The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness

Sashin's notes

When Mingyur Rinpoche^[1] was little he suffered severe anxiety which often culminated in panic attacks. The whole world and its diverse appearances often seemed a scary, threatening place and he just didn't know what to do. As it happens, his father was the great Dzogchen master Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. He wondered if learning how to meditate would help him with his unruly mind…

Too shy to approach his father directly, he asked his mother to ask on his behalf. Naturally his father was overjoyed to hear this.

And so the journey to understand his own mind had begun and where it would lead was beyond his wildest expectations.

When a negative emotion arises in the mind, we tend to respond in one of two ways:

1. We simply believe the story it is telling about our lives and get lost in bad thoughts
2. Or we try to push away the emotions by force.

Mingyur discovered that there was a third way to deal with his anxiety - he could make friends with it.

Was his panic really as scary as he'd imagined?

Rather than giving into the narrative he told himself about his life, he would sit and watch his emotions to find out what their true nature was.

This is the wisdom of meditation.

If you simply leave the mind alone, it will naturally return to its balance.

Many years later, he distilled what he had learned from looking into his own mind into this excellent book. I really think you'd enjoy giving it a read.