He’s been hailed the happiest man in the world. And even if Matthieu Ricard, a Tibetan Buddhist monk and author of “Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill,” pooh-poohs that label (“How could we know the level of happiness of seven billion people?”) he acknowledges that joy is out for the taking.
“Anyone can find happiness, if we look for it in the right place, instead of turning our back to it,” said Ricard, 70, who’s the Dalai Lama’s go-to guy. Easier said than done, so the Daily News asked him how to let the sunshine in.
Daily News: First off, how do you define happiness? What is it?
Matthieu Ricard: Happiness is not the endless pursuit of pleasant experiences — that sounds more like a recipe for exhaustion — but a way of being that results from cultivating a benevolent mind, emotional balance, inner freedom, inner peace and wisdom. Each of these qualities is a skill that can be enhanced through training the mind.
DN: Happiness is hard to find these days, so how do we hold tight to it?
MR: We deal with our mind from morning until evening. This mind can be our best friend or our worst enemy. We should do everything we can to improve outer circumstances — remedying poverty, inequalities, conflicts, and so on — while also doing our best to achieve a state of mind that give us the inner resources to deal with the ups and downs of life.
DN: What bums you out?
MR: I don’t often get into a bad mood, since it does not help anything and clouds my judgment, but I can certainly see that sometimes things go terribly wrong. We need to understand the reasons for this and work towards building new conditions that will bring about better circumstances.
DN: What are the most valuable books or articles on happiness?
MR: Books that inspired me most were “The Art of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, “The Joy of Living,” by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and, recently, “The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World,” by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu.
DN: Pop music tells us “Don’t worry, be happy.” But can you worry and tune into reality and still be happy? How do you balance?
MR: When faced with adverse circumstances, if you can do something, do it and there is not need to worry. If you can’t do anything, then there is no point to worry. So in either case, worrying is an added suffering. But this does not mean of course that we should not be unhappy about injustice, abuse and other kinds of behavior that brings suffering upon others.
DN: Does happiness get easier or harder with age?
MR: Various studies indicate that with age people gain more wisdom about life and are somehow happier than younger people. This is especially true if, as we age, we learn how to become more generous, altruistic, and peaceful.
