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The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

by Dalai Lama

Exploring joy amid life’s hardships

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Hardcover New English

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Awards & Recognition

  • Bestseller

    Instant New York Times bestseller

    The supplied metadata describes the book as an instant New York Times bestseller.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Exploring joy amid life’s hardships

The Book of Joy brings the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu together for a conversation about a question shaped by their experiences of exile and oppression: how to find joy while facing suffering. The account is organized around their discussion of joy, the obstacles that can challenge it—including fear, anger, grief, illness, and death—and eight pillars they present as foundations for lasting happiness. Stories and spiritual practices sit alongside references to science, with daily practices included near the end. The book’s central subject is not happiness as a life without hardship, but the ways these two religious leaders describe cultivating joy amid it.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in reflections on happiness and suffering from religious leaders.
  • Readers looking for a book that combines personal stories, spiritual practices, and discussion of joy.
  • Readers interested in approaches to fear, grief, anger, and other challenges to well-being.

Themes

Joy and sufferingSpiritual practiceResilience amid hardshipHappiness and well-being

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

An instant New York Times bestseller. Over 1 million copies sold!

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 unprecedented 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.
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