I sorta feel gypped by this book. It's not actually written by the Dalai Lama, but rather by a PhD who was looking for name recognition to go along with his chosen topic. It had a bunch of cheesy "conversations" between the true author and the Dalai Lama which weren't really helpful and felt like the non-fiction equivalent of artificial plot lines.

Reading a book about happiness can make you feel happy! Seriously, there are some excellent ways to think about how to achieve true happiness, mainly through developing compassion for others and also by being honest and patient with ourselves and others.

I liked this book, but didn't care for Cutler's constant need to "show us" his version of "the western equivalent" of everything the Dalai Lama said -- if it had been more information specifically from the Dalai Lama's point of view, I would have enjoyed it more.

The book: The Art Of Happiness

The authors: Howard C. Cutler, American psychologist, and (allegedly) His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

The subject: Through interviews with the Dalai Lama, Cutler explores the idea of happiness and how Buddhist ideas translate to Western ones.

Why I chose it: Kate recommended it to me. I've also been struggling with negative emotions recently, so wanted to get some insight.

The rating: Two out of five stars

What I thought of it: Let's get one thing straight first of all: this is not a book by the Dalai Lama. It's a book by Howard C. Cutler including a lot of quotes from the Dalai Lama, but not nearly enough. It's a shame, both because you're probably going to be reading this for the Dalai Lama and because a book on the intersection between Western psychiatry and Buddhist beliefs could have been so much better.

Cutler does draw lots of interesting comparisons, which I enjoyed. However, he seems a bit dismissive at times and frustrated that the Dalai Lama can't sum up thousands of years of philosophy into neat sayings. Then, when something does seem simple, he doesn't recognise that it could contain multitudes despite that appearance. He doesn't seem to ask the probing questions, just aiming to fit what the Dalai Lama says into his idea of self-help. Cutler also inserts himself as a character into the narrative and honestly comes across as somewhat unpleasant.

Cutler makes some odd statements as well. He talks about 'quick fix' self-help techniques and therapies that have became so popular in Western culture in recent decades – techniques ranging from 'positive affirmations' to 'discovering your inner child'. I'm not long out of therapy, but having been instructing using these sorts of techniques I can say that neither of them were presented as 'quick fixes'. You have to do them for a long time for them to work and I was told this. He also says that we are not accustomed to cultivating positive attributes – love, compassion, patience, generosity – as weapons against all negative emotions and mental states, which seems incorrect particularly when you consider the cliché of people being given the advice to "lighten up". Perhaps this is something to do with the age of the book though.

He also says this:

In depression, thinking can become distorted by viewing events in all-or-nothing terms or overgeneralizing (for example, if you lose a job or fail a class, you automatically think, ‘I’m a total failure!’)...

Depression tends to be a bit more serious than that. It's customary to feel a total failure when you are in a slightly awkward situation or you get a mark that's even a little less than perfect, so either of the situations quoted is a total nightmare. I know this is small, but it was just another thing that Cutler seemed to mess up.

The best part of the book was, of course, the bits that the Dalai Lama actually did contribute. I really enjoyed the majority of that. However, that isn't to say that I agreed entirely with what he said. Here are two points of contention.

I have seen some families in our settlements in India, with very difficult situations – living under very poor conditions, and on top of that having children with both eyes blind or sometimes [learning disabilities]. And somehow these poor ladies still manage to look after them, simply saying, "This is due to their Karma; it is their fate."

Maybe I'm being too rational for a statement about faith, but isn't this sort of brushing aside the injustices of the world and what humans have done to cause that? Why should people just have to accept that?

So we must still find a way to try to improve life for this majority of the people, the four billion people who aren't involved in a specific religion – ways to help them become good human beings, moral people, without any religion.

I hate it when religious people assume that atheists or non-religious people struggle to be good people without religion. There are plenty of people who are directly influenced by their religion to do bad things and plenty of non-religious people who don't require faith (or, if I'm being particularly cynical, the incentive of karma or the afterlife or whatever) to do good things. Of course there are also many good religious people and bad non-religious people, as one would expect.

Nevertheless, he has a lot of interesting things to say, if only Howard C. Cutler would be quiet and let him say them. I would definitely like to read more about Buddhism and more from the Dalai Lama, but will definitely be checking the authorship more carefully in future.

Just one more thing: I'm getting into meditation at the moment, albeit Westernised (I'm practising some form of mindfulness every day to help me with my mental illness). Meditation Oasis is my favourite website for free guided meditation MP3s. Also, more related to the book, I found the story of Kisa Gotami particularly thought-provoking.

As an atheist with science background, I picked up this book because I thought it would be interesting to see how the commentary of a psychiatrist would complement thoughts of a religious leader. I was surprised in two ways - not only did I find Dr Cutler's comments to be the weaker part of the book (including the lack of proper citations; numerous studies are mentioned but usually in such a way that it is impossible to trace it to original papers - I do understand that the book is geared towards general public but I would have appreciated a chance to judge the relevance of the mentioned studies by myself), he also seemed the more religious one to me. It looked particularly ridiculous in moments where Dalai Lama, while stressing the importance of spirituality, was also stressing the importance of finding one's own way based on what all humans share in common and how there is no one religion that would suit everybody. From what he was saying this is very much in line with the Buddhist approach. Enter Dr Cutler and his need to Westernise that statement - he basically started saying that it's the same as letting people decide whether they want to be Christian or Muslim or Jewish or whatnot. Except it's not. I happen to have been raised Catholic and year after year it the thought was being forced upon me that according to the Church's doctrine you can't simply decide to be, say, Muslim just because you feel this works better for you - if you do decide to go outside of the Catholic Church you are condemned to an eternity of Hell. Western religions in general are not as tolerant and loving as Dr Cutler tries to make them seem and there is hardly any room in them for the kind of reflection and reasoning that the Dalai Lama tries to promote. A recent piece of news comes to mind where pope Francis said something along the lines of "atheists who are good still have a chance for salvation" but soon after this statement was corrected by the Church officials to something closer to "no, they will actually burn in Hell, only our religion is the true one and everybody else is wrong". Since I'm bombarded everyday in media by news of similar nature, Dr Cutler's remarks on how Western religions are just like Buddhism with only a few wee differences, sounded in my ears like bizarre and inappropriate jokes.

I still decided to give the book four stars, instead of the at most three it deserves overall, because the parts where it is actually the Dalai Lama, not Dr Cutler, speaking do shine. I do not agree with everything he says, but it certainly gave me a lot of food for thought and was very enriching to read.

Tried my best, but eventually gave up on this book because I did not feel I was receiving much wisdom due to the fact that it contains only the odd quotation from the Dalia Lama and mostly self-referential diary notes and justificatory framing from Howard C Cutler. Yascha’s review sums it up well...

This is my last read book of 2010 and a pretty good premise to be keeping in mind for the upcoming year. I’m quite interested in Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy so, for me, this was a great read. The Dalai Lama tackles subjects like happiness, overcoming fear and anxiety, cultivating positive habits, compassion, empathy, kindness, and overcoming negative emotions such as anger and hatred.

I heart the Dalai Lama.