Happiness, Bhutan-style

Is there anyone who would say no to happiness? Bhutan is a place where the government decided to make the governing rule about happiness - the Gross National Happiness.

After all, Bhutan, which is isolated high in the Himalayas between China and India, has lush waterfalls, green forests, quaint villages and an active farming community.

Local veteran filmmakers Tom Vendetti, John Wehrheim and Robert Stone were among the first western filmmakers allowed in the country to share the story of Bhutan, which previously issued only 500 visas a year. The Oahu debut of their film, Bhutan: Taking The Middle Path To Happiness, screens Nov. 17 at the East-West Center and Nov. 18 at UHManoa.

*** 4/25/14

[After blogging about Tom Shadyac] I wonder if there's any documentaries about Bhutan on Netflix or Hulu?  Nope, nope.  Snagfilms has Into The Thunderdragon which is about bringing extreme unicycling into Bhutan, not quite on topic.  HitBliss?  Nope.

Googling, I see there are several movies out there.

Bhutan: Taking The Middle Path To Happiness (available on Amazon Instant Video)
Happiness (article)
The Happiest Place: A Journey Across Bhutan (kickstarter)
Bhutan: a Kingdom of Happiness
Bhutan: The Road to Happiness

Apparently, except for the first, these are hard to find.  Not apparently.

Here's a short documentary on youtube called Bhutan: The Kingdom Where GDP Is Measured In Happiness.

Another short feature called Bhutan - The happiest on Earth - One Life

Gross National Happiness in Bhutan (which is excerpts from a film)

Bhutan: The Last Place (from PBS)

The big person

Confucius, that fountainhead of Chinese philosophy, often contrasts the big person with the small one. In his Analects, we read, "The big person sees a question from all sides; the small person, only from one."

Be a tough customer

Becoming a savvy consumer entails more than finding designer clothes on a sale rack. It means taking the initiative to obtain high-quality services and products at the best possible prices -- and then being assertive if you're dissatisfied.

Read Up

"Buy -- don't be sold -- products," says Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America. Don't just go into an electronics store and ask the salesman to suggest a digital camera; do research on available features and prices first. Web sites including ConsumerReports.org, ConsumerWorld.org and PriceGrabber.com make it easy to compare items by quality and user reviews and check prices across stores and Web retailers.

In addition, be careful when shopping via Craigslist.org or Facebook.com's Marketplace application, particularly for expensive items. Since the Web sites do not take responsibility for fraudulent transactions, do extra research on the product and seller. Craigslist.org's help forum suggests meeting the seller in person and cautions against giving out financial information like bank-account numbers.

Keep Up

When you bring home your latest gadget or garment, don't toss the receipt in the trash. By keeping receipts and documents and, in some cases, packaging, you leave the option open to return items. Also, many stores offer a low-price guarantee: they will issue a credit or give cash back if the item's price drops or if you find it cheaper elsewhere.

Web sites like Shoeboxed.com, FileMyReceipt.com and MakeLifeEasy.com offer free tools to help organize and store your receipts online.

Also, promptly review all phone, utility, credit-card and insurance bills, watching for unclear "miscellaneous" fees and making sure you are charged only for services you've authorized and items you've bought.

Making Peace

A professional peacemaker says the process of reconciliation after political and ethnic violence requires listening to the perpetrators as well as the victims of human rights violations.

Reaching peace starts by seeking to understand who is "the other," said Glenda Wildschut, who was named to the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995 by Nelson Mandela, the first democratically elected president of that nation.

Taoist photography

If Zen masters practice their philosophy through the art of calligraphy and flower arrangement, why can't a photographer exercise his Taoist sensibilities through his camera?

The answer is, he can. Philippe Gross, a research psychologist who had his first experience behind the lens at age 8, empties his mind of mental chatter while observing the world with camera in hand. It's all about staying present, he says.

Achieving peace in schools

Bullying behavior reflects a symptom of a larger problem that is common throughout society. By addressing it at the source, we have the potential for not only diminishing the level of violence in the schools, but we might also diminish the level of chronic diseases and drug use.

My suggestion returns to the concept of "peace begins with me" -- achieving inner peace and self-acceptance. Research on the mainland and in Canada shows that two programs can have a profound impact on creating inner peace and, in doing so, can transform the school.

The first program, mindfulness, teaches people to take an inner "time out," to become quiet inside and peacefully observe and experience the fullness of the moment they are in and the thoughts that float across the surface of their minds. Research shows that children become calmer, more responsive and less reactive. Conflict in the playground and the classroom is greatly diminished with children who participate. One classroom went from having the most behavioral problems in school to having no behavior problems -- in only three weeks of mindfulness instruction.

The other program teaches a grateful state of mind. It, too, is simple, goes to the source, is easy to learn and free of charge and has impressive outcomes.

By keeping a daily gratitude journal or starting off the day writing down five things they are grateful for, children experience both mental and physical benefits. They show increased scores of life satisfaction and optimism, feel better about life and about school and have decreased negative feelings. A study of middle-school children in Vancouver who were instructed in mindfulness and gratitude experienced almost immediate results.

-- Laura Crites