The (Scientific) Pursuit of Happiness

"Tenzin Gyatso, better known as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, [is] the 14th manifestation of the Buddha of Compassion, Nobel Peace Prize winner and exiled leader of Tibet. As the chief exponent of a 2,500-year-old religion dedicated to the mitigation of suffering, he is sort of the high priest of happiness. And while he may not know more about the secrets of well-being than his 13 predecessors, he has brought the Buddhist philosophy of joyful compassion to vast audiences in the West...His 1998 book The Art of Happiness (coauthored by psychiatrist Howard C. Cutler) was a New York Times bestseller, assuring readers that the purpose of life is to 'seek happiness' and that 'the very motion of our life is toward happiness.'" (Smithsonian) The Dalai Lama's promotion of the "gospel of cultivated happiness" is detailed. Western psychologists' and Buddhist monks' contrasting concepts of "attention, mental imagery and emotion" are noted.