The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu & Douglas Abrams
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
I just finished listening to the most beautiful book y’all.
Here is a summary:
“Two spiritual giants. Five days. One timeless question.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived more than fifty years of exile and the soul-crushing violence of oppression. Despite their hardships—or, as they would say, because of them—they are two of the most joyful people on the planet.
In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu traveled to the Dalai Lama’s home in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate His Holiness’s eightieth birthday and to create what they hoped would be a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question: How do we find joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering?
They traded intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual practices. By the end of a week filled with laughter and punctuated with tears, these two global heroes had stared into the abyss and despair of our time and revealed how to live a life brimming with joy.
This book offers us a rare opportunity to experience their astonishing and unprecendented week together, from the first embrace to the final good-bye.
We get to listen as they explore the Nature of True Joy and confront each of the Obstacles of Joy—from fear, stress, and anger to grief, illness, and death. They then offer us the Eight Pillars of Joy, which provide the foundation for lasting happiness. Throughout, they include stories, wisdom, and science. Finally, they share their daily Joy Practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives.
The Archbishop has never claimed sainthood, and the Dalai Lama considers himself a simple monk. In this unique collaboration, they offer us the reflection of real lives filled with pain and turmoil in the midst of which they have been able to discover a level of peace, of courage, and of joy to which we can all aspire in our own lives.”
This is NOT a self help book or even a spiritual guidebook in my opinion.
What this happens to be is a beautiful collection of stories, experiences, thoughts, reflections, advice and wisdom from two joy filled spiritual leaders.
It’s also an illustration of what a true and close friendship looks like.
Even though these two men are different in many ways, they have realized more ties them together than pulls them apart…
And they feel that all human beings are this way.
Deep down we are all more alike then different from each other, yet we do not often realize this.
The thing that draws these men together the most is one foundational belief they both share:
Compassion for all humanity.
I can not even count how many times I heard the word “compassion” as they spoke each chapter.
They both believe that this very thing should be at the core of our own joy, what guides our thoughts, what determines the actions we take.
Even though they do not always think similarly on all things, they have profound respect, admiration and love not just for each other but for all human beings that reside on this planet.
And wouldn’t it be an amazingly beautiful thing if more of us believed and lived out just that.
This book reminded me that what guides my own faith in Christ is how we are told to “love thy neighbor”…no restrictions, no limits…just as these men do so courageously and admirably.