So to start out this exploration of the Brahma-Viharas,
Today's topic is Appreciative Joy or Sympathetic Joy as it's often called.
I'd like to read from a quote from Thomas Merton.
Life is this simple.
We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time.
This is not a fable or a nice story.
It is true.
The saints are what they are not because of their holiness but because the gift of sainthood makes it easy for them to admire everyone else.
So today we are on this third capacity that we have for these boundless states known as the Brahma-Viharas and they're considered these divine places that we dwell.
Kind of our true nature manifested.
To review,
They are loving kindness,
Compassion,
Appreciative joy,
And equanimity.
And I think it's useful to see them as an expression of our inner freedom.
The metaphor for inner freedom that is most frequently used in this scene of Dharma is that of an open heart.
So the idea is the doors of the heart are open.
So if there are locks on the doors then the heart isn't open.
And in some ways that protects us from the suffering of others and these difficulties that are part of our world.
If we don't take it in and we keep everything away,
The doors of our heart are closed and that comes at a tremendous cost.
Because any way in which the doors of the heart are locked,
They also lock us out of our capacity for joy and happiness,
For love and kindness.
I invite you to check that out for yourself.
Where is your heart closed?
And you may notice that there is a lack of joy.
But if those doors can be wide open,
What we discover is that we can take in and experience suffering,
The suffering in the world,
The suffering in our lives.
But what happens is it flows right through us,
Almost as if the heart is just a door.
And to have the door wide open,
Everything just goes through.
We experience the suffering of the world more acutely,
Actually.
But we don't suffer because of it.
We're not a victim of it.
But we do experience it.
So with the door wide open,
We experience suffering.
And we can meet it with compassion.
And it's the same if we experience the joy of the world,
We can feel joy and delight.
So spiritual joy is known as mudita in the Pali.
It's this capacity we have to take in joy and happiness and delight.
It includes qualities of gratitude and celebrating the happiness of others.
Appreciative joy is a state that doesn't compare,
That isn't jealous,
That isn't afraid that there's not enough that isn't afraid that there's not enough love to go around.
So the near enemy of appreciative joy is comparison and hypocrisy.
It's a joy for others with a tinge of identification like Oh,
This is my team or my child.
And the far enemy is envy.
It looks like a lack of abundance in the heart.
There isn't enough.
One of the ways that appreciative joy is understood is when we see that there's really no difference between people between us.
That we're all a part of whatever is momentarily existing.
So if one of these parts is experiencing joy,
Then and joy has come into the world,
Then we all have reason to celebrate it.
In a sense,
The universal will replace the individual when we've experienced it in in our meditation practice.
Our problems will not let up as long as we are trying to support and secure me.
This idea of me only when we begin to put the universal over the individual and see our connection to it.
Then it becomes more important to experience that universal instead of the wish that I get or I have more.
We experience it because we all are experiencing more.
There's more peace in the heart when we let go of this small sense of self.
The poet Rumi,
Who is considered really one of the greatest spiritual poets that ever lived.
He said that he didn't write any of his verses,
He just heard them and he spoke them as they came to him.
He was like a channel.
I think if you speak to people who talk about their creative work,
You know,
Whether it's poetry or writing or painting or cooking,
Music,
Dance,
The way that it's often described is it's something that they hear or they feel.
It's inspired and then they express it.
I know in my experience when I'm writing dharma talks,
I'm really hearing it,
Like I'm hearing the dharma.
The Italian composer Puccini said that I've done nothing as a musician.
I simply write down what I've heard from God.
So what these examples illustrate is that nobody is working with their own original material.
Everything is infinitely connected.
You know,
In some of the most classic discussions in the practice of the Brahma Viharas,
They talk about how we can use ourselves as an example to understand the well-being of others.
To cultivate loving kindness for oneself is not meant to be selfish and self-focused.
It's not meant to be selfish and self-focused.
It's really meant to be a preparation to be able to do loving kindness towards the world around us.
The description says that by having oneself as an example,
This is what it's like to have love.
This is what it's like to receive kindness from someone.
Then there's more of an embodiment,
More of a sense of understanding of how to connect and understand others,
And then to offer it to them as well.
It's the same with mudita,
With appreciative joy.
Sometimes it's hard to do for ourselves,
But to the degree to which you can have a sense of recognizing and affirming some aspect of ourselves,
Like,
Yes,
This is a quality that is good,
That is wholesome,
That is pure.
Even if you have a habit pattern of self-beratement,
Of self-beratement,
Of not enough,
Of it's not good enough,
I'm not good enough.
I feel certain that you can find parts of yourself that are beautiful,
Whatever that is good in oneself,
To affirm it and to celebrate it and to enjoy it,
To appreciate it.
It's sad to not feel some appreciation or joy in ourselves because what happens is we keep ourselves hostage by what is not good about ourselves.
I mean,
We all,
All of us have our shortcomings.
Everyone can find something that is sort of like their psychological wart.
It just comes with being human.
But if we focus so much on that,
We're denying and ignoring and pushing aside the part of us that is actually good and happy and wholesome.
So the invitation is to spend some time appreciating the wholesomeness and the goodness in ourselves,
To feel that joy in ourselves and that appreciation,
And to be grateful for these aspects of ourselves that are good.
For these aspects of ourselves that are good,
And then we are able to authentically experience that for others.
It starts here in this body,
In this mind.
So,
These are my thoughts on appreciative joy.
Thank you for your consideration and I welcome your thoughts and views on this or questions you may have.
