I've never really thought of the West as a particularly happy place. The happiest people I've ever met were in Greece, which is not-quite-West. I can't imagine there's much happiness there at the moment, though.

Me too! I like this fellow because he lived a standard Western life before he became a monk. I love the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, but they had pretty extreme, violent and (often) non-Western lives. I think that's why they sometimes come across as a bit out-of-touch.

I recently bought the book Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world by Mark Williams. I haven't started yet but I've heard fantastic things about it, so let's see if it goes! I'm always curious to try these things because they are so non-interventionist.