One of the most stunning aspects of the week was how much of it was spent laughing. At times the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop seemed to be as much a comedy duo as two venerable spiritual teachers. It is their ability to joke, and laugh, and poke fun at the ordinary pieties that so righteously violates expectation. When a Dalai Lama and an Archbishop walk into a bar, you don’t expect them to be the ones cracking the jokes. Having worked with many spiritual leaders, I’m tempted to see laughter and a sense of humor as a universal index of spiritual development. The Archbishop and the Dalai Lama were certainly at the top of that index, and they skewered humbug, status, injustice, and evil, all with the power of humor. They and everyone around them were constantly guffawing, chortling, giggling, and belly laughing throughout the week, as moments of great levity were spliced together with moments of profundity and sanctity. So often their first response to any subject, no matter how seemingly painful, was to laugh.
It was clear that humor was central to their joyful way of being, but why was laughter so central?
“I worked with a Mexican shaman once,” I said, introducing the topic. “He said that laughing and crying are the same thing—laughing just feels better. It’s clear that laughter is central to the way that you are in the world. And the Archbishop was just saying, Your Holiness, that you laugh at something that could ordinarily be a source of anguish.”
“That’s right. That’s right.”
“Can you tell us about the role of laughter and humor in the cultivation of joy?”
“It is much better when there is not too much seriousness,” the Dalai Lama responded. “Laughter, joking is much better. Then we can be completely relaxed. I met some scientists in Japan, and they explained that wholehearted laughter—not artificial laughter—is very good for your heart and your health in general.” When he said “artificial laughter,” he pretended to smile and forced a chuckle. He was making a connection between wholehearted laughter and a warm heart, which he had already said was the key to happiness.
I once heard that laughter was the most direct line between any two people, and certainly the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop used humor to break down the social barriers that separate us. Humor, like humility, comes from the same root word for humanity: humus. The lowly and sustaining earth is the source for all three words. Is it any surprise that we have to have a sense of humility to be able to laugh at ourselves and that to laugh at ourselves reminds us of our shared humanity?
“I think that the scientists are right,” the Dalai Lama concluded. “People who are always laughing have a sense of abandon and ease. They are less likely to have a heart attack than those people who are really serious and who have difficulty connecting with other people. Those serious people are in real danger.”
“We found at home . . .” the Archbishop added, gazing down thoughtfully, remembering those painful times, “when we were conducting funerals of people who had been killed by the police, we would have hundreds and hundreds of people attending the funerals. It was a state of emergency—you were not allowed any other gatherings—so the funerals turned into political rallies. We found that one of the best ways of helping our people direct their energies in positive directions was laughter. Telling jokes, even at our expense, was such a wonderful flip to our morale. Of course some of the things that happened were just so horrendous. Like I was saying yesterday, about Chris Hani, humor helped to defuse a very, very tense situation, telling stories that made people laugh and especially to laugh at themselves.
“People were really angry and you’d have the police standing not far away—and it was an explosive situation. Anything could have gone wrong. My weaponry, if you can call it that, was almost always to use humor, and especially self-denigrating humor, where you are laughing at yourself.
“We came to a township just outside of Johannesburg, where the apartheid forces had provided weapons to one group, and they had killed quite a number of people. We were having a meeting of bishops close by, and I was part of those leading the funeral of the victims of that massacre. The people were obviously extremely angry, and I remembered a story that had been told about how at the beginning of creation, God molded us out of clay and then put us into a kiln, like you do with bricks. God put one lot in and then got busy with other things and forgot about those he had put into the kiln. And after a while he remembered and rushed to the kiln, where the whole lot was burned to cinders. They say this is how we black people came about. Everyone laughed a little. And then I said, ‘Next, God put in a second lot, and this time he was overanxious and opened the oven too quickly, and this second lot that came out was underdone. And that’s how white people came about.’” The Archbishop finished with a little laugh and then that cackle that climbs up the flagpole and back down.
“We tend to want to blow ourselves up, inflate ourselves because most of us have tended to have a poor self-image. When you’re in a situation such as the one in South Africa where you were discriminated against, it was very easy to lose your sense of self, and humor seems to do something for people. Humor certainly did one good thing: it deflated, defused a particularly tense situation.”
The Archbishop had visited Rwanda shortly after the genocide and was asked to give a talk to the Hutus and the Tutsis. How does one talk about a wound that is so fresh in the soul of a people? The Archbishop’s solution, as it so often is, was to speak truth to power—through humor. He began telling a story about the big-nose people and the small-nose people and how the big-nose people were excluding the small-nose people. The people in the audience were laughing, and as they were laughing they suddenly realized what he was talking about: the ridiculousness of prejudice and hatred, whether in his country or theirs. Humor was, as he said, a very powerful weapon.
The Dalai Lama visited Belfast in northern Ireland after the Troubles. He was invited to attend a private meeting where victims and perpetrators of violence were present. The atmosphere was very tense, as the suffering was practically palpable in the air. As the meeting began, a former Protestant militant spoke of how, when he was growing up, he was told by other loyalists that what they did in opposition to the Catholics was justified because Jesus was a Protestant and not a Catholic. Knowing that Jesus was, of course, a Jew, the Dalai Lama laughed so hard that he completely changed the atmosphere. Able to laugh at the absurdity of our prejudices and our hatreds, everyone was able to communicate more honestly and compassionately with each other.
“When we learn to take ourselves slightly less seriously,” the Archbishop continued, “then it is a very great help. We can see the ridiculous in us. I was helped by the fact that I came out of a family who did like to take the mickey out of others, and who were quite fond of pointing out the ridiculous, especially when someone was being a bit hoity-toity. And they had a way of puncturing your sense of self-importance.
“I mean, of course it’s not a laughing matter not to know where your next meal is going to come from. It’s not a laughing matter when you get up in the morning and you don’t have a job. Yet it was those people who quite frequently were the ones who formed part of the crowds that used to come to the political rallies, the funerals. And they were the people who were able to laugh at themselves. And then their laughing at others would be less malicious. They weren’t particularly number one in God’s garden, but they were able to laugh at life in all its cruelty and uncertainty. Humor really is the saving grace.
“I have been helped by my wife, Leah, who was very—is very—good at keeping me humble. Once, we were driving, and I noticed that she was a little smugger than she normally is. And then when I looked again at the car in front of us, I saw a bumper sticker that said: ‘Any woman who wants to be equal to a man has no ambition.’”
“Archbishop,” I said, “humor can also be very cruel. But your humor, as I’ve seen over the years, is about bringing us together, not about separating us and putting anyone down—except maybe the Dalai Lama. But most of the time it’s about uniting. Can you two tell us a little bit about the ways in which humor can bring us together and show us our shared ridiculousness?”
“Well, yes, if you are longing to bring people together, you’re not going to do so by being acerbic. You know, it’s so good to see the ridiculous in us all, really. I think we then get to see our common humanity in many ways.
“Ultimately, I think it’s about being able to laugh at yourself and being able not to take yourself so seriously. It’s not about the belittling humor that puts others down and yourself up. It’s about bringing people onto common ground.
“If you can manage to downgrade yourself, if you are able to laugh at yourself and get others to laugh at you without feeling guilty that they are laughing at you. The humor that doesn’t demean is an invitation to everyone to join in the laughter. Even if they’re laughing at you they’re joining you in a laughter that feels wholesome.”
“When you and the Dalai Lama tease each other,” I added, “it does not feel demeaning at all.”
“Yes, the Dalai Lama and I tease each other, but it is a statement of trust in the relationship. It’s an indication that there’s enough of a reservoir of goodwill that you’re really saying, ‘I trust you. And you trust me that I know you will not undermine me or be offended by me.’
“I’m just thinking that we’re so very apt to belittle because we are also so unsure of ourselves and we think that the best way of asserting who we are is by putting you down, whereas this kind of humor says, ‘Come stand next to me and let’s laugh at me together, then we can laugh at you together.’ It does not belittle either of us but uplifts us, allows us to recognize and laugh about our shared humanity, about our shared vulnerabilities, our shared frailties. Life is hard, you know, and laughter is how we come to terms with all the ironies and cruelties and uncertainties that we face.”
Scientific research on humor is rather limited, but it does seem that there is an evolutionary role for laughter and humor in managing the anxiety and stress of the unknown. Jokes are funny precisely because they break our expectations and help us to accept the unexpected. Other people are one of the greatest sources of uncertainty in our lives, so it is not surprising that much humor is used to manage and massage these encounters. The Archbishop and the Dalai Lama are masters of using humor to connect and join together when meeting others.
Perhaps that is one of the reasons that their time together was so filled with laughter. For all the joy they felt being together, it was an unprecedented and no doubt uncertain experience to meet for a week together in Dharamsala. They had met only a half dozen times before, and these were largely brief and formal occasions. Global leaders have full schedules, and their times together are highly scripted, so an opportunity to just joke and be themselves was exceedingly rare.
“What do you say to people,” I asked the Archbishop, “who say they are not funny or that they do not have a good sense of humor?”
“I reckon there are many people who think they have to be somber because it gives them gravitas, and they feel they are more likely to be respected if they are serious. But I believe very fervently that one of the ways of getting into the hearts of people is the capacity of making them laugh. If you are able to laugh at yourself, then everyone knows you’re not pompous. Besides, you hardly ever knock down someone who is knocking himself down. You’re not likely to clobber someone if they’ve already, as it were, self-clobbered.
“I don’t think I woke up and presto I was funny. I think it is something that you can cultivate. Like anything else, it is a skill. Yes, it does help if you have the inclination, and especially if you can laugh at yourself, so learn to laugh at yourself. It’s really the easiest place to begin. It’s about humility. Laugh at yourself and don’t be so pompous and serious. If you start looking for the humor in life, you will find it. You will stop asking, Why me? and start recognizing that life happens to all of us. It makes everything easier, including your ability to accept others and accept all that life will bring.”