Dalai Lama Books
Christopher Castellani is an American novelist and educator, author of several acclaimed works including 'Leading Men'. He serves as the artistic director of GrubStreet, a creative writing center in Boston, and teaches writing at various institutions.
Known for: Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
Books by Dalai Lama
Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama
This book presents a dialogue between the Dalai Lama and leading scientists, exploring the nature of destructive emotions such as anger, fear, and hatred. It examines how Buddhist philosophy and moder...
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
The Book of Joy is a collaborative work between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with writer Douglas Abrams. It explores the nature of joy and how to cultivate lasting happines...
Key Insights from Dalai Lama
Setting the Dialogue
The setting of our dialogue was as remarkable as its purpose. High in the foothills of the Himalayas, where the Dalai Lama lives in exile, Western scientists and Buddhist monks met not as antagonists between faith and reason but as partners in inquiry. The Dalai Lama’s motivation was deeply human: h...
From Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama
Scientific Foundations
The scientists began by presenting the latest findings about the emotional brain. Emotional reactions, they explained, are rooted in the limbic system—the amygdala, hippocampus, and related circuits—which respond to threats or rewards in milliseconds. Anger and fear are ancient survival mechanisms, ...
From Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama
The Nature of True Joy
The first subject we discussed was the nature of joy itself. The Dalai Lama began by distinguishing between pleasure and joy. Pleasure is sensory; it depends on external conditions—a delicious meal, a warm bath, the praise of others. But such pleasure, he smiled, is unstable. When the cause disappea...
From The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
The Obstacles to Joy
The Dalai Lama often says the mind is like a lake. If it’s disturbed by anger, fear, or self-centered thoughts, we cannot see clearly. The obstacles to joy are precisely those disturbances—fear that the future will fail us, anger at the past, envy of others, and habitual self-criticism. These emotio...
From The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
About Dalai Lama
Christopher Castellani is an American novelist and educator, author of several acclaimed works including 'Leading Men'. He serves as the artistic director of GrubStreet, a creative writing center in Boston, and teaches writing at various institutions.
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Christopher Castellani is an American novelist and educator, author of several acclaimed works including 'Leading Men'. He serves as the artistic director of GrubStreet, a creative writing center in Boston, and teaches writing at various institutions.
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