The Laws of Happiness: Love, Wisdom, Self-Reflection, Progress / Ryuho Okawa

RATINGS

Overall: 4 / 5 stars

Text Level: Medium

Entertainment: Medium

Self-Help: High

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Spirituality, Buddhism

Page Count: 264

Is this book right for my inmate and me?

If you see the world as a negative place where you can’t seem to find any calmness of balance in life, this is a great book for building foundations of positivity.

Buy on: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

Review By: Blackbird (Inmate)

Shifting your mind to one of love towards the betterment of the world around you.

We often tell people that our goal of life is to be happy, but what does happiness even mean to us as an individual? To be “happy” is such a general term that we are constantly in search of the momentary feeling never knowing how to create a life of lasting joy. The spiritual teachings of Ryuho Okawa provide readers the fundamental building blocks to understand wat a life of happiness is and how to spread it to others.

A life centered around the four principles of love, wisdom, self-reflection, and progress helps an individual find balance and happiness in a deeper lasting way. Okawa teaches that these four principles are more than merely catch-phrase to practice when it is convenient, but a way of life that can lead those that devote themselves to their practice to enlightenment. Each of these principles builds upon each other bringing the person dedicates themselves to a closer connection with God and bettering the world we live in.

After reading this book, I better understood the complexity of what love meant toward my fellow person. So often in the past, I would say that I loved many things, but it was always in the sense of what they did for me. Through reading "The Laws of Happiness,” I now see that love requires you to give to others as well. This creates a life of better balance, moving from always looking to take, to looking for ways to give.

As inmates, there is a frequent feeling of searching to be wanted and loved. If we can somehow achieve people wanting us and giving us love, it will create happiness in our minds. So we demand of our families to put money on our books to buy commissary, items in a way to fill a void of love we have. We somehow think that with these material items we will then know we are loved and happy. however, to live a life of love is to understand it requires us to give it openly first. Happiness can stem from loving others properly building up both our lives.

This is a wonderful book for building the needed fundamental principles that bring us closer to God, our families, happiness, and enlightenment.

Book Quotes:

“You don’t need to regret a life of many mistakes. Hidden within your mistakes are the seeds of the next creation, the seeds of your future growth.”

“We often talk about happiness and unhappiness, but there are no fixed conditions that will guarantee on or the other.”