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Guided Meditation: Joy Begets Joy

Hello and welcome. Welcome to the end of this week, where we're beginning our exploration of joy. A particular kind of joy, which we're calling appreciative joy. To appreciate what is good in the world, to appreciate the goodness.

One of the principles in Buddhism is that joy begets joy. Another principle from classic Buddhist psychology—where there's a very detailed analysis of the mind and mental factors—is that when they list all the different mental factors they've gathered together, there are dramatically more positive, wholesome mental factors than unwholesome ones. Maybe ten times more. Actually, in this classic psychology, they call them beautiful mental states. The inventory of all the good we can do, all the positive mental states we are capable of, is greater than the inventory of the unwholesome ones.

And it is true that sometimes we prioritize the unwholesome ones. Sometimes we prioritize them as we look upon the world. Maybe evolutionarily it was selected that we prioritize the threats that exist out there. I became aware of this here in my town, where I live in Redwood City. When I was raising my kids in town, I was much more deeply embedded in the life of the town: alongside other parents, sports coaches, and teachers, and it went on and on. I was impressed by how much goodness is going on, how much generosity, how much care and service is going on. But if I read the local newspaper, no one reports on that. They report about the tragedies, the dangers, the crimes.

Somehow that gets highlighted in the mind and the heart, and we don't look at the ordinary everyday goodness and generosity that goes on. I suspect there's a much higher percentage of goodness every day in the world than there is unwholesomeness.

This practice of the Brahma Viharas^[1] is to appreciate the goodness, appreciate what is going well, appreciate people's happiness, joy, success, and good fortune. In doing so, joy begets joy. We feel some kind of simple, ordinary, uncomplicated joy—a delight in what we see and feel without the overlay of a lot of analysis, comparison, or the thought that "the world should be different."

The joy multiplies. Then there's a certain kind of joy we also feel in wanting those people who are doing good things and having good fortune to continue. We see their joy and we want it to continue. We're delighted and we want to affirm it, and at least in ourselves we want to recognize it so it can live for another day.

So, the joy of wishing other people joy is a double joy. And then sometimes we speak to them and say, "Oh, it was just a real pleasure to watch you do that." Or, "That was a really generous thing you did for your friend." People feel delighted to be recognized, so then there is even more joy.

We must take time to feel joy and not succumb to the insistence that we should be focusing on what's wrong. The more we experience this joy and see it in the world, we are rectifying an overemphasis on the problems of our lives that we so often focus on. Or the way we close down or are horrified. This joy allows us then to be more available for the difficulties, not less.

So, to meditate in joy.

We begin by settling into our body, here and now, as it is. To take time—a generosity—to feel your body on its own terms. Not what you want, not what should happen. But for a few minutes, scanning your body on its own terms.

And here, too, for whatever difficulties our bodies present us, there are many times more things that are working that we take for granted. If we hold it all in awareness—the pains, the illnesses, the difficulties we have, alongside all that is working—the whole begins looking different than if we only focus on the challenges.

Take a few fuller breaths. Feeling the body more fully on the inhale. Using the fuller breaths to begin shifting from the stream of thoughts that we can be floating in, to the stream of sensations in the body.

And to relax, to let go. Relaxing the body.

There's a way of relaxing the body that is an expression of appreciation and thanks for the body. For all the ways that it cares for us and keeps us alive. Softening the body so that the body can work better. It has space. It has room to be itself that it doesn't quite have if we're contracted into our thoughts and concerns.

Let the breath return to normal. Relax the thinking mind. Softening the tension in the mind.

The mind and the brain is a phenomenally multi-faceted operating system, much of which operates without our conscious awareness. It does complicated physics just to be able to take our hand and reach for something.

Appreciate that there's more working well in our mind than what we're conscious of, or the headlines in the mind of what we are focused on thinking about regarding our issues and concerns. There's something about relaxing and softening the thinking mind that allows the mind to operate better on its own. The mind is not being interfered with by the tensions and preoccupations.

And then settling into the body breathing. Approaching the sensations of breathing gently, softly, tenderly. A light awareness of breathing that allows the breathing to breathe itself. It helps us not interfere so much with our body and mind. Just a light touch of awareness with breathing.

Appreciating. Enjoying our capacity for present moment awareness.

And then to sit here in the present moment, just here and now. In what you can directly experience, appreciate two things.

First, that there's a lot that's working well just for us to be alive and breathe.

Second, there's something that each of us has: a degree of goodness, integrity, good qualities, capacity for friendliness, being ethical, being generous. Even if it doesn't often appear, it's there within us. Take some time not doubting it, not belittling it, or holding it off because it's not enough, or because it's not the full picture.

Allow yourself to feel a deep appreciation, maybe joy, in what is working well right now for you. Breathe with it.

Allow that thinking mind to feel safe and content. A joy in the capacity to be aware, and the confidence that there is goodness here.

And then the idea that joy begets joy.

Think of someone that you know for whom it is easy for you to appreciate their goodness, their happiness, their joy, their good qualities, their good activities. It brings you a joy just knowing that they exist and what they do.

Allow yourself to find the place inside that lights up. That smiles. The smiling of the heart.

Quietly take in what you appreciate about this person. Maybe breathing together with the simplest image of this person. The simplest thought that brings you joy.

Thinking of a person who brings you joy because of their goodness, what they do, their success, because they're happy. Their joy, and something good happening.

Is there a simple way to say yes that opens you to that joy that you feel in knowing them? And that says yes to their joy. As if you're making space in the universe for their well-being, their goodness, their success to grow and continue.

A gentle yes in all directions.

Being able to see goodness in the world and in oneself is what promotes and encourages more goodness to spread and grow.

In the last minutes of this sitting, sit quietly with an attitude of yes. Your whole being quietly living yes to all that is healthy, wholesome, and beautiful in our human world.

For these few moments, quietly open to it all so it has time to mature, to be, and be reinforced.

May it be that everyone has access to their deepest capacity for happiness, safety, peace, and freedom.

May all beings know happiness at the center of their heart.

May all beings know safety, so their hearts can be at ease.

May all beings be peaceful and know peace, so that they're allowed to be at ease and free.

And may all beings know freedom. A heart that's unshackled, unconstricted. Undiminished.

May all beings be happy. And may we live to support that possibility.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Love (59) Generative Appreciative Joy

So, hello everyone and welcome back to this long series on love. Today is the end of the week focusing on appreciative joy as a form of love.

One of the definitions of love is to appreciate and support the best qualities in a person's heart. To appreciate the depths of goodness and capacity for well-being in others, to want to see it flourish, to want to see it go well, and to be supportive of it. Love that's only about what we get from them is limited, and maybe not the full potential of love. But love in which we care for others is how love expands into its full potential to nourish and support this world of ours.

One form of love in Buddhism is called mudita^[2]. These days I'll often call it appreciative joy.

This is what we've been talking about this week, building up for next week to do the samadhi^[3] of mudita. We will practice a samadhi—that deeper meditation of absorption or immersion—in this state and orientation of appreciative joy. Hopefully, this week opened up the field and laid down the different elements of it enough that next week you can give yourself over to this to experience the tremendous well-being, stillness, and depth of the samadhi of appreciative joy.

In this definition of love that I've given, there is a deep appreciation of the goodness of what's really there. We appreciate other people, caring and supporting the best for their hearts, their best experience of ease, peace, and safety. We support the best qualities that they have to let them grow, making room for them.

When we realize that for love to be really full, we have to have goodwill for people. One of the forms of goodwill is to deeply appreciate what is good in others and what's going well for them. We appreciate their healthy joy and delight, share it with them, make room for it, and sometimes take time to celebrate and delight in it. Or maybe when it's not there, we know that goodness exists in the other person, and we love them and make room for their well-being and good qualities to come forth.

So in love, we're not just a consumer. Maybe Buddhist love is more like being a producer. It's more about what we can offer the world than what we receive from the world.

The reason that's so important is that to only receive love and goodness is to stay on the surface. It can only go so deep. The deepest source of love is that which we produce, that flows out of us from our depths. Part of that love is goodwill and friendliness. Part of it is compassion and care for people's suffering. And part of it is the appreciation and care for people's joy, their delight, their goodness, and their well-being.

To be able to really enter into this world of appreciative joy multiplies joy. Joy begets more joy. We want to allow ourselves to recognize and take time for all the goodness and the things that are going well.

As I said in the meditation, in that way of analyzing ourselves, our world, and other people, we realize that there is actually much more goodness in the world—much more love, care, and generosity—than you would realize if you just read the news. The news tends to bring out and highlight what's going terribly, what's dangerous, and how people are suffering. But wherever we see people suffering in the news, chances are there are people there trying to help. There are people who step forward.

These days we see bombing, shattered buildings, and horrible things happening. Those explosions happen quickly and kill or injure people. But then, for a long time after, there are people who are helping. Caring for the sick, caring for the injured, caring for those who are homeless. There is a lot of generosity that happens, a lot of giving and caring in the world.

If we stay stuck in the place where we're horrified, afraid, and predicting how it's going to spiral out, we are not supporting the growth of how people help and support each other. We have to be able to include in our view, and appreciate in a genuine way, all the goodness that exists in this world. All the generosity, all the support, and all the love that exists. And say yes to it. This too is part of it.

We certainly don't need to do it all the time. But we must realize that our capacity to say yes, and to appreciate and see what is good, is the very capacity that's needed to hold suffering in a compassionate and kind way. In a compassionate way that supports people and supports ourselves, rather than the opposite.

Love is what supports the best in us. We love ourselves so the best in us can come forth. We love others so we can see and enjoy the best in them. And how do we see the best in them? We take time to notice it. And not just notice it, but to make room for it and say yes to it, so that our capacity to see what's really good grows.

I would say that one of the surprises of my Buddhist practice over these years is beginning to shift how I see people. At some point, I started to see the beauty in people more than anything else. There is beauty in people. Maybe there's more beauty in people than some people realize for themselves. There is something precious, a spark, something that's just so wonderful about people. To be able to live recognizing that makes it much more meaningful to love and care for people, including when they're suffering and when things are difficult.

Appreciative joy is part of the richness and importance of love where we're the producers of love, not the consumers. Appreciative joy is something that we generate, that comes out of us in some way.

We want to expand and grow the heart's natural capacity for this generative, supportive love. It is the fullness of love that is caring and recognizing the best qualities in people, and not getting distracted by the worst qualities they might have. We must not shut down or give up on people because bad qualities come out.

There is goodness there. We need to believe in people and believe in their goodness. Some people have never been believed in; no one has ever seen them for their goodness or their capacity to be a different way. Appreciative joy is part of this shift to become one of the people who is contributing to and growing well-being for this world.

Next week we'll continue on this theme. For today and for the whole weekend, maybe we can appreciate that today is Juneteenth. It is a celebratory day for the freedom of Black slaves in the United States, and we can appreciate that. Let it be an encouragement to use this day to appreciate that many of us can become freer, and many of us can contribute to others becoming freer.

The movement towards freedom in this country and around the world is probably never-ending. May our appreciative joy for the depths in people, and our love of people, contribute to the growth in freedom for all people.

Thank you all, and I look forward to coming back on Monday to do our samadhi of appreciative joy.