The Book of Joy

“It is much better when there is not too much seriousness,” the Dalai
Lama responded. “Laughter, joking is much better. Then we can be
completely relaxed. I met some scientists in Japan, and they explained
that wholehearted laughter—not artificial laughter—is very good for your
heart and your health in general.” When he said “artificial laughter,” he
pretended to smile and forced a chuckle. He was making a connection
between wholehearted laughter and a warm heart, which he had already
said was the key to happiness.
I once heard that laughter was the most direct line between any two
people, and certainly the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop used humor to
break down the social barriers that separate us. Humor, like humility,
comes from the same root word for humanity: humus. The lowly and
sustaining earth is the source for all three words. Is it any surprise that we
have to have a sense of humility to be able to laugh at ourselves and that
to laugh at ourselves reminds us of our shared humanity?
“I think that the scientists are right,” the Dalai Lama concluded.
“People who are always laughing have a sense of abandon and ease. They
are less likely to have a heart attack than those people who are really
serious and who have difficulty connecting with other people. Those
serious people are in real danger.”
“We found at home . . .” the Archbishop added, gazing down
thoughtfully, remembering those painful times, “when we were
conducting funerals of people who had been killed by the police, we
would have hundreds and hundreds of people attending the funerals. It
was a state of emergency—you were not allowed any other gatherings—
so the funerals turned into political rallies. We found that one of the best
ways of helping our people direct their energies in positive directions was
laughter. Telling jokes, even at our expense, was such a wonderful flip to
our morale. Of course some of the things that happened were just so
horrendous. Like I was saying yesterday, about Chris Hani, humor helped
to defuse a very, very tense situation, telling stories that made people
laugh and especially to laugh at themselves.
“People were really angry and you’d have the police standing not far
away—and it was an explosive situation. Anything could have gone