Yesterday I read a story in the local newspaper about a dispute between neighbors over a tree. One guy, a former professional baseball player, wanted his neighbor across the street to cut down an old tree so that he could have an even better view, even though the tree had been there for years before they built their house. The sufferings of samsara! Even if you live in an exclusive neighborhood of multimillion-dollar homes, you can find things to be unhappy about.
Then I heard it in a different way: It is crucial to have the right view, essential to your happiness in fact - for example, cultivating the view that sees others as important.
In Eight Steps to Happiness Geshe-la says "'Self' and 'other' are relative terms, rather like 'this mountain' and 'that mountain ... 'This' and 'that' therefore depend upon our point of reference. This is also true of self and other. By climbing down the mountain of self, it is possible to ascend the mountain of other, and thereby cherish others as much as we presently cherish ourself."
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