Joy as a Mindful Practice

— Ugh, Agafon, how can you eat cheese? Who even eats cheese these days? You’re disgusting.

And Agafon has just with great pleasure finished off a whole little tub of processed cheese and is beaming with happiness. In this episode, Lobsang Tenpa uses it to explain what hedonism is: often our pleasure can annoy and even hurt those around us.

That’s why it’s so important to understand eudemonia— a deeper, more stable state of joy that many people don’t even think about. In this lecture, the Buddhist monk Lobsang Tenpa compares hedonism and eudemonia, shows where to look for them, and how to develop in yourself the ability to genuinely rejoice in others’ happiness.

You will learn:
● how the “Big Mac index” echoes the Buddhist view of life;
● what Buddhism calls happiness and how it relates to hedonism and eudemonia;
● what ways to raise your level of eudemonia in everyday life;
● how to pursue happiness more meaningfully and learn to truly live it;
● why compassionate joy is considered a mind state, and whether you can train it every day;
● where the concept of fundamental benevolence comes from and how it can be useful to a modern city dweller.

The author connects ancient ideas with examples from the 21st century and shows that following the Tibetan tradition today is not only possible, but sometimes truly necessary.