Linda Leaming - A Field Guide to Happiness: What I Learned in Bhutan about Living, Loving, and Waking Up

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Praise for A Field Guide to Happiness

Now, youve gone and done it, Linda Leaming. This
book has impelled me to add a whole new country to
my already-overflowing bucket list. But either way, Im
grateful for this most excellent field guide to happiness.
Thank you, my fellow traveler, for sharing the love.

Pam Grout, #1 New York Times best-selling author of
E-Squared and E-Cubed

Linda Leaming writes with a sweetness and an earned
wisdom that goes down as smoothly as a good cup of
tea. She is also very funny. If you are alive, or would like
to be, read her A Field Guide to Happiness and
find joy on every page.

Eric Weiner, author of The Geography of Bliss

Linda Leaming offers us a fresh perspective of
embracing lifes challenges while pursuing our dreams.
Delivered with down-to-earth wisdom and intelligent
humor, A Field Guide to Happiness takes us on a
Himalayan journey to Bhutan while never
veering far from the heart.

Matteo Pistono, author of Fearless in Tibet and
In the Shadow of the Buddha

With Bhutan as a backdrop, Linda Leamings intimate
offering of life lessons in A Field Guide to Happiness
encourages deep exploration in our own interior
landscapes. This gem of a book is an invitation to know
we have all we need to surrender in the arms of joy,
and measure our aliveness with heartfelt
connection instead of speed and productivity.
Read it slowly and savor each morsel.

Nancy Levin, best-selling author of Jump
And Your Life Will Appear

A FIELD GUIDE to HAPPINESS

ALSO BY LINDA LEAMING

Married to Bhutan: How One Woman Got Lost, Said I Do, and Found Bliss

The above is available at your local bookstore, or may be ordered by visiting:

Hay House USA: www.hayhouse.com
Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au
Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk
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Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Copyright 2014 by Linda Leaming

Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast Books: www.raincoast.com Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Cover design: Nita Ybarra Interior design: Nick C. Welch

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private useother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviewswithout prior written permission of the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

To protect the privacy of others, certain names and details have been changed.

Part of the chapter Learn to Breathe appeared in another form as Breathing Meditation in Mandala Magazine.

Part of the chapter Move to the Middle in All Things appeared in The Guardian as Mediation, Not Litigation Swats Arguments.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress.

Tradepaper ISBN: 978-1-4019-4509-1

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
1st edition, October 2014

Printed in the United States of America

For Judy Liff Barker with love and affection

When I was a kid, I played a board game, Careers, which I never won. And I played a lot. In it, players have to set their own goals for winning by allocating a certain number of points, 60 in all, to a combination of fame, money, or happiness. Most people divide the points evenly and give 20 points to each. Every time I played I put all my points, all 60 of them, on happiness. I didnt care about fame or money. I stubbornly refused to do otherwise, even when my friends older brother explained that this made it statistically a lot harder to win. It didnt bother me that it was hardnearly impossible. Its always been about happiness for me. I was a sensitive, possibly moody child: determined, some might say inflexible. Eventually I figured out putting all your points on happiness is a terrible strategy for winning a board game, but it turns out to be a pretty interesting strategy for life.

While my peers in college went for MBAs, I got a degree in philosophy and then in the early 80s an MFA in writing because they made me happy. In the mid 90s, I traveled across Europe and Asia, and eventually made my way to Bhutan, a tiny Buddhist country in the Himalayas, known to be a very beautiful and a very happy place. I came to Bhutan for no particular reason. Id met some Bhutanese in New York and wed become friends. I liked them and wanted to see their country. Bhutan didnt even show up on some maps, and my Bhutanese friends were real jokers, so there was an ever-so-slight possibility that I was going somewhere that didnt even exist.

I got myself back to Bhutan several times, and I told everyone who would listen I wanted to live here. It was really hard to pull off at the time. It still is. Its far away, expensive, and like no place Ive ever known. I wasnt entirely sure why I was willing to leave everyone and everything Id ever known and loved. But Id had that precedent with the board game, and Id been known to quit jobs and relationships, dismantle appliances and leave the room, burn bridges, fling skewers of shish kebab, roll over, and jump through flaming hoops, all in the quest to be happy. For me, it was the thrill of adventure and the happiness I felt when I was here that brought me to live in Bhutan. I knew Bhutan would make me a better person.