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52 EASTERN HORIZON | FEATURES

A Zen Priest at Harvard

Finds the Key to Happiness

By Andrea Miller

Study of Adult Development. It’s watching his talk, he took off for a
perhaps the longest-running study three-week sesshin, a Zen retreat
of adult life ever conducted. For conducted largely in silence.
seventy-five continuous years, it
has tracked the lives of 724 men in Between studying Buddhism and
order to understand what makes the lives of the 724 men, Waldinger
for a healthy, happy life. Now it’s has learned a thing or two about
following the next generation, as what’s important in life—what
it tracks the lives of the original creates happiness and what doesn’t.
subjects’ children and their families. And rather than just knowing
the secret to the good life, he is
Andrea Miller is the editor of The study is one of the most trying to take the knowledge to
Lion’s Roar magazine. She’s the important longitudinal research heart and really live it. That’s why
author of Awakening My Heart: projects ever undertaken. Over the Waldinger—at that intense moment
Essays, Articles, and Interviews decades, the scientific community in his career—stepped back to see
on the Buddhist Life and the has followed the Study of Adult what his intentions were.
Development with interest, but the
children’s book The Day the
public was largely unaware of it “I have as much ego as anybody,”
Buddha Woke Up.
and its findings about what really he says. “When people are inviting
makes people happy and healthy. you to do things and saying, ‘Oh! We
What makes life worth living? What Then Robert Waldinger became an really want to hear from you,’ it’s a
really makes us happy? As a Zen internet star. strange and heady experience. How
priest and leader of the one of the do you not believe your own press
most important studies of human It started with a TED talk called release? How do you do something
happiness ever undertaken, Robert “The Good Life.” Waldinger expected that has meaning?”
Waldinger has sought the answers to get only a few thousand views
to these questions. and was taken aback when the talk For Robert Waldinger, all the buzz
went viral. meant one thing: It was time for
What he’s discovered is that science quiet and reflection. Time for what
and Buddhism arrive at the same Coca-Cola was the first company really makes life worth living.
basic answer. They both conclude, to get in touch: Could Waldinger
he says, that “moving beyond the speak to executives in Romania in The Harvard Study of Adult
small self is a huge source of both February? After that, interview and Development began in 1938 as
meaning and contentment.” speaking requests quickly flooded separate studies of very different
his inbox. Clearly, this was not when populations. The first was focused on
Waldinger is a clinical professor of most people would power down. understanding healthy young adult
psychiatry at Harvard University But that’s what Waldinger did. With development, so the researchers
and director of the famed Harvard millions of viewers worldwide selected people they felt were the