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On-ramps to Joy

Tonight, I want to talk about Dharma gladness, Dharma joy. There are lots of different flavors or ways of experiencing Dharma joy, and we'll talk a little bit about those different kinds, but in particular, I want to talk about dukkha^[1] and faith, and their relationship to Dharma joy.

To give you a little bit of a description and a simile of what I'm feeling into through my practice around this: imagine that the Dharma joy, the Dharma gladness that I'm talking about, is just those many smaller moments of delight, surprise, and connection. That feeling of being fully present, of feeling the sun on the skin, something really simple, or a bird landing somewhere where you can see, or just somebody's eyes making connection with yours. It's a moment of meeting our experience in the moment, and it comes with some degree of upswelling.

I have this image of a river that's flowing, representing the present moment of flowing movement. And then there are all these little tributaries. It's funny, in my imagination, the river is up higher than these other things, just because of the feeling of it. Sometimes we're more in the muck of things. We're more in the mind, in worry, and more in the dukkha of life, and it doesn't feel like we're gliding along in that clean, smooth-feeling, joyous kind of presence.

But we might be in the muck a bit, and something can happen. Something can come along, something can shift, and we can feel this upwelling and this lift, and then we get to be in that current of the moment. The slower, muckier places can be where we get stuck in things, and we're having some degree of suffering, or we're clinging, and we're just not really in the flow.

As we're going along, if we remember, if we notice what's happening, if we have some clarity about what's going on, if we see we're suffering—the First Noble Truth^[2]—we might be able to recognize what we're clinging to, what we're holding on to. When we see we're clinging, when we see with wisdom that we're stuck, if we have been practicing and we've watched this dynamic, we know that if we keep clinging, it's only going to get worse. So we let go, and then that letting go is that possible moment of upswelling. The faith, the belief that if I shift in how I'm relating to my experience, I can move more freely.

This is the simile that I'll come back to. I'm going to move through these three things: dukkha, faith, and Dharma joy. I'm going to read you a short quote about joy, and then I'm going to talk about suffering, then faith, and then back to joy.

Tara Brach^[3] says that joy arises when we are open to both the beauty and suffering inherent in living. Like a great sky that includes all different types of weather, joy is an expansive quality of presence. It says yes to life, no matter what. So saying no to life might be the equivalent of suffering, when we say no to what's happening.

In the Dhammapada^[4], there are a couple of verses that talk about the mind and happiness, and they go like this: "The mind, hard to control, flighty, alighting where it wishes, one does well to tame. The disciplined mind brings happiness." Here's another one: "The mind, hard to control, flighty, alighting where it wishes, one does well to tame. The watched mind brings happiness."

When it comes to dukkha and seeing where we are caught in life, Sayadaw U Tejaniya^[5] says we need to learn our lesson. There's no shortcut. We really have to find a way to relate to our suffering in a way that helps us choose joy, choose happiness instead.

Watching the mind, learning to watch the mind, is sort of like watching your footsteps, choosing where you're going to place your feet. We can be like that with our minds. We can choose what trains of thought we're going to follow, what rivers we're going to choose to ride. As we watch the mind and get to know its contents, its habits, and its patterns, it's like being in that boat on the river: we become more skilled. We get more and more clear that if we go down this tributary, it's going to be really sticky, and we can choose not to go that way.

The Buddha talked about five spiritual powers or five spiritual faculties^[6], and these are said to be incredibly important for our practice to move forward. They are faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. They are progressive. We start with faith; it's necessary for us to step into the practice, and it's like an on-ramp. It's the on-ramp to the flow.

So what happens when we get caught and are suffering? If we know the way out, why don't we always just choose to be happy or easy? It's not so simple. But it made me think about this idea: can you think about a moment of very mild stress, suffering, or dukkha you might have experienced recently, and just notice whether you were aware of it? Notice if there was any tendency to either just resign or resist. Either just say, "Well, I'm going to just do it wrong anyway, so I might as well just go for it and suffer here," or, "No, I don't want it to happen that way. I don't want to feel the way I'm feeling." Very often, when suffering happens, we either give up, resign, or get indifferent, or we rebel and resist. That's very often my response. Is it yours? Do you notice if that is familiar in your practice, that sense of resigning, giving in, giving up, or resisting and trying to fight reality?

I saw one head nod yes. [Laughter] I want to make sure I'm talking to all of you. I need to change what I'm saying if I'm not getting you right.

There's an alternative relationship we can have, which is that when we see suffering, when we start to learn to see it as, "Oh, I'm holding on to something. I'm struggling, I'm hurting," it's like feedback. It can be seen so simply as just: stop, wait, look what's happening, notice, pay attention, wake up.

A simile for suffering that I really like is similar to the river thing, but this is on the side of a freeway. Have you ever driven down the highway and started to veer off the road, and you hit those rumble strips on the side that make your tires vibrate and your car bounce really quickly? I think about suffering as being like rumble strips. It's when we're veering off course, when we're moving off the path. It's like this natural feedback that we're going the wrong way. We can resist and keep trying to drive on the rumble strips because we think we should be able to drive over there, or we can give up and drive off the road. Or, we can go, "Oh, this is really irritating, but thank you for waking me up. Thank you for giving me feedback that I'm about to drive off the road here." It doesn't mean we have to feel like it's a pleasant experience, but we can be grateful. We can have faith that they're placed there for a reason, that they're there to help us stay on the road. We have a choice.

I also like to think about this relationship with suffering from a therapy-minded position. When we're hurt, when we're in a situation where we're being harmed, the fight-or-flight response comes up. Typically, we either fight it—so we're resisting it, which is the same thing—or we run away. Those are the two main responses to being attacked or harmed: to fight or to run. The other response is to freeze. When we haven't been effectively able to escape or fight back, we tend to go into a neurological state of freezing. To me, this is the same thing. The dukkha that we're experiencing in life, or the stress, is not like being attacked, but our nervous system responds similarly.

If we can start to see suffering in a different way, maybe a radically different way, we can see that it could potentially be that on-ramp to joy. It helps us see we have a choice. If we know we don't have to suffer, if we know we get to choose, it's really natural to feel a sense of faith and hope. When we recognize, "I can do something right here, I can shift how I'm relating to what's happening," there's a, "Wow, how amazing is that." That can be the transition from suffering with faith to joy.

Faith is what grows in us as we start to see ourselves, over and over again, making life more difficult or easier for ourselves. When we engage with the practice and pay attention to our lives, we can notice what the practice does for us. We can notice that it helps us be more present, more connected, less afraid, less anxious, and more open.

Some of the things that can also support our faith in the practice are reflections on the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha^[7]. The teacher who got free, the teachings, and the community. This is a Sangha, look at this. The source of inspiration, aspiration, support—it can help us grow our faith.

I think faith grows when we take in this kind of goodness, take in the goodness of the practice. It is said in the Samyutta Nikaya^[8] that faith is one's partner, wisdom instructs, and faith is one's greatest wealth.

Do you feel you have faith in the Dharma, the Sangha, or the Buddha? Do you feel you have faith in your practice and that it can help you, or that you've seen others and that supports you? It's a precious, precious thing for us. Seeing someone else in their goodness, or seeing how they've changed through their practice, can grow our faith when we can't see it in ourselves. Keep looking around.

This faith is the supporting condition for gladness, for joy. It helps us stay on the path, stay present, and keep choosing this radical act of turning toward. Anne Lamott^[9] has a quote I'm going to read for you, which I love. She says, "Almost everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, scared, and yet, designed for joy." Isn't that great? I think that's just the greatest quote. We've all got stuff going on, and we're designed for joy. It's right there in us—the capacity to experience, connect, and feel. It doesn't have to be like fireworks going off, just that feeling of flow, that feeling of presence, that feeling of wonder, awe, or appreciation. Joy is the heart's celebration of life.

Anthony de Mello^[10] says that there's this idea that we've got to say yes to the joys and the sorrows. To connect with life, we don't get to say no to the dukkha. If we shut down to difficulty, we shut ourselves down to joy as well. We have to learn how to be with it all. So Anthony de Mello says, "When there is absolute cooperation with the inevitable," this is when we're really in our practice. Absolute cooperation with the inevitable. It's this idea that we're not trying to resist that we're already depressed, or resist that we're already anything. We're right here in our moment. And when there's absolute cooperation with, "Okay, here it is," that is the on-ramp to the freeway of joy.

We can't divide the present moment into good parts and bad parts. If we disconnect from one, we disconnect from both. I don't mean we aren't discerning in our lives. I'm talking about meeting the moment that's already arising. I don't mean don't be discerning about your plans, your jobs, or who you do things with. Discern, discern, discern; choose wisely. But once we're here, we're here. This is it. This is now. This is what we've got. Once we're right here, we don't get to press erase. Life is additive, not subtractive.

Joy is that openness that includes both the joys and sorrows. It is an aliveness and openness available to the whole play of existence. The thing to remember is that joy and gladness don't come first. Fearlessness follows fear, practice follows forgetfulness, seeing follows not seeing, and peace follows truth. Gladness can follow the suffering. The faith and the suffering don't have to come first.

Faith is there to help us remember, to help us see there's another way, an alternate route, a different way than habitually responding and reacting.

There's a man named Ross Gay^[11], and he wrote a book called The Book of Delights. He went about his daily life looking for little delights. Of course, it was a wonderful experience for him because the more he looked, the more he saw, tumbling into delight after delight. But one of the amazing things he puts together is that our suffering and our joy are not so separate. He asks, "What if we joined our sorrows?" I'm saying, what if that is joy? When we really come to ourselves, really come to this experience, we join it instead of resist it.

What kind of mindset would write such a thing? What has he experienced that he could say that? I was thinking about this, and I thought about being with somebody who was dying. Somebody who I love deeply, and being so present with them. This is a sorrow, this is a loss. But being with him and being in that sorrow with him was a joy. It was so alive. He was dying, but what does that mean? He was the most alive person I knew at the time.

Charlotte Joko Beck^[12] has some nice quotes on joy, differentiating it from happiness. She says, "Joy doesn't mean the same thing as happiness. Happiness is the up, up, up." I like that. "Joy is the peace in what is. The reality is that when we experience the moment fully for whatever it is, joy is revealed." You want me to read that again? Okay. "Joy doesn't mean the same thing as happiness. Happiness is the up, up, up. Joy is the peace in what is. The reality is that when we experience the moment fully for whatever it is, joy is revealed."

How do we cultivate that mindset? What do we need to do to support ourselves? I like the quote from earlier—was it Toni Morrison?^[13]—"designed for joy." What if we believe we're designed for joy? That it's right there, accessible, and naturally arising. It's not something we have to make happen. Rather, we have to be available for it, willing to let go into it, to receive it.

A friend was talking about giving a talk on Dharma joy, and how everybody was so resistant to feeling joy. For me, that's the negativity bias in our brain. There's this part of our brain that's always more biased toward the threat, toward what might be negative, and it just wants to pay more attention to that. This is where I think we have to make ourselves available. We have to recognize that deeply ingrained survival strategy that's not doing us so good anymore, and step back and go, "Okay, yes. Yes to joy. Yes to gladness." Yes to receiving a teeny, tiny moment, a sip, instead of a supersized drink. It's a small bit, bit by bit, but how do we keep saying yes?

Reflection

I want to invite you to take a moment to close your eyes. See if your mind can offer you a memory, or the imagination of an experience, of this kind of Dharma joy. That gladness, happiness, or aliveness. It often feels spontaneous, sort of like a gift that pops up. Just connect with whatever comes up, and notice: what does it feel like in your body as you recall or imagine?

What do you notice? How willing are you to sip it? To breathe into it, to let it soak in deeply? How quickly is the mind ready to dismiss it, rewrite it, or move on?

Take a moment to think about the rest of your evening tonight. Imagine what it would be like if you really received the teeny, tiny little gifts of ease and well-being. The softness of a pillow or a blanket, the flavor of your toothpaste, or the clean water that you drink. Clean water—what a gift.

What would it be like to really open to each of these little sips tonight? To lay down and put your head on your pillow, and just feel all these little gifts flowing through you.

May it be so for you. May it be so.

Q&A

Tanya: I wonder if any of you would like to share a question or reflection at this point. We're winding up; I have a few more quotes I can share, but if anybody feels inspired to share right now, I'd like to create space for that. Jim has a microphone, so if anybody wants it, he will bring it to you.

Okay, here we go. Thank you.

Yogi: Thank you, Tanya. I think you're right that when I'm meditating and I feel a moment of mindfulness or awareness, there is some joy there. But I tend to dismiss it and say, "Well, this is the most that I can feel, and there's so much more that I'm not able to access," rather than just appreciating the joy that is there.

Tanya: Thank you for sharing that. It's sort of again this image of the river. We're skimming, we get a little bump, and then it's like, "But I didn't get all the way over there." But it's just about feeling the bump. Feel the little bump and just be like, "Sweet, thank you. Yes, let me say yes to you." Not, "No, no, no." When we say no, we go back down in the muck, and then it's slow, slow, slow. We come back, get another little bump, and we say, "Not good enough, should be better." I just appreciate what you shared so much, thank you. Yes to the gifts, little ones are good.

Anyone else feel interested? Here we go, thank you.

Yogi: It's funny what came up when you were speaking about joy. I always park in about the same place when I go to my office. It's about five minutes from my office, and I walk on this nice residential street. There's something about getting out of my car, getting out of the business of listening to whatever I'm listening to, and just seeing the birds or seeing the sun. Just having those five minutes brings me right there.

Tanya: Yeah. One of my most memorable retreat experiences was just doing walking meditation. A little bird was in the bush, and it popped out, and I had the gift of a flood of delight. It was such a simple thing, but I was practicing trying to be present so I could receive the gift. It was really profound. Really small things can be very moving and helpful. Starting your day that way every day—what a nice choice, what a nice gift.

Anyone else feel inspired?

Yogi: Thank you. Thank you, dear Sangha. I really appreciate you showing the difference between happiness and joy. I feel like happiness is almost like a semi-permanent or permanent expected state of being that I've never been able to get to, but I do experience joy frequently throughout the day. It's really helpful to know the difference.

Tanya: Beautiful, yeah. Charlotte Joko Beck has another sentence in there about how in the West, in America, we're so conditioned. We have so much material and access to all this stuff, and we've grown to have expectations that we should be happy because we have things. That's just not happening. That's not joy. I'd much rather have joy. I'm really grateful you've shared that, thank you.

Any other comments, questions, or reflections? No worries if not, just creating enough space for you to decide if you want to go for the microphone. Just receiving the delight of sharing this space together.

Maybe I'll just say: notice the flavors of gladness. The shades of gladness, the colors of joy. It's a huge range, actually. Because of its orientation toward the negative, the mind can very easily skip over anything that is neutral to slightly positive. Even really positive feedback or nice things that happen, if we don't attend to them—meaning give our awareness to them, our appreciation—if we don't receive them and let them come in, they slip through. They're just gone. They don't get committed to memory, they don't get that attention, they just slide on. But one trip, one awkward moment, gets a lot more attention, a lot more of our awareness.

We're much more inclined to tell somebody about something that was hard. "I couldn't find parking, I had to drive around the block six times." And then they get out and walk for five minutes in a beautiful neighborhood, and they don't even mention that. They just talk about how they had to drive for too long to find parking. It's just the way the mind tends to operate. It's how it's evolved and how it's been conditioned. It's not bad, but we need to watch the mind. That's what brings us happiness. We start to learn how the mind operates, and then we can start to learn how to relate to it in ways that are on-ramps to joy.

I feel like that's probably the last thing I should say. May you all choose on-ramps to joy. Thank you for your kind attention and participation. For those YouTube people out there—Jason, Graham, Jane—thank you for your chats tonight and for joining us. Namaste. Good night, everybody, and may the benefit of our practice be for the benefit of all beings. May everybody find little on-ramps to joy.