Hi everyone,
I'm Hamish and welcome to another reflection from the WCC Young channel.
Here we share teachings from John Mayne,
Lawrence Freeman and the Christian contemplative tradition.
I haven't posted an audio for a while so I'm very excited to be back and reading another chapter from Grace at Work by Lawrence Freeman.
Last week in chapter four we looked at paying attention,
What it means to really pay attention.
Attention as love,
Attention as a meditative practice and how attention is essential for healing.
In the example given it was healing from alcoholism but it can be applied to almost any form of healing.
But today in chapter five we're exploring the theme of joy is deeper than desire.
Chapter five,
Joy is deeper than desire.
Quote,
Meditation doesn't destroy desire but it does transform desire.
It puts you into touch with what you really want.
In quite a radical way of sorting and simplifying ourselves it puts you back into touch with your basic need which is your basic desire.
Then joy springs up.
End of quote.
The whole reason for any spiritual practice is to release joy,
To discover our full capacity for joy in discovering the real nature of joy or the real nature of happiness.
The mistake every human being who has ever lived has fallen into is to think that happiness consists in the satisfaction of our desires.
There is nothing wrong with getting what we want provided it doesn't do any harm to anybody else or harm ourselves.
It's not that pleasure is inherently bad or getting that what you want or fun is bad really.
It's just that the nature of joy is not fully experienced in just getting what you want.
For example,
I have a friend who works with the dying.
For 30 years he's worked with dying patients,
Terminally ill patients and he says that in his clinical experience and through his research it's led him to realise that if people have their physical pain taken care of,
Their psychological needs net and if they have some sort of meaning in life they face death saying I have never had such a good quality of life.
And I think that shows that exactly what I was saying that you can even be joyful in a time of suffering when you're not getting what you want or in fact you're actually getting or looking forward to something that might be negative.
So joy is deeper than desire.
That's a basic religious wisdom.
It's the wisdom that you find in all the great spiritual traditions.
So meditation doesn't destroy desire because life without desire might be difficult to live but it does transform desire and I think that what it does is it puts you into touch with what you really want because most of our confusion arises from the fact that we don't know what we really want and what meditation does in quite a radical way of sorting and simplifying ourselves is to put you back into touch with your basic need which is your basic desire.
Then joy springs up.
From a buddhist point of view,
The buddhists say that the nature of all things is emptiness.
Now a lot of people might say well that's really negative.
It's saying like life is nothing but that's a bit of a misinterpretation.
As the Dalai Lama says,
Emptiness is not nothingness.
So what is emptiness if it's not nothingness?
Well,
Emptiness is actually an insight.
An insight is an experienced truth.
It is not just an idea like God is good or God is love but it's an experience,
A spiritual experience.
This is the insight experience that life is impermanent and it is interdependent.
In other words,
I do not exist alone.
Physically,
Psychologically,
Emotionally,
In every possible way my being is interwoven with a great web of being.
Other people,
The natural cycle of life,
Everything.
So that's one insight.
It's impermanent.
Well,
We know it's impermanent.
Look in the mirror and you'll see that life is impermanent.
We're changing.
Our moods change.
Our bodies change.
Our thoughts change.
The world changes around us.
Now would you think that facing the nature of reality,
Emptiness would be quite horrifying?
And that's probably why we don't want to face it because we think this is terrifying.
We think this is a nightmare.
Nothing lasts.
Nothing really can be even said to exist by itself and yet as the Buddha would say,
When you have that insight into emptiness,
The sign that you've really had it is joy.
I think that's universal spiritual wisdom.
There's a Christian language for that which is poverty of spirit which is the first of the beatitudes.
Jesus said,
Happy are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew chapter 5 verse 3.
That's emptiness.
For poverty of spirit doesn't mean being miserable,
Having nothing,
Being negative.
It means having that insight into the true nature of reality.
Thank you for listening to chapter 5 of Grace at Work.
It was a challenging and interesting passage for me today.
A lot for me to chew on but I hope you'll join me again for chapter 6,
The next chapter about the nature of God which will be released on the app next week.
But for now,
Goodbye.
