'All the suffering in the world comes from seeking happiness for oneself.
All the joy in the world comes from seeking happiness for others.'
- Shantideva, Nalanda University, 8th century CE
The happiest life is a life of seva (service). Dharmalaya provides many opportunities for meaningful service for mutual benefit, some of which include an experiential education component (learning by doing). Would you like to learn or practise a new language (e.g. Hindi, Tibetan, Nepali, or English) or learn about a new culture while doing volunteer work with kindred spirits from other places for a project that benefits the community and the environment?
Dharmalaya's volunteer and service-learning programmes are somewhat unusual in that we encourage and support the practise of approaching service work as karma yoga, the practise of integration through action. Of the various yogas, karma yoga is the most socially engaged: you're in the world, interacting with others and making a practical contribution. In karma yoga, one cultivates generosity, humility, unselfishness and loving kindness while performing mindful service work with a meditative awareness and prayerful/altruistic intentionality. Dharmalaya's programmes encourage participants to integrate the qualities of energy and awareness generated in our sitting meditation/yoga/prayer practises with our service work. One need not follow a religion to practise karma yoga; it is a system that can help anyone integrate her/his own contemplative practises into daily life while making a contribution to others.
Volunteer and service-learning opportunities range from very short-term experiences helping to tutor Tibetan refugees or working on environmental projects to intensive cultural immersion and service-learning experiences of several months, a year, or longer. You may want to consider that the longer you can commit to volunteering, a greater variety of opportunities may be available to you. Also, longer-term volunteers tend to learn more and have more deeply transformational experiences and, naturally, can make more significant contributions.
Currently most volunteer opportunities are in the Dharamshala area in northern India. For English teachers who are able to make a commitment for four months or longer, there are also opportunities to teach in the village of Bir (about 2-3 hours from Dharamshala) and occasionally in Sikkim (in northeast India), Bihar (north-central India) and other places.
For more information, see the DEVI volunteer page.