About 45 community members showed up live and via Zoom for the screening of “Mission: Joy – Finding Happiness in Troubled Times,” a movie about the Dalai Lama and his unlikely friendship with Desmond Tutu, Tuesday in the Ludwick Center.
The film considered the importance of finding joy in your life especially during troubling times, via footage of the Dalai Lama and Tutu, giving advice on joy and friendship throughout their life together.
“Mission: Joy” was inspired by “The Book of Joy” about the two leaders’ friendship.
The movie showed footage at the Dalai Lama’s residence, with moments shared between the religious leaders.
Following the screening, a panel of three speakers, Tahil Sharma, regional coordinator for North America for United Religions Initiative; Paul Buch, cantor at Temple Beth Israel in Pomona; and Soheila Azizi, a lawyer based in Rancho Cucamonga, talked about the film and their personal and professional journeys toward finding and inspiring joy.
“They had the common denominator of believing in the goodness of humans,” Aziz said.
“Life can be easily disrupted,” Sharma said. “What I found in this movie was how profound every emotion was for them: When it was joy, when it was sadness, when it was anguish… Everything seemed like an emotional earthquake.”
Buch related the themes in the film to Judaism.
“Our tradition teaches us that joy comes through service,” he said.
—Joslyn Aguilar
Joslyn Aguilar, a junior communications major, is a staff writer for the Campus Times.
