dalai Lama's approach points toward slow growth and maturity. He believes in the tremendous, perhaps even unlimited, power of the mind—but a mind that has been systematically trained, focused, concentrated, a mind tempered by years of experience and sound reasoning. It takes a long time to develop the behavior and habits of mind that contribute to our problems. It takes an equally long time to establish the new habits that bring happiness. There is no getting around these essential ingredients: determination, effort, and time. These are the real secrets to happiness.

When embarking on the path to change, it is important to set reasonable expectations. If our expectations are too high, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment. If they are too low, it extinguishes our willingness to challenge our limitations and achieve our true potential. Following our conversation about the process of change, the Dalai Lama explained:

“You should never lose sight of the importance of having a realistic attitude—of being very sensitive and respectful to the concrete reality of your situation as you proceed on the path towards your ultimate goal. Recognize the difficulties inherent in your path, and the fact that it may take time and a consistent effort. It's important to make a clear distinction in your mind between your
ideals
and the
standards
by which you judge your progress. As a Buddhist, for instance, you set your ideals very high: full Enlightenment is your ultimate expectation. Holding full Enlightenment as your ideal of achievement is not an extreme. But expecting to achieve it quickly, here and now, becomes an extreme. Using that as a
standard
instead of your
ideal
causes you to become discouraged and completely lose hope when you don't quickly achieve Enlightenment. So you need a realistic approach. On the other hand, if you say, ‘I'm just going to focus on the here and now
_;
that's the practical thing, and I don't care about the future or the ultimate attainment of Buddha-hood,' then again, that is another extreme. So we need to find an approach that is somewhere in between. We need to find a balance.

“Dealing with expectations is really a tricky issue. If you have excessive expectations without a proper foundation, then that usually leads to problems. On the other hand, without expectation and hope, without aspiration, there can be no progress. Some hope is essential. So finding the proper balance is not easy. One needs to judge each situation on the spot.”

I still had nagging doubts
_;
although we may certainly modify some of our negative behaviors and attitudes given enough time and effort, to what extent is it truly possible to eradicate the negative emotions? Addressing the Dalai Lama, I began, “We've spoken about the fact that ultimate happiness depends on eliminating our negative behaviors and mental states—things like anger, hatred, greed, and so on...”

The Dalai Lama nodded.

“But these kinds of emotions seem to be a natural part of our psychological makeup. All human beings seem to experience these darker emotions to one degree or another. And if that's the case, is it reasonable to hate, deny, and combat part of ourselves? I mean, it seems impractical, and even unnatural, to try to completely eradicate something that is an integral part of our natural makeup.”

Shaking his head, the Dalai Lama replied, “Yes, some people suggest that anger, hatred, and other negative emotions are a natural part of our mind. They feel that since these are a natural part of our makeup, there is no way to really change these mental states. But that is wrong. Now, for example, all of us are born in an ignorant state. In this sense, ignorance is also quite natural. Anyway, when we are young, we are quite ignorant. But as we grow, day by day through education and learning we can acquire knowledge and dispel ignorance. However, if we leave ourselves in an ignorant state without consciously developing our learning, we won't be able to dispel ignorance. So, if we leave ourselves in a ‘natural state' without making an effort to dispel it, then the opposing factors or forces of education and learning do not come naturally. And in the same way, through proper training we can gradually reduce our negative emotions and increase positive states of mind such as love, compassion, and forgiveness.”

“But if these things are a part of our psyche, ultimately how can we be successful in fighting against something which is part of ourselves?”

“In considering how to fight against the negative emotions, it is useful to know how the human mind works,” answered the Dalai Lama. “Now the human mind is of course very complex. But it is also very skillful. It can find many ways in which it can deal with a variety of situations and conditions. For one thing, the mind has the ability to adopt different perspectives through which it can address various problems.

“Within Buddhist practice, this ability to adopt different perspectives is utilized in a number of meditations in which you mentally isolate different aspects of yourself, then engage in a dialogue between them. For instance, there is a meditation practice designed to enhance altruism, whereby you engage in a dialogue between your own ‘self-centered attitude,' a self that is the embodiment of self-centeredness, and yourself as a spiritual practitioner. There is a kind of a dialogical relationship. So similarly here, although negative traits such as hatred and anger are part of your mind, you can engage in an endeavor in which you take your anger and hatred as an object and do combat with it.

“In addition, from your own daily experience, you often find yourself in situations in which you blame or criticize yourself. You say, ‘Oh, on such and such day, I let myself down.' Then you criticize yourself. Or, you blame yourself for doing something wrong or for not doing something, and you feel angry towards yourself. So here also, you engage in a kind of dialogue with yourself. In reality, there are not two distinct selves; it's just the one continuum of the same individual. But still, it makes sense to criticize yourself, to feel angry towards yourself. This is something that you all know from your own experience.

“So although, in reality, there is only one single individual continuum, you can adopt two different perspectives. What takes place when you are criticizing yourself? The ‘self' that is criticizing is done from a perspective of yourself as a totality, your entire being, and the 'self' that is being criticized is a self from a perspective of a particular experience or a particular event. So you can see the possibility of having this ‘self-to-self relationship.'

“To expand on this point, it may be quite helpful to reflect upon the various aspects of one's own personal identity. Let us take the example of a Tibetan Buddhist monk. That individual can have a sense of personalized identity from the perspective of his being a monk, ‘myself as a monk.' And then he can also have a level of personal identity that is not so much based upon his consideration of monkhood but rather of his ethnic origin, like Tibetan, so he can say, ‘I as a Tibetan.' And then at another level, that person can have another identity in which monkhood and ethnic origin may not play any important role. He can think, ‘I as a human being.' So you can see different perspectives within each person's individual identity.

“What this indicates is that when we conceptually relate to something, we are capable of looking at one phenomenon from many different angles. And the capacity to see things from different angles is quite selective
_;
we can focus on a particular angle, a particular aspect of that phenomenon, and adopt a particular perspective. This capacity becomes very important when we seek to identify and eliminate certain negative aspects of ourselves or enhance positive traits.
Because of this capacity to adopt a different perspective, we can isolate parts of ourselves that we seek to eliminate and do battle with them.

“Now, in further examining this subject, a very important question arises: Although we may engage in combat with anger, hatred, and the other negative states of mind, what guarantee or assurance do we have that it is possible to gain victory over them?

“When speaking of these negative states of mind, I should point out that I am referring to what are called
Nyon Mong
in Tibetan, or
Klesha
in Sanskrit. This term literally means ‘that which afflicts from within.' That's a long term, so it is often translated as ‘delusions.' The very etymology of the Tibetan word Nyon
Mong
gives you a sense that it is an emotional and cognitive event that spontaneously afflicts your mind, destroys your peace of mind, or brings about a disturbance within your psyche when it arises. If we pay close enough attention, it's easy to recognize the afflictive nature of these ‘delusions' simply because they have this tendency to destroy our calmness and presence of mind. But it's much more difficult to find out whether we can overcome them. That is a question that directly relates to the whole idea of whether it is possible to attain the full realization of our spiritual potential. And that is a very serious and difficult question.

“So, what grounds do we have to accept that these afflictive emotions and cognitive events, or ‘delusions,' can be ultimately rooted out and eliminated from our minds? In Buddhist thought, we have three principal premises or grounds on which we believe that that can happen.

“The first premise is that all ‘deluded' states of mind, all afflictive emotions and thoughts, are essentially distorted, in that they are rooted in misperceiving the actual reality of the situation. No matter how powerful, deep down these negative emotions have no valid foundation. They are based on ignorance. On the other hand, all the positive emotions or states of mind, such as love, compassion, insight, and so on have a solid basis. When the mind is experiencing these positive states, there is no distortion. In addition, these positive factors are grounded in reality. They can be verified by our own experience. There is a kind of grounding and rootedness in reason and understanding; this is not the case with afflictive emotions like anger and hatred. On top of that, all these positive states of mind have the quality that you can enhance their capacity and increase their potential to a limitless degree, if you regularly practice them through training and constant familiarity ...”

I interrupted, “Can you explain a bit more what you mean by the positive states of mind having a ‘valid basis,' and the negative states of mind having ‘no valid basis'?”

He clarified, “Well, for example, compassion is considered a positive emotion. In generating compassion, you start by recognizing that you do not want suffering and that you have a right to have happiness. This can be verified or validated by your own experience. You then recognize that other people, just like yourself, also do not want to suffer and they have the right to have happiness. This becomes the basis of your beginning to generate compassion.

“Essentially, there are two kinds of emotions or states of mind: positive and negative. One way of categorizing these emotions is in terms of understanding that the positive emotions are those which can be justified, and the negative emotions are those which cannot be justified. For instance, earlier we discussed the topic of desire, how there can be positive desires and negative desires. Desire for one's basic necessities to be met is a positive kind of desire. It is justifiable. It is based on the fact that we all exist and have the right to survive. And in order to survive, there are certain things that we require, certain needs that have to be met. So that kind of desire has a valid foundation. And, as we discussed, there are other types of desire that are negative, like excessive desire and greed. Those kinds of desires are not based on valid reasons, and often just create trouble and complicate one's life. Those kinds of desires are simply based on a feeling of discontentment, of wanting more, even though the things we want aren't really necessary. Those kinds of desires have no solid reasons behind them. So, in this way we can say that the positive emotions have a firm and valid foundation, and the negative emotions lack this valid foundation.”