The Bookseller.com

3rd December 2008

Stepping back to happiness

31.07.08 Alice O'Keeffe

A tall, spare man in a traditional monk’s habit, Abbot Christopher Jamison of Worth Abbey cuts an unlikely figure as a reality TV star, but three million viewers watched “The Monastery”, the 2005 BBC series set in the abbey which followed five men from non-religious backgrounds as they spent 40 days with the monks.

After the success of the TV series, and spotting a gap in the MBS market, Orion approached Abbot Jamison to write his first book, Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life—an astute move as it has gone on to sell just under 30,000 copies to date in all formats.

There was an extraordinary response to the TV series and book, with more people writing to Abbot Jamison and seeking to visit Worth Abbey on retreat than ever before. “What kept coming up in conversation was happiness,” he says. “People still remembered the opening moments of the TV programme when I said that more and more people have more and more stuff and more and more affluence but at a deeper level they’re not happy.”

It’s in the glorious surrounds of Worth that we meet, after midday prayers in the abbey church and a silent lunch with the community of monks. Not entirely silent though: a book is always read aloud and today it’s William Hague’s William Pitt the Younger, history being a popular genre among the monks of Worth.

Having decided that there might be a book to be written on the subject of happiness, Abbot Jamison, with admirable commercial nous, set about researching the market: “I spent a rather momentous two hours in a big bookshop in London, going through the MBS section pulling out every book with the word ‘happiness’ in the title and looking at them. By the end of it I was rather depressed. It seemed to me that these books had a particular take on happiness that I simply didn’t agree with.”

He observes that hardly any of the books defined happiness other than a vague “feeling good” and comments: “I thought maybe there’s something to be said about happiness from a completely different angle.” The result is his second book, Finding Happiness: Monastic Steps for a Fulfilling Life (Weidenfeld, October, £12.99).

Finding Happiness proposes that happiness is not just “feeling good” but that goodness and virtue are integral parts of happiness. Based on the wisdom of the early monks, the book asserts that happiness comes to us indirectly, as the result of defeating the causes of our unhappiness.

Abbot Jamison observes: “Much of contemporary culture tells you you’ll be happy if you embrace the seven deadly sins, this book says if you learn how to fight them you’ll be happy.” The causes of unhappiness are characterised as the eight thoughts which correlate to the seven deadly sins but with one important addition—“acedia”, which is defined as “spiritual carelessness”.

He states: “In a sense the whole book is predicated on it being a spiritually careless culture that needs to learn to be spiritually careful.” It’s a big statement to make about contemporary culture and is bound to be a flash point for those described in the book as “increasingly strident atheist commentators”.

Fine for a religious market perhaps, but he must have faced the accusation that monks live a peaceful, cloistered existence, far away from the trials of modern life, so what can they possibly know? He offers a wry smile: “There is a huge assumption that monks are clueless. I think people expect a sort of gnomic figure who will utter sentences of opaque wisdom at them.”

Far from being opaque, the wisdom and insight of the early monks is shown to be spot on and, surprisingly, even some of the language chimes with today’s tabloid headlines: “We’re always hearing about celebrities fighting their demons and people are completely unaware this [concept] comes from the first monks who talk about wresting with the demons as though they were physical entities.” Readers may be surprised by the visceral nature of the struggle the early monks had with their demons, but he concurs: “I’ve certainly experienced that. We all do, as monks. I always say if you want to experience tranquillity go to a travel agent. If you want to experience peace, which is quite different from tranquillity, you’ll have to struggle for it.”

The book also touches on Abbot Jamison’s own vocation aged 21 and the struggle of his first six months as a monk. The contrast between life as an Oxford undergraduate in the 1970s and that as a novice was stark but he notes: “The things you are most afraid about are not the things that prove to be the hardest. One worries about celibacy, and leaving material things behind but the hardest thing was being physically exhausted . . . There was a real fear about what I was giving up but when I look back at it now my only fear is that I nearly didn’t do it.”

He was always drawn to the monastic life rather than the priesthood and to the Benedictine order in particular owing to the “very big emphasis on community; we eat all our meals in common, we pray in common” which is balanced with a “very strong contemplative dimension”.

Unlike other MBS books which suggest happiness can be found by following a system—“do this on Monday, this on Tuesday etc and by Sunday you’ll be happy”—Finding Happiness offers guidance in the form of stepping stones. He summarises: “Happiness is about getting yourself lined up in the right way inside and learning what is going to knock you off balance. The eight thoughts can knock you off balance, so find some places to step.”

Todays Picks Books Alice O'Keeffe author profile Christopher Jamison