The Art of Happiness

possibility of recognizing a bad situation for whatit is and responding emotionally, but withoutoverresponding. The Dalai Lama sincerely feltregret over the incident he described but carriedhis regret with dignity and grace. And whilecarrying this regret, he has not allowed it to weighhim down, choosing instead to move ahead andfocus on helping others to the best of his ability.Sometimes I wonder if the ability to livewithout indulging in self-destructive guilt is partlycultural. In recounting my conversation with theDalai Lama about regret to a friend who is aTibetan scholar, I was told that, in fact, theTibetan language doesn’t even have an equivalentfor the English word “guilt,” although it does havewords meaning “remorse” or “repentance” or“regret,” with a sense of “rectifying things in thefuture.” Whatever the cultural component may