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Seven Factors of Awakening: Joy

Good day and greetings. This is now the fourth talk on the Seven Factors of Awakening. The Seven Factors of Awakening are paired as an oppositional pair with the Five Hindrances. In between those two, in the teachings of the Buddha, are the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. The Four Foundations of Mindfulness are how we go from being caught up in the Five Hindrances to experiencing the Seven Factors of Awakening.

The word in Pali for the Five Hindrances is nīvaraṇa^[1], and nīvaraṇa literally means a covering. So rather than hindering something, they cover over something. They cover over our capacity for wisdom. They cover over our capacity for concentration and settling into this world in a deep way. As mindfulness develops, it begins to uncover or remove that covering. As the coverings get taken off, it's kind of like the covers being taken off a light bulb.

If the light bulb is on but there's a heavy blanket over it, it doesn't light up the room. But as we take off the covers, the light shines. The Seven Factors of Awakening are what shine and come forth as the covering of preoccupation—the Five Hindrances, the ways the mind gets so preoccupied in things that it shuts down a clear awareness of the present moment—is removed.

Distractions can be so strong that we are distracted from the fact that we are distracted. First, what happens as we develop mindfulness is we know we are distracted. That's a huge positive step. Rather than being discouraged when you finally know you're distracted, this is actually on the path of waking up, uncovering the fact that we're distracted.

The fourth Factor of Awakening is joy. As I talked about yesterday regarding the effort factor, there are two components of joy that arise in practice. One is the joy that gets released in the body as we keep opening, relaxing, softening, and being present. We can actually feel this suffusing joy—in the ancient languages, it's a suffusion—and it's understood to be a joy which is refreshing, a deep and satisfying feeling. You can actually feel that well up in the body.

The other quality of joy has to do with a certain kind of delight, contentment, and happiness that comes forth when we are aware of the fact that we are meeting, showing up, and really being here for the experience. That second kind of joy is particularly important because often we don't feel joy in life and joy in our body. There's pain and suffering in ourselves and the world around us, but to show up for that, really be present for it, and experience it cleanly, there's a rightness to that.

I don't think the word "joy" should be applied to how we feel in situations of great suffering or difficulty in the world, in our friends, family, and society. But there is a feeling—maybe you ought to find your own words for this rather than taking mine—a feeling of rightness that, "Yes, I'm here for this." If it's happening, it feels right to be here.

There's a very clean feeling of letting it come and course through us, which can happen if we don't close down, react, or contract to it. It's more like we keep opening to the suffering respectfully and wisely. Still, in that opening and allowing, there's a feeling of rightness, of goodness, and may I dare say even a kind of joy or satisfaction to feel that openness even with things that are difficult.

The capacity for these two kinds of joy comes into play as we keep practicing. First, we have to be here. This mindfulness practice is about learning how to truly embody the present moment, to really inhabit it with awareness and all the attentional faculties we have. It's not so much by working, but by certainly developing capacity, interest, and motivation to be present, and also learning to relax into the present and settle in here.

I find it very significant for me personally that lived experience is only here for this moment. If I'm lost in the past or the future, I've lost touch with the only thing that really exists, in a certain way, in the world of experience, and that is the lived experience of the moment. We learn to trust that and inhabit that, and not miss the opportunity to be alive. We don't miss the opportunity to experience ourselves as conscious beings in the present moment, here.

Then we have curiosity and interest in what is here, in order to see it more clearly, to recognize it more clearly. As we recognize what's happening more clearly, we make distinctions. We see things in their particularity, the detail of them. What we see is that there are distinctions and differences between things, and we can start choosing: "This is where I want to be. This is where attention is. This is how I'm going to pay attention." This ability to choose, to recognize that there's a way of being, a way of attending, things to attend to that our system wants to connect to, or a way it feels right to be present for—there's a rightness to it.

It's not so much a matter of working or doing something new, but distinguishing clearly what's going on, recognizing where the path is, recognizing where the rightness is. We recognize, "This is the place to be, this being with the breath, this way of being with the breath."

When all those things begin settling in to some degree, the word that I associate with the Joy Factor of Awakening is the word "yes." It's saying yes to the experience. This is about being with it. "Yes, we open to this. Yes, this is it."

In fact, it's possible to have that "yes" with pain. Now, pain itself is a drag in a certain way, but there's also the way we meet the pain. "Yes, I'll open to it. Yes, I'll be here with this. Yes, I'll be here with this person. Yes, I'll be here with the food that I eat. Yes, I'm going to really be here for the experience of washing dishes or cleaning the kitchen floor. Yes, I'm now here being with the breathing in meditation." This meeting, connecting, and saying "yes" carries for me a modicum or idea of joy, delight, and appreciation in that opening, in giving myself to that experience more fully.

The Joy Factor begins to arise, and some of it has to do with being able to give ourselves over fully and completely to the experience of the moment. Some people have the experience of reading a wonderful book, and it's the joy of being absorbed in reading it. Or being absorbed in some hobby, craft, or work that we're doing. It's the unification, the harmony, the non-distractedness, the lack of fragmentation or the mind jumping around doing many different things. It's just fully being present for one thing.

There's something about the harmony of doing that—physiologically, psychologically, maybe even biochemically and neurologically—where everything comes together and is smooth and working together. It's like all the kinks or the roughness of the surface have been smoothed out, and we can glide and be smooth. It's to kind of flow with the experience.

Sometimes I liken it, when this joy, this delight of really being here becomes strong, to how I felt sometimes when I've gone body surfing and I've caught the wave and I'm getting carried by it. It's a wonderful way of being caught by the breath, by the present moment, and surfing along. It's an exhilarating feeling.

It's not so much that we make ourselves feel that, but we give ourselves over to one thing. We say "yes" to one thing, and this ability to really be collected on one thing—one breath, one experience, one present moment. We are here for just this present moment, not present moments in other places, not present moments in other times, but this place, this time. Just "yes," fully for this.

That's a process. It certainly takes time. I didn't experience that kind of meditative joy for a long time, but it comes from the process of getting there, of being here over and over again, of seeing more clearly. It comes with knowing that what we pay attention to—this—is what's important right now. Not the this of fantasy, not the this of criticism and preoccupation, but the this of the body, the this of breathing, the this of an awareness which is with the present moment. The this of an awareness which is not in conflict with what is, but is open to what is.

And then we give ourselves fully to something with the word "yes." "Yes, this is what we're doing. This is where we are." Yes to this kind of attention. Yes to a kind of silence which is luminous, a silence which is clear, a stillness that allows us to really be fully here for this experience.

I hope that to the degree we are able to put aside our preoccupations and concerns when we sit to meditate, and start settling into this deeper capacity for well-being that's here, that as we come out of meditation and go into our world, we translate that. We apply that to the world around us so that we have a clear sense that our meditation practice is not just for ourselves, but it's also for the welfare and happiness of all beings. May our joy be contagious. Thank you.