We kick off a new series in November 2025! The book club pick is The Book of Joy by Nobel Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Carlton Abrams.

Join The Energy Experience community for 60 minutes of celebration within the written word. This will be a facilitated time dedicated to connecting our hearts and minds with writing that heals, enlivens, and inspires. We kick off with a legendary duo! In honor of World Kindness Day in November, we will meet online (via Zoom) to discuss The Book of Joy. Pull a copy off your shelf, find it at the library, purchase it from one of your independent bookshops, borrow it from a friend (and invite them to join you!), grab your e-reader, or listen in . . . and then let’s gather.

Date

November 13, 2025 (World Kindness Day)
7:00–8:00 PM Eastern

Register

Tap the button below to register. You will receive the Zoom link a day prior to the live call. We can accommodate a maximum number of 100 participants for these calls, so please RSVP early. If we have more than 100 people register for these conversations, well then, that’s a beautiful challenge we will work with as we go!

Cost

There is no charge to attend this gathering. In exchange, we ask you to donate what you are able on a sliding scale. Please consider how much you would typically pay to attend a facilitated, one-hour gathering like this—and then donate that to November’s featured nonprofit: Ridgelines Language Arts based in Aaronsburg, Pennsylvania.

From the publisher’s website:

Two spiritual giants. Five days. One timeless question.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived more than fifty years of exile and the soul-crushing violence of oppression. Despite their hardships—or, as they would say, because of them—they are two of the most joyful people on the planet.

In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu traveled to the Dalai Lama’s home in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate His Holiness’s eightieth birthday and to create what they hoped would be a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question: How do we find joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering?

They traded intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual practices. By the end of a week filled with laughter and punctuated with tears, these two global heroes had stared into the abyss and despair of our time and revealed how to live a life brimming with joy.

This book offers us a rare opportunity to experience their astonishing and unprecedented week together, from the first embrace to the final good-bye.

We get to listen as they explore the Nature of True Joy and confront each of the Obstacles of Joy—from fear, stress, and anger to grief, illness, and death. They then offer us the Eight Pillars of Joy, which provide the foundation for lasting happiness. Throughout, they include stories, wisdom, and science. Finally, they share their daily Joy Practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives.

The Archbishop has never claimed sainthood, and the Dalai Lama considers himself a simple monk. In this unique collaboration, they offer us the reflection of real lives filled with pain and turmoil in the midst of which they have been able to discover a level of peace, of courage, and of joy to which we can all aspire in our own lives.