Peter Clothier

We humans have engaged in the elusive pursuit of happiness far longer, surely, than the twenty-five hundred years or so since the Buddha propounded his First Noble Truth, to the effect that we are all fated to experience suffering in our lives. Here in the Western world we continue to engage in that pursuit, somewhat desperately these days, and with remarkably limited success despite the material well-being that surrounds us. Howard C. Cutler, a psychiatrist who set out to explore this paradox with the great Buddhist teacher and exiled spiritual and secular leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, believes that "a critical shift in perception" has taken place in our society: "as suffering becomes less visible," he writes, "it is no longer seen as part of the fundamental nature of human beings, but rather as an anomaly, a sign that something has gone terribly wrong, a sign of 'failure' of some system, an infringement on our guaranteed right to happiness!"

Cutler first envisioned "a conventional self-help format in which the Dalai Lama would present clear and simple solutions to all life's problems," and where Cutler himself would use his skills as a psychiatrist to "codify [these] views in a set of easy instructions on how to conduct one's daily life." But the Dalai Lama's approach, he soon discovered, "encompassed a much broader and more complex paradigm, incorporating all the nuance, richness, and complexity that life has to offer." As a result, and to the good fortune of Cutler's reader, the book expands into a richly textured dialogue, a comparative study of two ways of looking at the workings of the human mind, as he pursues a probing inquiry into the Dalai Lama's world view and how it differs from the Western paradigm. At a deeper level, it is also a sometimes emotional inner struggle, a chronicle of the author's growth. With acute, sometimes wry intelligence, Cutler counterpoints the knowledge and experience of a Westerner trained in rational, scientific methodology-and in the sobering school of contemporary mental and emotional disorders-with the broader, more hopeful, more fully human understanding of a great Buddhist teacher.

The mutually-accepted premise of their debate is that the purpose of life is to achieve happiness. At issue is how we go about it. The Western approach-the drive to achieve and acquire in the belief that the more we can satisfy our desires the happier we shall be-has reached an all-too obvious state of bankruptcy. Should we need it, Cutler supplies ample evidence of the bleak state of the Western psyche in statistical and clinical detail. "We don't need more money," he concludes: "we don't need greater success or fame, we don't need the perfect body or even the perfect mate-right now, at this very moment, we have a mind, which is all the basic equipment we need to achieve complete happiness."

Buddhism, of course-here in the voice of the Dalai Lama-teaches us precisely about the power of that mind. Happiness "involves an inner discipline, a gradual process of rooting out our destructive mental states and replacing them with positive, constructive states of mind, such as kindness, tolerance, and forgiveness." For the Buddhist teacher, "the root causes of suffering are ignorance, craving, and hatred […] the 'three poisons of the mind.'" Happiness, then, is not a condition we can expect to be provided for us by unreliable and constantly shifting forces outside ourselves and beyond our control, but an inner skill, an art which can be cultivated by careful training of the mind. It results not from the satisfaction of desires, but rather from the ability to detach the mind from the importunate demands of the "self" that we Westerners have come to hold in such high esteem, and to observe that grasping self from the wider, kinder perspective of genuine compassion for all sentient beings in the world around us.

It should be noted that the subtitle of this book is misleading: there are more readily practicable "handbooks for living" on the market, reflecting the enormous popular appetite for guides to Buddhist thought and practice in the United States today. As Cutler says, this is not the "self-help" book he had planned on writing; rather, it has more to do with the quality of thoughtfully, often elegantly exchanged ideas than with their practical application, in the literary tradition of the Platonic dialogue. Indeed, despite Cutler's frequent requests for techniques to implement the kind of mind-training that the Dalai Lama proposes, he devotes remarkably little space to meditation, the key practice of all varieties of Buddhism, which is barely mentioned until the last pages of the book.

On the subject of presentation, too, I take issue with the billing of His Holiness as co-author, which seems more like a marketing strategy than a true reflection of his role in this work. While his voice remains predominant throughout in the form of transcriptions from interviews and public presentations, it is Cutler who is the guiding presence here, and the direction of his inquiry governs both the structure and the content of the book. That said, The Art of Living is a valuable and engaging addition to the growing body of literature around Eastern thought and the healing insights it can bring to bear on the personal and moral dilemmas our contemporary American society.

--Peter Clothier has written numerous  articles, art reviews, art catalogues, book reviews, and essays.

Peter also offers creativity coaching and mentoring for writers, artists, and men as well as various workshopsand lecture appearances.