So these mind states that we're looking at,
They often exist in relationship to each other.
So praise and blame,
Gain and loss,
Pleasure and pain,
Fame and disrepute,
They're opposites.
On Tuesday we looked at contentment and discontentment,
The expression of these two.
And today,
Gladness and sadness,
The expression.
And both gladness and sadness happen for us throughout our whole life.
We'll experience both.
And there are healthy ways of being sad and unhealthy ways.
And one unhealthy way of sadness,
The way that it can manifest is that it can be debilitating.
We're unable to function.
So the idea is to begin to kind of tease them apart and see that these can take on different forms.
Only when people feel sad,
It's uncomfortable,
So it's easy to take it as a bad thing,
Kind of wrong,
That it shouldn't be there.
Or when they're glad,
Everything's great on top of the world,
All good.
But whichever one we're experiencing,
Gladness or sadness,
It doesn't mean that one is good and one is bad.
They both have their healthy versions.
And they both have their unhealthy versions.
And so to be able to see that is helpful.
So for example,
A person might feel that they have a lot of hope,
A lot of hope for a future and feel glad by that hope,
That possibility.
And then whatever they were hoping for doesn't work out.
And so the pendulum swings and then they're really sad about it and they lose faith.
So here are these things living in relationship to each other.
It might be hope in another person or in relationship,
A situation,
If only this thing could happen.
You know,
Then there's all this hope and then if it doesn't,
Then we crash because we've pumped up,
You know,
We kind of pumped ourselves up in the energy of that hope.
And so when it doesn't work out,
There's the swing,
The crash.
So some of these things,
They exist together and they have a lot to do with sort of this self identity.
So if we get praised or we do something that we think others will approve of,
Then perhaps the felt sense is gladness and happiness.
You know,
There's some energy with that.
But if it turns out that what we did wasn't approved of or appreciated by other people or in fact it upset other people,
Then our ego gets hooked and we start to feel bad about ourselves.
Our ego is a fragile thing that swings back and forth with our changing mind states.
So to begin not just looking at the particular forms of gladness and sadness that we might have,
But to see how these live in relationship to each other.
And maybe to choose that,
You know what,
I don't really want to live a life dependent on things that are really fragile.
I don't want to live a life that's driven by my ego,
Things that swing back and forth.
In part this practice is choosing another way.
That it's known as the middle path is not a coincidence.
And to be sure,
You know,
There's gladness and sadness that comes in this middle path.
You know,
We can feel glad that we have some stability,
That we're not so pushed around by the opinions of others or not so pushed around by our fear.
Not so pushed around by fear of rejection or not looking good.
We can be happy and glad that we're centered and stable and not needing a lot.
And that gladness,
Knowing that we're free from a lot of the social drama and the social games.
You know,
Maybe if we're not caught up in that,
It can feel rewarding that we're not so caught in that pendulum,
That swing.
There's a relief to it.
Look at that.
I'm not so attached to things.
It's an important seeing.
And there is sadness.
Sadness is part of being in this human body,
In this human life.
It's just there because there's loss.
There's change.
There might be sadness that we've disappointed ourselves.
Like we got in touch with something deeper and where we're experiencing our integrity and our goodness and then we got distracted or we got afraid and we're sad about that.
Like maybe we did something unconsciously that we would never imagine doing.
We hurt a friend or we lied or we did something and now we're sad about that behavior and disappointed or we hurt someone.
And that sadness is just there because there's been pain and maybe we were the cause of that pain.
And that's not necessarily a problem.
It actually might be a sign of our healthiness that we feel certain kinds of sadness.
Maybe a life without sadness isn't a life.
There's a time and a place to feel sad.
Sometimes sadness is a follow place,
A follow time.
Something inside us is being prepared for a new way of being,
For a new direction that we're embarking on.
In the foundational teachings of Buddhism all forms of sadness and gladness or any of these oppositional mental states,
These wins,
These worldly wins,
Can be experienced in what is called refuge and that refuge is sort of a way in which we orientate.
It's our orientation.
We have an understanding.
You know we have a way of seeing.
We have this practice that we are trusting that sort of acts as a protection and informs us.
It kind of points the way or shows us that there's a way through everything no matter what's going on.
Refuge for me has been that I might not know the way.
I might not know what the way is but I practice mindfulness,
Practice meditation.
I just keep practicing living ethically and staying close to the Dharma,
Staying connected to the Sangha,
To the practitioners and community of practitioners and trust that my heart will find a way.
And so this idea or this practice as refuge,
We'll explore that a little bit more in the coming weeks but I like the idea of refuge as an ocean and thinking of it as an ocean.
The ocean is really stable underneath the surface waves that come and go.
And sometimes there's really high waves and sometimes the surface waves are kind of low and calm and these are all just surface manifestations.
But deep in the ocean it's really stable.
And at some point in our practice we spend time playing and struggling with those waves.
But there's this deeper place of refuge,
The foundation for it all.
And if you remember that you have a refuge,
A deeper ocean for resourcing,
If you remember you can trust this practice and yourself in a deep way,
You don't really have to know the way.
You'll find your way.
You don't have to be so troubled by the waves.
The waves come and go.
You can study them.
You can see what they are.
You can see them carefully and you can learn from them.
Learn which waves are healthy and which ones aren't.
Which waves pull you under and which ones you can surf.
Part of our practice is learning how to ride the waves.
Learning not to identify with the waves so much as this is happening to me.
To learn to trust that there's something deeper here than just the waves.
That there's a certain kind of stability that follows you along.
Even when you don't know what's supposed to happen you have this refuge.
And having that can give a lot more clarity and ease around how we navigate and experience the comings and goings of experiences like sadness and gladness.
So as you go through your day and the days ahead,
As small and large versions of sadness and gladness arise in you,
Perhaps just see how they kind of work.
Can you start to really get to know the swings?
And to remember to do this from this foundation of trust.
This is all learning.
It's all just learning.
Can we allow for contentment and discontentment?
Can we allow for gladness and sadness?
Instead of pushing,
The tendency is to quickly push it away.
Feeling sad,
Push it away.
Maybe the more afflictive or negative associations with sadness.
I don't want to feel sad so I'm going to push it away.
Maybe we just need time with it.
Go for a walk.
Sit and have tea.
Just allow for it.
