The Pursuit of Happyness II: This time, it's a cross-cultural documentary

December 28, 2006 3:44 PM

Three small classes of high school students, one in Watsonville, California, one in Jos, Nigeria, and one in Dharamsala, India, are currently collaborating on "Project Happiness". The students are "exchanging their thoughts about what happiness is, and how to behave in ways that promote happiness all around them," drawing on the Dalai Lama's Ethics for the New Millennium (useful 50-page pdf study guide; positive review from Christian Century magazine). In their work creating a curriculum for the book, the students communicate via email, a blog, and videos (an instructor in India describes the project's focus; a "what life is like here" video from India). The podcast section of the official site currently features just one introductory video posted a few weeks ago. The project will culminate in a meeting of all three classes in March 2007 in Dharamsala. A book and a PBS documentary are planned.
posted by ibmcginty (5 comments total)

Peripherally: Here's some previous criticism of the Dalai Lama on MeFi.

Also, some fun unrelated stuff via Google: writer Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project, where she consults and engages wisdom old and new about happiness in a yearlong project; and the Chinese government's extremely unrelated Project Happiness charity.
posted by ibmcginty at 3:44 PM on December 28, 2006

My favourite quote regarding the Dalai Lama's celebrity:
"It's just due to the corporate nature of our world that Buddhists are trying to monopolize [the contemplative traditions of humanity], to some degree." The Venerable Tenzin LS Priyadarshi
posted by FissionChips at 5:14 PM on December 28, 2006

How economists measure happiness
posted by homunculus at 5:29 PM on December 28, 2006

Ex-monk B. Alan Wallace explains what Buddhism can teach Western scientists, why reincarnation should be taken seriously and what it's like to study meditation with the Dalai Lama.

The author and Buddhist responds to readers who called him anti-science and challenged his belief in reincarnation.
posted by homunculus at 5:30 PM on December 28, 2006

At the request of the Dalai Lama Foundation, Mailliard's 14 students are working to create a high school curriculum for the Dalai Lama's book, "Ethics for the New Millennium.

I wonder how and why the Dali Lama Foundation picked this particular school. The project and collaboration sounds great in theory. Good for these kids. I never did anything this interesting in high-school.

If you want to be happy, act chirpy!
posted by LoriFLA at 5:58 PM on December 28, 2006