The Art of Happiness (11 page)

A NEW MODEL
FOR INTIMACY

Ientered the sitting room of the Dalai Lama's hotel suite, and he motioned for me to sit down. As tea was poured, he slipped off a pair of butterscotch-colored Rockports and settled comfortably into an oversized chair.

“So?” he asked in a casual tone but with an inflection that said he was ready for anything. He smiled, but remained silent. Waiting.

Moments before, while sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for our session to begin, I had absently picked up a copy of a local alternative newspaper that had been turned to the “Personals” section. I had briefly scanned the densely packed ads, page after page of people searching, desperately hoping to connect with another human being. Still thinking about those ads as I sat down to begin my meeting with the Dalai Lama, I suddenly decided to set aside my list of prepared questions and asked, “Do you ever get lonely?”

“No,” he said simply. I was unprepared for this response. I assumed that his response would be along the lines of, “Of course ... every once in a while everyone feels some loneliness....” Then I was planning on asking him how he deals with loneliness. I never expected to confront anyone who never felt lonely.

“No?” I asked again, incredulous.

“No.”

“What do you attribute that to?”

He thought for a moment. “I think one factor is that I look at any human being from a more positive angle; I try to look for their positive aspects. This attitude immediately creates a feeling of affinity, a kind of connectedness.

“And it may partly be because on my part, there is less apprehension, less fear, that if I act in a certain way, maybe the person will lose respect or think that I am strange. So because that kind of fear and apprehension is normally absent, there is a kind of openness. I think it's the main factor.”

Struggling to comprehend the scope and difficulty of adopting such an attitude, I asked, “But how would you suggest that a person achieve the ability to feel that comfortable with people, not have that fear or apprehension of being disliked or judged by other people? Are there specific methods that an average person could use to develop this attitude?”

“My basic belief is that you first need to realize the usefulness of compassion,” he said with a tone of conviction. “That's the key factor. Once you accept the fact that compassion is not something childish or sentimental, once you realize that compassion is something really worthwhile, realize it's deeper value, then you immediately develop an attraction towards it, a willingness to cultivate it.

“And once you encourage the thought of compassion in your mind, once that thought becomes active, then your attitude towards others changes automatically. If you approach others with the thought of compassion, that will automatically reduce fear and allow an openness with other people. It creates a positive, friendly atmosphere. With that attitude, you can approach a relationship in which you, yourself, initially create the possibility of receiving affection or a positive response from the other person. And with that attitude, even if the other person is unfriendly or doesn't respond to you in a positive way, then at least you've approached the person with a feeling of openness that gives you a certain flexibility and the freedom to change your approach as needed. That kind of openness at least allows the possibility of having a meaningful conversation with them. But without the attitude of compassion, if you are feeling closed, irritated, or indifferent, then you can even be approached by your best friend and you just feel uncomfortable.

“I think that in many cases people tend to expect the other person to respond to them in a positive way first, rather than taking the initiative themselves to create that possibility. I feel that's wrong; it leads to problems and can act as a barrier that just serves to promote a feeling of isolation from others. So, if you wish to overcome that feeling of isolation and loneliness, I think that your underlying attitude makes a tremendous difference. And approaching others with the thought of compassion in your mind is the best way to do this.”

 

 

 

 

My surprise about the Dalai Lama's claim that he was never lonely was in direct proportion to my belief in the pervasiveness of loneliness in our society. This belief wasn't born merely from an impressionistic sense of my own loneliness or the thread of loneliness that seemed to run as an underlying theme throughout the fabric of my psychiatric practice. In the past twenty years, psychologists have begun to study loneliness in a scientific manner, conducting a fair number of surveys and studies on the subject. One of the most striking findings of these studies is that virtually all people report that they do experience loneliness, either currently or in the past. In one large survey, one-fourth of U.S. adults reported that they had felt extremely lonely at least once within the previous two weeks. Although we often think of chronic loneliness as an affliction particularly widespread among the elderly, isolated in empty apartments or in the back wards of nursing homes, research suggests that teenagers and young adults are just as likely to report they are lonely as the elderly.

Because of the widespread occurrence of loneliness, investigators have begun to examine the complex variables that may contribute to loneliness. For instance, they have found that lonely individuals often have problems with self-disclosure, have difficulty communicating with others, are poor listeners, and lack certain social skills such as picking up conversational cues (knowing when to nod, to respond appropriately, or to remain silent). This research suggests that one strategy for overcoming loneliness would be to work on improving these social
skills. The Dalai Lama's strategy, bowever, seemed to bypass working on social skills or external behaviors, in favor of an approach that cut directly to the heart—realizing the value of compassion and then cultivating it.

Despite my initial surprise, as I listened to him speak with such conviction, I came to firmly believe that he was never lonely. And there was evidence to support his claim. Often enough, I had witnessed his first interaction with a stranger, which was invariably positive. It started to become clear that these positive interactions weren't accidental or simply the result of a naturally friendly personality. I sensed that he had spent a great deal of time thinking about the importance of compassion, carefully cultivating it, and using it to enrich and soften the ground of his everyday experience, making that soil fertile and receptive to positive interactions with others—a method that can, in fact, be used by anyone who suffers from loneliness.

“Within all beings there is the seed of perfection. However, compassion is required in order to activate that seed which is inherent in our hearts and minds....” With this, the Dalai Lama introduced the topic of compassion to a hushed assembly. Addressing an audience of fifteen hundred people, counting among them a fair proportion of dedicated students of Buddhism, he then began to discuss the Buddhist doctrine of the Field of Merit.

In the Buddhist sense, Merit is described as positive imprints on one's mind, or “mental continuum,” that occur as a result of positive actions. The Dalai Lama explained that a Field of Merit is a source or foundation from which a person can accumulate Merit. According to Buddhist theory, it is a person's stores of Merit that determine favorable conditions for one's future rebirths. He explained that Buddhist doctrine specifies two Fields of Merit: the field of the Buddhas and the field of other sentient beings. One method of accumulating Merit involves generating respect, faith, and confidence in the Buddhas, the Enlightened beings. The other method involves practicing actions like kindness, generosity, tolerance, and so on and conscious restraint from negative actions like killing, stealing, and lying. That second method of acquiring Merit requires interaction with other people, rather than interaction with the Buddhas. On that basis, the Dalai Lama pointed out, other people can be of great help to us in accumulating Merit.

The Dalai Lama's description of other people as a Field of Merit had a beautiful, lyrical quality to it that seemed to lend itself to a richness of imagery. His lucid reasoning and the conviction behind his words combined to give special power and impact to his talk that afternoon. As I looked around the room, I could see that many members of the audience were visibly moved. I, myself, was less enthralled. As a result of our earlier conversations, I was in the rudimentary stages of appreciating the profound importance of compassion, yet I was still heavily influenced by years of rational, scientific conditioning that made me regard any talk of kindness and compassion as being a bit too sentimental for my taste. As he spoke, my mind began to wander. I started furtively looking around the room, searching for famous, interesting, or familiar faces. Having eaten a big meal just before the talk, I started to get sleepy. I drifted in and out. At one point in the talk, my mind tuned in to hear him say “... the other day I spoke about the factors necessary to enjoy a happy and joyful life. Factors such as good health, material goods, friends, and so on. If you closely investigate, you'll find that all of these depend on other people. To maintain good health, you rely on medicines made by others and health care provided by others. If you examine all of the material facilities that you use for the enjoyment of life, you'll find that there are hardly any of these material objects that have had no connection with other people. If you think carefully, you'll see that all of these goods come into being as a result of the efforts of many people, either directly or indirectly. Many people are involved in making those things possible. Needless to say, when we're talking about good friends and companions as being another necessary factor for a happy life, we are talking about interaction with other sentient beings, other human beings.

“So you can see that all of these factors are inextricably linked with other people's efforts and cooperation. Others are indispensable. So, despite the fact that the process of relating to others might involve hardships, quarrels, and cursing, we have to try to maintain an attitude of friendship and warmth in order to lead a way of life in which there is enough interaction with other people to enjoy a happy life.”

As he spoke, I felt an instinctive resistance. Although I've always valued and enjoyed my friends and family, I've considered myself to be an independent person. Self-reliant. Prided myself on this quality in fact. Secretly, I've tended to regard overly dependent people with a kind of contempt—a sign of weakness.

Yet that afternoon, as I listened to the Dalai Lama, something happened. As “Our Dependence on Others” was not my favorite topic, my mind started to wander again, and I found myself absently removing a loose thread from my shirt sleeve. Tuning in for a moment, I listened as he mentioned the many people who are involved in making all our material possessions. As he said this, I began to think about how many people were involved in making my shirt. I started by imagining the farmer who grew the cotton. Next, the salesperson who sold the farmer the tractor to plow the field. Then, for that matter, the hundreds or even thousands of people involved in manufacturing that tractor, including the people who mined the ore to make the metal for each part of the tractor. And all the designers of the tractor. Then, of course, the people who processed the cotton, the people who wove the cloth, and the people who cut, dyed, and sewed that cloth. The cargo workers and truck drivers who delivered the shirt to the store and the salesperson who sold the shirt to me. It occurred to me that virtually every aspect of my life came about as the results of others' efforts. My precious self-reliance was a complete illusion, a fantasy. As this realization dawned on me, I was overcome with a profound sense of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings. I felt a softening. Something. I don't know. It made me want to cry.

Our need for other people is paradoxical. At the same time that our culture is caught up in the celebration of fierce independence, we also yearn for intimacy and connection with a special loved one. We focus all our energy on finding the one person who we hope will heal our loneliness yet prop up our illusion that we are still independent. Though this connection is difficult to achieve with even one person, I would find out that the Dalai Lama is capable of and recommends maintaining closeness with as many people as possible. In fact, his aim is to connect with everyone.

Meeting with him in his hotel suite in Arizona late one afternoon, I began, “In your public talk yesterday afternoon you spoke of the importance of others, describing them as a Field of Merit. But in examining our relationship with others, there are really so many different ways in which we can relate to one another, different kinds of relationships ...”