The Book of Joy

disturbances, small problems will cause you much pain and suffering.
You will have much fear and worry, much sadness and despair, and much
anger and aggravation.
“People would like to be able to take a pill that makes their fear and
anxiety go away and makes them immediately feel peaceful. This is
impossible. One must develop the mind over time and cultivate mental
immunity. Often people ask me for the quickest and best solution to a
problem. Again, this is impossible. You can have quickest or you can
have best solution, but not both. The best solution to our suffering is
mental immunity, but it takes time to develop.
“One time I was talking with Al Gore, the American vice president.
He said that he had lots of problems, lots of difficulties that were causing
him a great deal of anxiety. I said to him that we human beings have the
ability to make a distinction between the rational level and the emotional
level. At the rational level, we accept that this is a serious problem that
we have to deal with, but at the deeper, emotional level, we are able to
keep calm. Like the ocean has many waves on the surface but deep down
it is quite calm. This is possible if we know how to develop mental
immunity.”
“Yes,” the Archbishop replied, “you have answered very well. You
always answer well, but you have done this one quite well. The only thing
I think is that people sometimes get quite annoyed with themselves
unnecessarily, especially when they have thoughts and feelings that are
really quite natural.
“Basically,” the Archbishop continued, “I think we’ve got to accept
ourselves as we are. And then hope to grow in much the way the Dalai
Lama described. I mean getting to know what the things are that trigger
us. These are things that you can train, you can change, but we ought not
to be ashamed of ourselves. We are human, and sometimes it is a good
thing that we recognize that we have human emotions. Now the thing is
being able to say, when is it appropriate?”
Throughout the week of dialogues, the Archbishop said many times
that we should not berate ourselves for our negative thoughts and
emotions, that they are natural and unavoidable. They are only made