Letting Joy Win

This Wake Up Call is about comparing minds. Comparing gets in the way of joy. Yet comparing is ubiquitous in the law. Plus it's one or the other - we can be joyful or we can cultivate (or default to) a comparing mind. But we can't do both. So the question for this episode is, how do we let joy win?

Transcript

Hey everyone,

Welcome to The Wake Up Call.

This is Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call number 288.

We've started unpacking sympathetic joy,

Which is the third of the four Brahma Viharas or the wholesome states of mind.

These are the most wholesome states,

The states of mind,

Mind,

Heart,

Maybe,

That really frankly feel good to us.

And they include loving kindness and compassion and equanimity.

And then the fourth one,

Which is really the third in order of sympathetic joy.

And at the meditation part of today's call,

We'll do another meditation on sympathetic joy.

Last week,

We did a meditation on having sympathetic joy for somebody who we really care about and we'll do,

We'll pick a different person today,

And that'll be a way of continuing to cultivate that state of mind,

In other words,

Getting used to it and knowing it and then practicing it so that we know what it feels like to be in that state of mind.

In terms of exploring the state of mind of sympathetic joy though,

And it's often the case,

Learning the building blocks of mindfulness,

The exploration of that state of mind includes,

Or it even,

You could say it even focuses on the reasons why we tend not to,

Or trend,

Tend or trend not to move towards sympathetic joy,

But away from it.

In other words,

We explore what it looks like when sympathetic joy isn't present.

What gets in the way?

So for example,

When we first start learning present moment awareness,

We also learn to pay attention to the opposite,

The wandering mind.

And then we learn ways of relating to the wandering mind that are kind and nonjudgmental.

And our focus is on the wandering mind and we develop benevolent approach to it.

And between that focus and also the love we bring to the exploration,

The kindness we bring to the exploration,

We can relax and we can practice and then eventually the mind can become more steady.

So it's similar when looking at sympathetic joy.

It's good to understand it for what it is,

Taking joy in the joy of others,

But it's also good to understand it in relationship to the impediments,

The things that make it difficult.

And then to bring a lot of kindness,

Benevolence to the ways that we can incline in the opposite direction from sympathetic joy.

And then we can practice without feeling like when we're not practicing or when we're not getting it right,

We're doing something wrong because we're not.

You know,

This is a practice.

And it's also good to notice the opposite states because one thing,

And you can confirm this in your own practice and see if it's true for you,

Is that most moments,

The mind can't actually hold opposing states.

So you can try that out right now.

Think back to sometime in the last few days or weeks when maybe something simple but frustrating happened,

Like somebody was being rude on Zoom and maybe recall feeling frustrated with them.

And then imagine you're in that same Zoom and there's other people that are in someone chats to you during the Zoom and says,

Oh,

That poor person,

They were just fired.

You know,

And what happens is chances are your frustration almost immediately kind of shifts to compassion.

You know,

One state of mind,

Mind,

Heart is gone and another takes its place.

And you might go back and forth,

But the point is we're practicing with these wholesome states so that they become more habitual and essentially over time they start to crowd out the less wholesome states.

So that's why we explore these impediments to sympathetic joy and we do it with a lot of kindness and with a sense of humor as in,

Oh,

There's my jealousy again.

Hello.

Because then we can recognize those opposite states and make a choice to shift to sympathetic joy and essentially we're kind of banishing these things.

We're kind of banishing the opposite states.

We're sort of cleansing the mind of them.

And at the same time,

We're conditioning the mind and heart to incline in the direction of the more wholesome states.

So comparing mind is today's opposite of sympathetic joy and I think it's a really good one to play with.

At least I know it is for me.

I don't know about you,

But I'm personally really very intimately familiar with comparing mind.

I mean,

I've been practicing mindfulness for decades,

But I often find myself comparing myself to others.

Sometimes it's really big and obvious and sometimes it's really subtle.

So here's a couple of examples.

Yesterday,

I was overhearing my daughter's professor leading a meditation before beginning her class.

My daughter's in a master's program in psychology in the living room right here.

And I loved the meditation and my mind started to compare the meditation to the ways that I lead meditations.

And I was thinking,

Hmm,

Her voice sounds like that.

I wonder how my voice sounds.

I don't think I offer that suggestion.

Her suggestion is better.

And so on.

It kind of went like that.

And then I realized in doing that,

I was more or less blocking myself from appreciating the meditation I was listening to and from accessing any joy for that professor,

The joy that I'm guessing she was having,

Because I know I have it too.

When I lead a meditation,

It's really joyful to do that.

And once I noticed I could switch,

But I needed to see what was happening.

And then I could be happy for her and think,

Oh,

How lovely it must be to offer that right now.

How great she must feel.

I'm so happy for her to feel that way.

And then about an hour later,

I saw my neighbor and she was on her way.

I'm up at Lake Tahoe and she was on her way to go out skiing and she looked really fit and immediately almost as if my mind was completely out of my control,

Which of course,

I'm not.

I was completely out of my control,

Which of course it is,

Right?

Because our minds are not in our control.

The thought arose,

Oh,

Judy,

Why did you eat all those chocolate chip cookies last night?

Instead of how wonderful that Lisa is so fit.

She must be happy about that.

And I'm happy for her,

Right?

So think about how that plays out in our profession.

You know,

We're always competing with one another.

It's the very nature of our work.

It's the adversary system.

It's the nature of the culture of the law.

You know,

If somebody is making partner or getting tenure and I'm not there yet,

And I'm comparing,

I'm measuring myself against someone else's achievements instead of being happy for them.

Or I lose a case and somebody else wins and I do the same thing and it's hard to be happy for them.

So it can get pretty exhausting.

It's like looking at life,

Looking at the law as a zero sum game when they're really not.

And actually it's the opposite.

There's plenty of joy to go around.

It's just that the storms of life are always just blowing us this way and that,

You know,

And we're steering the best we can,

But the winds are still blowing.

So I wanted to show you a kind of a classical mindfulness piece.

Talk about a classical mindfulness piece called the eight worldly winds.

And this is how it is.

If you can see this screen that we're always either in a place of pleasure or pain,

Gain or loss,

Praise or blame,

Fame or disrepute.

We're always in one or the other,

Going back and forth,

Back and forth,

Moment by moment,

Day by day.

These are just the winds of life.

These are just the winds of life,

So sympathetic joy is the opposite of comparing whether my life is mainly on the side of pleasure,

Gain,

Praise and fame.

It's not going to be,

It's going to get blown around.

We all are.

And it's not about comparing whether I'm experiencing as much pleasure or praise as someone else.

It's about relaxing into whatever is happening and overriding that tendency to compare and doing that by affirmatively really summoning sympathetic joy when someone else is experiencing gain or fame,

Even if I'm not.

And just being flat out happy for them,

Getting happy for them and seeing how that feels,

How it kind of comes back around.

Now,

Being and expressing joy for someone else brings more joy into the moment,

Which means interestingly,

Then there's more joy for me and it goes around like this.

All right,

So it's something to play with.

See if it's true for you.

Is it true?

You can explore.

Is it true that you can't hold two opposites at once so that when you summon up sympathetic joy,

You pop out of comparing mine?

And is it true for you that when you call up some joy for somebody else,

You also feel better yourself?

And is it true that if you practice this for a few weeks or a few months or for your whole life,

Does it become more durable?

Does your own mind and heart more reliably incline towards joy for others more automatically?

So let's do some practice right now.

So for this practice,

You can take a comfortable posture.

For the Brahma Vihara practices,

Loving-kindness and compassion and sympathetic joy and equanimity practice,

It's nice to lean back.

And you could even lie down if that's available to you.

If you're standing and you want to find a nice wall to lean against.

In other words,

You know,

Bringing a lot of kindness and ease to the body and just relaxing in the moment.

And then thinking about someone in your life who is acquaintance.

Someone who you see every so often,

Whether you see them in real life or you see them on a screen.

And you may not even know too much about them.

Or you may know a little about them,

But they're not really in your inner circle.

And see if you can see something about them that is bringing them some happiness,

Some joy.

Maybe that they're healthy.

Maybe that they have a job,

Good job,

Job.

Or a home,

Something really basic,

Enough food.

And then say to them,

You can do this silently to yourself.

May you be joyful,

Happy with your life.

And may your joy increase.

May you be happy and joyful about your life.

And may that joy increase.

And may your joy increase.

And you might notice if there's any comparison happening,

Because that can happen.

And if it does happen,

If it comes up,

It's not a problem.

Just notice it,

Let it go.

Come back to focusing on the person you've chosen and their joy,

The goodness in their life.

Come back to wishing them well.

May you have joy and may your joy increase.

And may your joy increase.

Sometimes this practice can feel,

Either it can feel kind of hokey or it can feel kind of rote.

So just keep with it.

And just explore.

See how it feels to you to be cultivating joy for someone else.

See if it brings a little bit more joy into your life today to do this practice.

Thank you.

Thanks everyone for being on the wake up call today.

Have a really joyful day.

May your joy increase today.

And I will see you next Thursday.