How To Cultivate More Joy & Delight

This dharma talk was offered during a retreat at the Insight Meditation Society. I highlight all the ways that joy and positive mind states are a natural result of mindfulness meditation practice, the value of cultivating joy for our meditation practice and self-esteem, as well as practices to bring more joy and delight into your life.

Transcript

Tonight, I have the delight of talking about Mudita and also weaving in, As we all have been doing, Weaving in each of the Brahma-Viharas, Kind of connecting them, But with an emphasis on joy today. And so, As I was preparing to give this talk, I listened to a few, I got on Dharma Seed and searched Mudita, And found an amazing talk by Jill, So I'll just be repeating that tonight. It's a really lovely talk, And she began and was talking about the trajectory of the practice and our mind states, And the idea that basically in the beginning of practice, Often there's more mind states that are difficult, Negative, Potentially more suffering, And then the trajectory of practice over long periods of time, And I think we've talked about it, I think Jill mentioned that, Of like, You know, We're not pulling up the carrot before it's ready, But over time, Over years, I tell some of my teen students, Don't judge your practice for 10 years. After 10 years, You can look back and see, Like, Was it useful, Right? But over that time period, We start to see more and more mind states of happiness, Like positive and pleasant and joyful, And these really positive mind states, So I reflected on that, And I was like, You know, That's true. That's true in my experience, And then that brought me a lot of joy, To reflect on what a different experience it is to be in this mind now, Than it was 26, Almost 27 years ago. Of course, I was a teenager, So I had a teenage mind at the time, But nonetheless, It was a pretty angst-filled and struggling mind, And then a lot of struggle over that time, So I can just, I can look back in decade, You know, Five-year increments or decades, I really, A lot of the time, Enjoy my mind now, Which is an amazing thing to recognize, And for sure, There's lots of unpleasant mind states, As well, But I can see that the tendency is shifting, Or the trend that's happening, And there's this beautiful quote I had heard from Deepamma, So Deepamma was a laywoman teacher, Who was really important in the history of IMS, And many of our teachers, Like Joseph and Michelle, And some of the grandparents, Maybe, Of IMS, And you can see her, She's upstairs, In the sitting room upstairs, The woman in the white, There's a picture of her, And if you haven't seen that, You might go at some point and just look for her picture, It's Deepamma, And she was a very realized teacher, Laywoman and mother, So Deepamma, She's the mother of Deepa, And she got so awakened as a layperson, As a mother, Cooking the food, Taking care of her family, And also through a lot of suffering and challenges in her life, There's a beautiful book about her that I recommend, I think it's called Deepamma, Oh, Okay, Knee Deep in Grace, The new title, Knee Deep in Grace, So this is, I heard this at some point, And then I just found it again, So someone asked Deepamma, What's in your mind, Kind of like when you go into an interview, And the teacher's like, Okay, When you sit down on your cushion, What happens, And you're like, Well, I get distracted, And I come back, Whatever, Deepamma said, My mind has three qualities, Concentration, Equanimity, And loving kindness, That's it, That's awesome, And so just like, And there's moments, What's beautiful is there's moments in my practice when I'm like, Oh, I could see how that would be possible, I can see how that would be possible in a mind, So it's really inspiring and hopeful, And also, As I was thinking about this talk, And just a lot of the study I've been doing recently in dharma, The realization that joy in its many forms is very, There's a lot of it in the Buddhist teachings, In the suttas, Like, It's all over the place, And I think that sometimes Buddhism gets a bad rap, You know, That like, This idea like, Oh, Life is suffering, Your mind is full, You might not have gotten, I got this, Because I went to Burma at a young age, But basically, Like, Your mind is full of defilements, Greed, Aversion, Delusion, And the first noble truth, Life is suffering, And so there's somehow that like, At least I picked that up early on, But actually now, As I look, It's like, There's a joy, And delight, And pleasure, And happiness all over the place in the teachings, And they're central, These aspects of mind and qualities of mind experiences are central to the practice and to liberation, To full awakening. So just like some examples, Reference. So the quality mudita is one joy that's talked about in the suttas, It's one of the practices, And mudita is often translated as appreciative joy, Sympathetic joy, Or vicarious joy, The pleasure that comes from delighting in other people's well-being, The sweet definition, But we were actually, We've had some conversations about this as a teaching team, And I like the quality of appreciative, Or the definition of appreciative joy, Because we can have joy for our own good qualities. So mudita actually is not just mudita for others, Like, We can actually delight and take joy in our own goodness, And then also that quality of appreciation, Like, There can just be the joy of, Like, I experience mudita also, Like, The beauty in nature, Right, Like seeing the sunset, Or the sky's been so blue, And also it's, I enjoy, Like, This shift, You know, It was so cold when we first got here, And the quality of the air, And now it's a little warmer, And so it's a different quality, Like, I just, That delights me when I actually notice that, And so it's like appreciation, I'm appreciating these moments of natural beauty. So that's mudita, And I just want to give you a couple other of the joy, The joy realm of, In the Buddhist teachings. So another word that is often translated as joy is piti, Piti, P-i-t-i. Sometimes it's translated as rapture, And I understand piti as more of, Like, The energetic delight that you feel. We were playing a little bit with this in the yoga, Or the movement practice today, That, Like, I experienced piti as, Like, An energetic delight, Joy, And so piti is a major aspect of deepening concentration. It's a part of deepening concentration. So when they talk about the jhanas, Which are the deep concentration states, Piti is a part of that. It's part of the path, And then it softens into sukha. The sukha actually has the same root, Because there's actually linkages between Pali and Sanskrit and English, Ways they come together, But the similar root is like sugar. So sukha is a sweet, The sweet happiness, But I actually read it translated as pleasure, Also bhikkhu bodhi, Translated as pleasure, And that's part of the jhana practice as well. And then there's this other kind of happiness that's called pamoja, Pamoja, Which is often translated as gladness, Sort of a gladdening of the heart, And so I just think this is so sweet, Because it's like, You know, It's, There's, They got into the lexicon of happiness and pleasure and joy. You know, The Buddha was specific and detailed and, You know, We can become connoisseurs, Like, Oh, Which one? Oh, Is this pamoja? Or is this sukha? You know, This piti? It might be mudita. Right? Like, What a beautiful exploration that is, A part of the practice. And that also, These terms of joy and happiness are part of, You know, If you've come to many retreats or listen to much Buddhism, There's a lot of lists of things, And joy shows up on a lot of the lists, A lot of the good lists, Right? So, Like, Like piti is one of the seven factors of awakening, Right? So seven qualities of a mind that lead to awakening, And joy is one of them. It's always in the list towards concentration. We, In our training, We're just studying about transcendent dependent origination, Which is like, Basically the steps towards awakening, Towards liberation. And this quality of pamoja, Of gladness, Leads to happiness, Leads to concentration. So that's right there on the path to liberation. There's another one, The Book of Tens. Again, It's like talking about how you get to liberation, And it includes joy, Rapture, And pleasure. It includes pamoja, Piti, And sukha, Out of ten factors that lead to liberation. So these are really important qualities. These are really important qualities. They are central to awakening, And to freedom. Like, Whatever that term might mean to you at this point, But you know what freedom is in moments. And so it's central to, Like, Cultivating and growing that experience. Cool. So I did some Pali. I'm trying to use all the things I'm learning, You know. It is so beautiful to see this in there. It's really fun to do this exploration and this research. But I want to talk a little bit about my journey now, With metta, And the Brahma Viharas. This practice has been central to my journey. And so I went to Asia when I was 18. So I came on a few teen retreats, And then decided it'd be a great idea to go practice in Burma, Which was like weeping five steps between, You know, Doing a silent retreat would have been good first, Or something like that. And so it was really an intense experience for me, And I have a habit of striving in my practice and in my life. This is a real pattern in my mind. And so at the particular monastery where I went to, There were signs everywhere, And they said, The meditator is a warrior. And then it had these, Like, Bullet points, And one of them was, Like, You should only be sleeping four hours a night. You should only be, I mean, I forget what the other ones were, But I remember that one. And I was like, Okay, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I tried to do all the things on the list. Also, You didn't eat. You ate breakfast at, Like, 6 a. M. , And then lunch around 11, And then no food for the rest of the day. And so I'd sleep from, Like, 11 until 3, But you wake up at 3 in the monastery. And it was also Burma, So it was very, Very hot, And I had all sorts of challenges related to the heat and then the food. I got jardia. I got food poisoning. There were these fire ants that would crawl on you and bite you. I got this thing called prickly rash, Which is, Like, You get so hot inside, So then your whole skin is burning. So it was uncomfortable. And actually, What was intense for me was, Like, That physical discomfort was way less than the mental, Emotional pain that I was experiencing. And what it was was such an intense, Basically, The striving came out of self-hatred, Like, Trying to figure out, So I could be good. So I could get it. So I could be, Do it right, You know? And I couldn't, I wasn't quite tracking what was happening. I was just so stuck in the striving. And I did, At some point, Start to get a little glimpse of the thought patterns that were happening that were leading me to this really painful place. But it wasn't, It wasn't a very, Um, It was a challenging place to practice. I would go into the meditation teacher and describe, Like, How much pain I was in, And he would literally just say, Like, Oh, Good, Good practice. I mean, If you want to talk about trauma-informed meditation teaching, I was like, Uh, I think I'm going to go insane. And so my teacher, Michelle McDonald, Was teaching in Northern Burma. And so I, I left that monastery and went to this other monastery. And it was a monastery that was a Metta, That the head of that monastery was known for doing Metta and, Um, Practicing a lot of Metta. And Michelle is a very Metta-filled teacher. And she sort of was like my Dharma mother from having been here on Teen Retreats with her. And so getting there, And then basically we did just Metta for this three-week period. And that, What it felt like is it like cohered my mind. It kind of pulled me back together enough that I could, Um, Like leave and get on a plane eventually and, And go home, You know? So, So there was definitely this quality for me of Metta as cohering, Bringing coherence into my system. And then, Um, After that, I did a three-month, A couple years later here at IMS and found myself falling into this, Like, I call it the, Um, Black pit of despair and terror. You might have touched on that. I hope not, But it's there. And so I, I found myself going back to that place. And so my teacher, Um, Steve Smith was my, He was also a teacher from the Teen Retreat. He suggested to me, He was like, You know, You could shift over to Metta anytime, Whenever you need to. So I ended up just doing Metta for basically the last, Um, Maybe, So maybe two or three weeks. I, After two or three weeks, I just did Metta. Um, And that was the happiest, I mean, It was so, It was some of the happiest times in my life, Honestly, That period. And it, I mean, It, Not like it, Like you've been doing Metta, So you know that it's not just happiness, But, Um, I developed so much tenderness for what was happening inside of myself, Um, And could even offer loving kindness, Even like I could step back and offer loving kindness for the parts of my mind that were beating myself up. Right. And would have fun with that. I remember one raining afternoon. I just went outside with an umbrella and would wash my, My mind would like say something to beat myself up. And I'd be like, And then the next, I love myself. Even if I take too much food at lunch, I love myself. Even if I kind of cut that person in line, Even if like, These are the things that I just, Anything I could beat myself up for. Right. I love myself. Even if I get distracted 15 times in a sit, You know, So just like everything, I just, And it got to, I get to see the absurdity of that mind and it's softened and it softened and softened. It felt like the Metta got bigger and bigger and bigger. So it wasn't necessarily like the thought stopped happening, But the Metta was bigger than those thoughts. It could hold those thoughts. And then it was just a total joy to, To walk around and, And like, Yeah, You get to be really creative cause it's like two and a half months of doing loving kindness. So like I get to, I got to like love everything, You know, Like the rocks and the moss and the trees and every single person. And like, You know, It was just like, It was just a really delightful way to spend time. And I think of it as like, Um, Deeply healing. I also spent a lot of time with my mother doing a huge amount of Metta, Compassion with my mother, With some other difficult relationships in my life. Um, And I felt like a deeply healing time. And now when I look back on that, I think, I think that I was, I actually think I was developing something that's called the secure, Secure internal base. So if you know attachment theory, You know, Attachment theory, I'm pretty into it. Uh, So attachment theory is this, It's a, It's a big psychological theory that's now almost a hundred years old. Um, And the basic idea is that if we have, If a child has good enough parenting, And I'll talk about what that means. We come out of childhood and actually attachment is established quite early in life. Like the first 18 to 24 months, This qualit, What they call your attachment schema is established quite early. Um, So we come out of that time period with the basic sense that like, That I'm okay and the world is okay. I'm okay. And the world is okay. And what that means is that we've developed internally, It's called an internal secure base. So like basically you internalize your parent or guardian as a, As an internal loving presence and ideally like an unconditional internal loving presence. And that's like, It's kind of your refuge and resource internally whenever the world gets challenging. And that helps you feel that sense of like, Oh, I'm okay. Ultimately I'm lovable. No matter what I'm lovable and, And the world is okay. The world is safe. I can go out and explore the world because I have a refuge that's safe and unconditionally loving. And so if we have that good fortune of having good enough parenting, We have that internally built in to some degree. It doesn't mean your life is perfect, But you have that. And then you can go out into the world and just interact with people. It's like, I'm okay. You're okay. Let's, You know, Do stuff. So whatever, You know, Whatever we do in the world. Um, And so I unfortunately did not have that, Uh, Good for that good fortune. I came out of my childhood. Uh, I actually just got an adult, Something you get to say, It's called an adult attachment interview, Which is this two hour process where you, They ask you all these questions about your childhood and then they score it. And this guy, This teacher named Dan Brown, Who I'll tell you a little bit about, He was like, Well, Here's the deal. Like basically you should be totally disorganized, Uh, In multiple different ways. And he's like, But you're almost secure. Like there's, There's this like number part of it that it's like if seven to nine means it should care. And he's like, You're 6. 5. And he's like, That's great. And he literally said, He's like, Yeah, We'll just, There's this practice. I'll tell you a little bit about it. It's a contemplative price. Like we'll just do that a couple of months. We'll clean that right up and then we can move on to the next thing. And I was like, All right, Amazing. And you know, He was sort of amazed, Like, How is it that you are, You know, Almost secure? And I deeply believe the primary reason is this practice. And I do think that being able to do three months of this practice and develop that deep internal loving presence is part of what helped me develop a sense of security at that time. And then a lot of like really good therapy too since then. Um, But also having this practice, You know, Ultimately meta and mindfulness start to meet because mindfulness itself is a quality of sort of unconditional, Uh, Positive acceptance. Right. So, Um, So this brings me to the qualities of good enough parenting, Um, And like what, What we would have developed if we had, Uh, Good enough parenting. So, And I want to talk about these because they, To me, They really overlap a lot with the Brahma viharas. Um, And then I want to really talk about the one that connects with mudita. So the quality is the first one is, Um, A parent who would be, Have securely attached children is fiercely protective, Fiercely protective. And so that's a quality of safety. And when you read about meta, Actually the protective quality of meta, The protective mother is one of the aspects of the Buddha emphasized. So meta has a quality of fierce protection within it. And so that is, And that's a primary quality of parenting. So the idea here too, Is that, Um, Attachment system is because, Um, Like humans would, We would die without a caregiver protecting us for many years. Right. So that, And that was like the trade off for our big brains and our heads. So we're basically born without our brains developed enough because our heads would be too big to be born through women. That's the evolutionary thought. So we need a bunch of time to develop our brains, Unlike many other species. And so we need, We have this long period where we need guardians to care for us and take care of us. And so the theory is that this attachment system was developed, The attachment relationship so that, That children will be taken care of till they're, They can take care of themselves. And so the attachment means like proximity seeking, The adults are going to want to take care of them and the child is going to go towards an adult to take care of them. So the adult is fiercely protective. The primary function. The next one is attuned. The parent or guardian is attuned and that's the quality of attuning is like helping the child understand their internal emotional experience and their mind states. So it's an empathetic connection that also helps the child make sense of their internal world. And so that's like, So basically it's a co-regulation to support not getting overwhelmed. And then the second, Third aspect is soothing. So physically soothing the child, Holding them, You know, When they're distraught or upset, It's like, It's going to be okay. You're okay. You're safe. The fourth one is expressed delight. So actually let's go back to those other two. Attune, Attuning and soothing. I find those are very connected to compassion, Right? That's this quality of like seeing the suffering and caring about the suffering, Right? So this is quality, The parent is compassionate. And then the next one is expressed delight. And this is actually my favorite one too. So expressed delight is that the parent is expressing their delight in the child and not just in like what the child does, But like in the child's being, Right? And so this makes me so, I was so happy to learn about this and I love seeing it. So I have one friend who I often think about as like doing a great job of parenting. And I'm very, I feel really close with her daughter who's now two and a half. Her name's Georgia. And my friend's name is Grace. And so like when, So Grace is a kind of parent, But like when the Georgia was like, What, I don't know, Babies turn over at like six months or something. They learn how to flip over. So I was like, When that happened, Grace freaked out and would literally be like, Oh my God, Everyone come in here, Come in here. Georgia just rolled over. I mean, Totally authentically. So, And she'll like send me videos, Like she sends all like our whole friend group, Like friend pick these little like videos, Right? Georgia doing things like on the potty or something, You know, And it's pretty cute. It was one of those things that you might just be like, Oh my God, But now I'm so happy. I'm like, What she is doing is expressing so much delight in her child and everything that her child does. You know, She's constantly like, Oh my, Isn't Georgia awesome? And you should be like, Yeah, She is. It's great. So what's important about this quality of express delight is as the child develops their sense of I, Their sense of self, They connect it with positive emotions. So the sense of I and self is connected with joy and with happiness. And this is like the foundation of self-esteem and the sense of self-worth, Right? And so that express delight is what gives you that sense of like, Oh, I'm good. I'm worthwhile. Like people will like me, You know, That sort of quality in the heart mind. So that to me is very connected to Mudita. And then the final quality that, So this is a man, A psychologist named Dan Brown, Dr. Dan Brown, Who has written a lot about this and done a ton of research. If you want to get into it, There's a book called Attachment, Disturbances, And Adults. It's a great book. It's very thick. So, But I really like it. He writes all about this. So the final one is that the parent champions the child's self-development, Champions their self-development. And so that's the quality of the parent is seeing like, What does this, What does my child into? What is this young one excited by? And then they support and look out for opportunities for those things, For the things that the child is excited about. And so this is a quality of the parent, Not, You know, Wanting the child to be what they want, You know, What they're excited about. So to me, That really connects with the quality of equanimity, The parent of a parent having the quality of equanimity, That independent of what I want for this child is being, Um, I'm going to support what they want to be, To become what they're into, What excites them. So he talks about that as championing your self-development. So these are beautiful. And I just like for a moment, I don't know, Maybe you had this kind of parenting. And so maybe just for a moment, You can like celebrate that in your life, Feel some gratitude and joy. And maybe you didn't. And so you might, Maybe you can feel a little compassion for yourself. And just how fundamentally these can condition us for some suffering, Or a little bit more ease in our lives. The really good news is that, Um, We can change this, Right? And we can become what's called earned secure. So there is a whole practice that Dan has developed. It's a basically a meditation practice. And I think of it as a meta, Where you develop your, Your, You create new parents. Um, Who would be ideally suited for you. And then they come, They come in and help you. It's really great. It takes a while. It's like developing or any kind of relationship. So you have to build this out. But, Um, Over time, Like, So then these parents are there and his whole concept is like, It's, It's very aligned. He is a Buddhist too. He's a Buddhist teacher. So it's very aligned The idea is like, We're just working out of internal mental models and conditioning in the present moment. Like the past is just a condition in our mind at this moment now. Right. And so you just create, So it's this, This form of deep contemplative practice creates new internal working models that can basically shift our conditioning in deep and profound ways. And he's done tons of research on this and it's really found it to be beneficial. And so that's, That is what we're doing in our practice when we do this meta practice. And so if you want to check out the ideal family protocol, You can read that book, Thick one. It's all in there. It's really good. But for now you can be doing this. This is basically this practice. Cause then what you do is you imagine those parents just like loving you, Going through those qualities and like, And just like the receiving practice is basically like the receiving practice. And then damn, She's a meta. And then you, Then you offer it to like a child. And then you, You imagine that you're the parent of the world, Offering those qualities to every being. And it's quite beautiful. Okay. But let's talk about, Let's talk about delight. Let's express the light a little bit. Mudita. And so this one feels important cause it seems like so many of us struggle with feelings of unworthiness in a whole range. It could be self-doubt all the way to self-hatred. Seems pretty common in our, In the minds of people that I connect with. And so a lot of shame. And then these set up the foundation for like jealousy, A lot of jealousy and envy, Right? And the comparing. And Jill was talking about this earlier today, The culture of like, Of competitiveness and comparing. And that's because of this kind of fundamental quality of like, I'm not good enough of unworthiness. And Mudita is really the antidote for this. So how do we cultivate this? One way is like in this practice that we're doing. And another one is by paying a lot of close attention and looking, And actually Jill said it today too, Paying attention to what brings us joy. What brings us pleasure, Right? So she got that list. Like maybe you just can do that for yourself of writing down the things that bring you pleasure and joy, Maybe at the end of the night tonight. Like what were some, And again, It's not these like big giant things. Can be like these simple moments. And there's this beautiful author. His name is Ross Gay. He's a poet and a writer. And he just published a book called, It's called The Book of Delights. There's a really great This American Life podcast recently about delight that I recommend when you get home. So he's on there. And what he did was he decided to take a year to just, To every day write a delight that he experienced. And he discovered it was really a discipline. Discipline and a rigor that had to do. And he had to develop this delight muscle, Right? Or a delight radar, He called it. And he also learned that his delight grew as he shared his delight. And so, You know, It's definitely, This is definitely not a Pollyanna book at all. He's not ignoring sorrow and struggle. But, But he's finding the delight within, In some cases, The mundane. So yeah, I'm gonna read this one that I, That kind of struck me. It's about he, He's like putting coconut oil on his body. So it's after taking a shower. He likes to, He puts coconut oil on his body. It says, Today when I watch myself, Particularly when I was oiling my chest and stomach, Which I do kind of by self-hugging, I was thinking how many bodies of mine are in this body, This nearly 43-year-old body stationed on this plane for the briefest. I could see, As I always can, Probably kind of dysmorphically, My biggest body when I was 260 pounds and a battering ram and felt sort of impervious. I could also see my 12-year-old self, Chubby and gangly and ashamed. And of course, The baby me, Who I don't remember being, Though I have seen pictures. When you watch yourself in the mirror, Oiling yourself like this, Wrapping your arms around yourself, Jostling yourself a little, It is easy or easier to see yourself as a child, And maybe even a child you really love. It is easy, If you decide it, Which might be hard, To let the oiling be of the baby you. Or at least I thought so today, Looking at myself, Who I am so often not nice to. But the baby you, You oil until he shines. I want to read this other, It's a little bit longer, But it's so sweet. This is about him carrying a tomato plant on the plane. What you don't know until you carry a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane is that carrying a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane will make people smile at you. Almost like you're carrying a baby, A quiet baby. I did not know this until today, Carrying my little tomato about three or four inches high in its four-inch plastic starter pot, Which my friend Michael gave to me, Smirking about how I was going to get it home. Something about this at first felt knotty, So I slid the thing into my bag while going through security, Which made them pull the bag for inspection. When the security guy saw it was a tomato, He smiled and said, I don't know how to check that. Have a good day. But I quickly realized that one of its stems, Which I almost wrote as arms, Was broken from the jostling, And it only had four of them. So I decided I had better just carry it out in the open, And the shower of love began. Before boarding the final leg of my flight, One of the workers said, Nice tomato, Which I don't think was a come on. And the flight attendant asked about the tomato at least five times, Not an exaggeration, Every time calling it my tomato. Where's my tomato? How's my tomato? You didn't lose my tomato, Did you? She even directed me to an open seat in the exit row. Why don't you guys go sit there and stretch out? I gathered my things, And I set the little guy in the window seat so he could look out. And when I got my water, I poured some into the little guy's soil. And when we got bumpy, I put my hand on the little guy's container, Careful not to snap another arm off. And when we landed and the pilot put the brakes on hard, My arm reflexively went out across the seat, Holding the little guy in place, The way my dad's arm would when he had to brake hard in that car without seat belts to speak of, In one of my very favorite gestures in the Encyclopedia of Human Gestures. So sweet, Right? What are the delights that are all around us? I've been doing a fair amount of kind of a joy practice recently. And exploring this idea that pleasure might always be present. Like, I'm not positive, But so far every time I've looked, There's been something in my experience that was like, Okay, Or kind of pleasant, Right? Even in the midst of when I'm feeling some significant discomfort or pain. So that's just been, You know, Maybe you can take that on as a practice. Is that, Can we, Is there always something? And Pico Analio talks about just the joy of being present. Just the subtle joy of the present moment. And that we can actually tune into that when we're practicing as a way to lighten our practice and give us energy and inspiration. And when I've done that, When I've looked for that, I find it. When I remember to look for it, I find it. So the other, The final piece for me too is the sense of the sharing, The joy. And we might call that celebration. I'm in this, A women's group kind of thing. And one of the practices in that is celebrating. Celebrating each other. And one of the things we do is like once a week we meet with two people and you have to say five things you're celebrating about your life. Sometimes they're called five brags about your life. Quite uncomfortable at first for me. And just, It's just an amazing process to see how challenging it can be. And then part of the practice is to celebrate when the other person has something, Like, And to sort of be like, Yeah, You know. And the woman who leads this women's group is like, Oh, I was like, Oh, Amazing. That's so great. Yay. And I'm from New England and we don't do that. Might be a little bit like Northern England. Where it's just like, You don't, It's like so cynical, You know. And subdued. So at first I was just like, I don't know about this, This lady. This feels like kind of fake or something, You know, Or contrived. And I, And I'm actually starting to see the like joy and wisdom of that practice. Like it, It actually does feel kind of good to like, To just like celebrate in a vibrant way. Even little successes in people's lives. And I'm seeing how it's like shifting my mind so that in other situations, When, When people kind of name a little thing that's going well, Like, I'm like, Oh, That's so great. And like, Why not? You know, Why not get excited and celebrate in this way? And that also, What I'm really seeing from that is celebrating, It is an antidote to jealousy. Right? That I, Me getting super excited about someone else actually overcomes my own jealousy and comparing mind. So that's been another part of my practice that's been really fun. You might try as you go home. And especially this piece about cultivating your own celebration in your own life, The good things in your life. So another writer who's a deep inspiration for me is Audre Lorde. She writes about joy. She says, For once we, For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives. We begin to demand from ourselves and from our life pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy, Which we know ourselves to be capable of. And this is a grave responsibility projected from within each of us. Not to settle for the convenient, The shoddy, The conventionally accepted, Nor the merely safe. Joy has this like, Has a liberatory quality, Has this quality of like pushing us forward into a bigger life. And then she also writes, The sharing of joy, Whether physical, Emotional, Psychic, Or intellectual, Forms a bridge between the sharers, Which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them and lessens the threat of their difference. Read that again. The sharing of joy, Whether physical, Emotional, Psychic, Or intellectual, Forms a bridge between the sharers, Which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them and lessens the threat of their difference. Celebrating together is also a practice of anti-oppression. Celebrating and lifting each other up. And celebrating yourself. Okay. So let's just sit together for a few minutes. Settle. Thank you for listening. To learn how you can support the teachers and Dharmaseed, Please visit dharmaseed. Org slash donate.