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Guided Meditation in Appreciative Joy

A warm welcome to our meditation time together and dharma talk. I am happy to be here.

A number of years ago, it was raining, and I came out of a house, walked across the street, and passed a car. The car was all wet because of the rain, and water was sliding down the front windshield. There was a bird that would stand at the top of the windshield, slide to the bottom, fly up again to the top, and slide down to the bottom, over and over again. Now, I don't know what was going on for the bird for sure, but in my mind, the bird was playing. I could see no other reason for it to be sliding over and over again. It just found it delightful. It made it happy, pleasant, enjoyable, and playful to be sliding up and down this wet glass.

Whether that's actually what was going on or not, it made me happy, and I just felt delighted and uplifted. It certainly distracted me from whatever else I was thinking about, and I had a smile and probably a twinkle in my eye. The thing about this happiness—this joy that I had—was that it wasn't at the expense of anyone. There was no cost for it. There was no impact on anybody; it didn't take anything. There was no loss in the universe for me being happy. It was a harmless, free kind of delight and joy.

And so, muditā^[1], the topic for today, has a quality of having no agenda. There's no need associated with it, no loss associated with it, and no cost associated with it. It's a joy that is free and has no negative impact. There's no environmental impact from this joy. It doesn't affect our finances to have this kind of joy.

So, as we begin sitting here, you might close your eyes just as you are, and consider a time in your life where you had such a joy, such a delight in something—anything, maybe just being alive. It was just delighting in something that was free to delight in. You weren't searching for it, you weren't trying to make it your own or be possessive of it. It had no cost. Can you remember a time? It doesn't have to be dramatic, but can you remember a time when it was clear enough that the memory lingers for you of delight, joy, and happiness?

Maybe you can remember what it felt like in your face. Maybe you had a smile, or maybe your eyes had a certain aliveness—a little bit energized, awake eyes. Maybe there was a warm, energized feeling in your body. Maybe your thoughts had become lighter, with less weight; your thoughts themselves had a nice quality. Remember what it felt like, especially through your body. Maybe it's a warmth in your chest or in your belly, or maybe there was a feeling of a spring in your step or a lightness in your limbs. Some part of your body was delightfully energized—not too much, but not too little.

Remember the scene, perhaps, if there was one—an event in your mind's eye or in your thoughts, reliving the situation where you felt this joy and happiness. But the focus is not so much on the event, but how it feels in your body, your mind, and your heart: the subjective experience.

Then gently, lovingly, take a few long, slow breaths that breathe through that joy. Breathe with it. As you breathe in deeply, feel as if that joy can spread through your body. As you exhale deeply, feel as if you settle yourself into the body, feeling a sense of well-being. Breathing in deeply, and then gently exhaling into yourself. Then, letting your breathing return to normal.

Maybe you can still feel those places in your body that became a little bit more alive with the joy that you felt. You can let go of the story or the event and just feel what's happening in your body. Notice how, if there's tension in your body, it pulls parts of your body away from that well-being. On the exhale, relax that tension so you can settle more deeply into a sense of well-being.

There might be plenty of feelings of discomfort or emotional discomfort that you feel. That's okay, but for this time, see if you can focus more on that place in your being where there is some well-being, some joy, or where your capacity for joy is touched or gently stroked with awareness. The places of joy and well-being are stroked with your breathing, relaxing on the exhale.

If there's a lot of thinking, that also has a tendency of pulling one away from our embodied experience of well-being. So you might gently quiet the mind or let go of your thoughts so that your attention can go more fully into the body, breathing with whatever well-being there is.

Then, not so much focusing on the well-being, letting it be on the sides or around you, around the breathing. Center yourself on the breathing now, coming home to how the body experiences breathing. Perhaps, as you breathe mindfully, the breathing can touch and move through the places of well-being, but those are more in the periphery. They're not the main center stage; they're there to support you, to encourage you to stay present here, and to do so with a light touch, a joyful touch. Just breathing. In whatever wider situation of well-being that's available, just here, just now.

Ever so gently, lifting up the corners of your mouth so there's a slight smile. Maybe there's a little sense of pleasure, a delight that is born that wasn't there before. Let that pleasure be a support for breathing, breathing through a sense of well-being. As you inhale, maybe that well-being can spread through your body. And as you exhale, that well-being can also spread, but kind of in a settling way, downward through your body. Inhaling upward through your body. Exhaling downward through your body. Letting go of your thoughts on the exhale. Letting go of your disbelief on the exhale. So that for these few minutes, you're more connected to your body breathing in any sense of well-being, however small, that might be here.

And for the last period of the sitting, if you'd like to do a little muditā practice, bring to mind some person—a friend or a benefactor, an uncomplicated person in your life—where you can think of some way in which they are happy, joyful, or successful. Something has happened for them that has brought them joy and well-being, and in you knowing this about them, it brings you some joy as well. So spend a few moments thinking of or visualizing the person. Maybe the person's face as it is when it's smiling or happy. Thinking about how they are and what they might be experiencing in their success or good fortune, or in the way that they are happy.

Allow yourself to feel some joy in that, in your own well-being. In a sense, how they are now is a gift of joy for you. It's contagious, and you share a bit in that joy, delight, and their success or good fortune. Keep them in mind and see if you can find in yourself the wish that their good fortune should continue. They should have more occasions to feel the same happiness or similar happiness, to be happy.

Then very gently, softly, you can give words to that wish. Softly in your own mind, you might repeat: "May your happiness continue for a long time." Or, if it's nice, you can add the word "yes" as an affirmation of all this well-being. "Yes, may your well-being continue for a long time." Saying that phrase as a way of giving life to, or embodying, the way that you might resonate with your happiness and well-being—how you might affirm it and delight in it. "Yes, may your well-being continue for a long time."

As you say this phrase, at the end of the phrase, imagine that you're opening the doors of your heart and giving your joy out to the world, receiving and giving a sense of well-being. As you inhale, really sensing and experiencing what it's like to appreciate, to feel joy in their joy, that sense of well-being in their well-being. And on the exhale, a "yes," an opening of your heart, a wish, a gift: "May your well-being continue for a long time."

And then coming to the end of this sitting, opening your heart. Opening that inside of you that has a "yes" for this world, a "yes" for your life. Opening to that which is in you that gives you a reference for wishing well to others. Opening your heart to well-wishing, to an affirmation of others, a care of others, a generosity of being towards others. A generosity that can be expressed in a wish for the welfare and happiness of others, that their joy and well-being can continue. If they don't have joy and well-being, that they may have some.

May it be that all beings have welfare and well-being. That all beings be safe and healthy. That all beings be free. And may it be that your ability to affirm, appreciate, or value others from deep within you is translated into action, into words, and into how you think about others. May you spend time today in words, in deeds, and in thought, contributing to the welfare and happiness of this world. May all beings be happy and free.