“You should not be too harsh on yourself,” said His Holiness. “If you help people lead more positive lives that benefit others as well as themselves, this is a good thing. Very good thing. The danger is that self-development can lead us to more self-cherishing, self-absorption, self-infatuation. And these are not true causes of happiness but the opposite.”
Jack took a moment to process this before asking, “So, the true causes of happiness. Do we need to discover what these are for ourselves, or are there general principles? Must we turn our back on the material world?”
He didn’t get any further before the Dalai Lama began laughing. “Oh, no!” he said. “Becoming a monk is not a true cause of happiness either!” Then, adopting a more serious expression, he continued, “We each need to find out our own personal methods of cultivating happiness, but there are general principles. Two main true causes of happiness: first, the wish to give happiness to others, which Buddhists define as love, and second, the wish to help free others from dissatisfaction or suffering, which we define as compassion.
“The main shift, you see, is from placing self at the center of our thoughts to putting others there. It is—what do you say?—a paradox that the more we can focus our thoughts on the well-being of others, the happier we become. The first one to benefit is oneself. I call this being wisely selfish.”
“An interesting philosophy,” mused Jack. “Wisely selfish.”
“We should test these principles against our own experience to see if they are true,” His Holiness said. “For example, think of the times in your life when you experienced great contentment. Perhaps you find that your thoughts were on someone else. Then compare. Think about your times of greatest unhappiness, upset. Who were you thinking about then?”
As his visitor was considering this, His Holiness continued, “Scientific research is most useful. MRI scans have been done on meditators while they’re focusing on different subjects. We expect the meditators to have greatest happiness when their minds are completely calm and relaxed. But the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the part linked to positive emotion, lights up when people meditate on the happiness of others. Therefore, the more ‘other-centric’ we are, the happier we can be.”
Jack was nodding. “Self-Development takes us only so far. Then there needs to be Other Development.”
The Dalai Lama brought his hands together with a smile. “Exactly.”
Jack paused before saying, “Now I understand why you said that something useful can come from this experience.”
“There is a story, a metaphor, that perhaps you may find useful,” said His Holiness. “A man arrives home to find a huge pile of sheep manure has been dumped on his front yard. He didn’t order the manure. He does not want it. But somehow, it is there, and his only choice now is to decide what to do with it. He can put it in his pockets and walk around all day complaining to everyone about what happened. But if he does this, people will start avoiding him after a while. More useful is if he spreads the manure on his garden.
“We all face this same choice when dealing with problems. We don’t ask for them. We don’t want them. But the way we deal with them is what’s most important. If we are wise, the greatest problems can lead to the greatest insights.”
Later that day, I was in my usual spot in the executive assistants’ office. Remembering Jack’s arrival that morning, I continued to be amazed by how powerfully he filled the room when he first stepped through the door—and how very different he seemed when he was telling the Dalai Lama how he really felt. The difference between appearance and reality could not have been more marked. I also reflected on His Holiness’s advice about how to deal with problems in life. They are never asked for, but how we deal with them defines our future happiness or unhappiness.
Toward the end of that afternoon, the Dalai Lama’s driver appeared in the office. It was more than a week since he had last visited, and he immediately noticed the Lhasa apso, who lay curled up in his basket.
“Who is this?” he asked Chogyal, who was tidying his desk in readiness to leave for the day.
“Just someone we’re looking after until a home can be found for him.”
“Another Tibetan refugee?” wisecracked the driver, leaning down to pat the dog.
“Similar,” said Chogyal. “He belonged to neighbors of my cousin in Dharamsala. They had him only a few weeks, and my cousin kept hearing this yelping coming from their yard.
“Then about a w
eek ago, my cousin heard the dog barking from inside the house at night. He went around and knocked on the door. No one answered, but the barking stopped. Next night, the same thing. He began to wonder what was going on. It seemed the neighbors weren’t taking good care of the dog.”
The driver shook his head.
“Two days later, my cousin happened to mention the dog to the neighbor across the road, who told him that the dog’s owners had moved out the weekend before. Cleared out, lock, stock, and barrel.”
“And abandoned the puppy?” asked the driver.
Chogyal nodded. “My cousin went around immediately and broke into the house. He found Kyi Kyi lying at the end of a heavy chain in the kitchen, barely alive. It was a pitiful sight. No food or water. He took the dog home immediately and managed to get some water into him, then food. But my cousin couldn’t keep him, because he’s a single man and hardly ever at home. So”—Chogyal shrugged—“with nowhere else to go, he came to us.”
It was the first time that I’d heard Kyi Kyi’s background, and I can’t pretend, dear reader, that I was unaffected by the tale. I remembered how jealous I’d been of Kyi Kyi when he first arrived, how resentful of the affection Chogyal showered on him and the food he gave him. But I also recalled how subdued the dog had been, and the poor condition of his coat. If I’d known the full story, I too would have felt sorry for him.
“Seems like you’ve started an animal shelter,” remarked His Holiness’s driver. “How has Mousie-Tung taken to the new orphan?”
My whiskers twitched irritably. His Holiness’s driver had always seemed a rough sort to me. Why did he insist on calling me by that dreadful name?
“Oh, I think she is still making up her mind about him.” Chogyal glanced at me as he delivered his typically generous assessment.
“Making up her mind?” Walking over to the cabinet, the driver reached out to stroke me. “In that case, she is a very wise cat. Most of us judge others only on appearances.”
“And as we all know”—Chogyal clicked his attaché case shut—“appearances can be very deceptive.”