The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu talk about JOY

The two great spiritual masters and moral leaders met in Dharamsala for the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday to talk about something very important to them: joy. Both winners of the Nobel Prize, they are also known for being among the most infectiously happy people on the planet.

Pedram Shoji of Urban Monk interviews Douglas Abrams who spent a week with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The two world leaders had never been able to spend much time together. Abrams was there to capture the moments while writing “The Book of Joy” with both of them. Watch this fascinating, in-depth interview as Adams relates stories of that momentous event.

From the beginning, the book was envisioned as a three-layer birthday cake: their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. At the 22:00 mark Adams talks about forgiveness: “We can’t be in joy if we’re constantly in bitterness and seeking revenge and thinking about how we’ve been wronged. The Dalai Lama said, ‘Forgiveness is not weak, forgiveness is strength!’ and Tutu said, ‘Anyone that thinks forgiveness is weak hasn’t tried it.’”