Rejoicing Brings Joy

Venerable Thubten Chonyi gives a short talk on how intentionally rejoicing uplifts our minds and is an antidote to the afflictions. She then leads a guided exercise on how to engage in the practice of rejoicing in our meditation.

Transcript

So welcome to everybody,

Good evening.

And rejoicing in joy is a joyful topic.

So whatever mood you're in,

Don't deny it.

And we're not going to try to change it.

But we will explore this quality of joy that I know you regulars have been doing daily now for the last couple of weeks so you may have some ideas about it.

I thought tonight we'd do a lot of meditation,

Not so much talk.

I'll do a little background,

But really do some meditation in evoking that feeling of joy inside of us.

See how that works.

But first,

Let's just bring ourselves present.

So if you will get yourself in your meditation posture,

Whichever works best for you.

If you're in a chair,

Get your feet flat on the floor and your spine straight.

If you're on a cushion,

Of course,

Then get comfortable with your spine straight as well.

Shoulders leveled,

Tongue behind your front teeth,

Lips closed.

Stretch your neck a little bit,

Make sure that you are straight.

And then eyes are lowered.

So if you can leave a little bit of light coming in,

That's good.

If you want to practice,

If you do a practice that's an eyes open practice,

That's also good.

Don't even lower them.

If you do a closed eye practice,

It might be worth a try to just see if you can let a little light come in.

So be aware of your body in the space.

Feel your connection with the chair,

Floor,

The room.

Be aware of the sensations in that connection with chair and floor and room.

Be aware of the sense data that's coming in,

Sense,

Sounds,

Tastes even,

Physical contact,

And that little bit of light or whatever you see.

Not trying to focus or identify any of it,

But just being aware of it and letting it pass through.

And then bring your intention inside your own body.

Taking a moment to scan from the bottom of your feet up to your collarbone,

Up to the top of your head,

Noticing sensations,

Seeing if there's any tightness,

Tension,

Discomfort,

Pain.

Just notice it as a sensation.

Breathe into those places that might feel a little tight.

Let them soften.

And take your attention to your breathing.

Just noticing it,

Being aware of it.

And our very first rejoicing is to rejoice that we are breathing.

It's so easy to take our own lives for granted or to take our own health for granted.

Right at this moment,

Here we are together sharing in the Dharma,

Your breathing,

Well enough to be sitting up.

We can really rejoice in that.

We'll take about three good breaths just in silence to see,

Be aware of the sensations and how that breath feeds your whole being,

Your body as well as your mind.

So I want to say just a few words about what joy is.

It comes up in the Buddhist context in several ways.

One is as the fourth of the four immeasurables.

The first one being wishing all beings to have happiness in its causes,

Which is the quality of love.

That all beings be free of suffering in their causes,

Which is the quality of compassion.

That all living beings never be separated from sorrowless bliss,

And that's the quality of joy.

That's the third one.

And that all beings abide in equanimity,

Free of bias,

Attachment and anger,

So that balanced,

Even mind.

So this quality of joy is actually wishing people,

Beings never to be separated from happiness.

And that's both kinds of happiness,

The temporal happiness and also spiritual happiness,

The definite goodness that is the cessation of all suffering ultimately.

But this wish is for happiness to have even in our present condition that our minds be free and at ease,

That we have joy and be free of pain,

But we not be separated from that.

So another place that joy comes up is in the six perfections where we talk about joyous effort.

So again,

This is quality of joy coming into our Dharma practice and in that context,

We're talking about having joy or delight in practicing virtue.

So having delight in our own goodness,

Having delight in the goodness of others.

So we can look at the qualitative feeling of joy and see that it has a few places where it's so important.

The great,

The great saint Shanti Deva says that without joy with our effort,

There is no merit at all.

And there's like there's no movement without wind.

So that this joy is really a motivating factor in our practice that keeps us going,

Keeps us going to the cushion whenever we go,

Keeps us practicing generosity as we do our joy is what keeps us coming to the daily Dharma gathering every night because we have an appreciation for it.

So I thought it would be nice to simply spend some time rejoicing in goodness and see if the feeling of joy begins to arise in us naturally because it's not an externally induced phenomenon.

I mean,

We can get it from a beautiful sunset or,

You know,

A tender moment with someone we care about.

You can have feelings of joy arise,

But the kind that's really stable and doesn't depend on the external world to do anything is the kind that we cultivate in our own mind.

And that's what this meditation is designed to do.

So we haven't probably gotten too far out of our meditation pose,

But let's readjust that.

And our reflection will be on rejoicing in our own and others goodness.

So we start with ourselves,

Maybe because this is harder,

But really bring to mind a quality that you know is expressed from your own kind heart,

That your own goodness expresses.

A quality or a skill that you happily share with others,

Easily share with others.

It could be that you have a great smile.

It could be that you have a tendency to feed people who are hungry.

It could be any kind of habit or quality that expresses your good heart.

But think about,

Bring it to mind.

Bring one.

People have probably told you,

Oh,

You're so easy to be with.

Something like that.

And you know,

We so often take that for granted or brush it aside.

Oh,

Yeah,

That's just something I do.

But now we're going to look at it as,

No,

This is a product of my own goodness.

And without pride,

Without arrogance,

It's not about being puffed up,

But it's about acknowledging yes,

I have this quality of goodness.

Rejoice in that.

And then see if you can bring to mind a time or two or three or four when this was expressed,

Where someone else really benefited from this quality.

And you can cultivate a little joy rejoicing like,

Wow,

That was really lovely.

Take a minute with that one.

So,

Rejoicing in our own goodness,

We have more than one good quality.

If we ask ourselves to list what our good qualities are,

It's hard to do because we don't acknowledge them very much usually.

We can see somebody else's.

It's hard to see your own.

And it's important that we do.

It gives us confidence that when we're on the path,

We are really building our love and compassion,

Good qualities based on something as a foundation.

But let's turn our attention then to someone that we know,

Maybe someone we admire,

Someone whose good qualities are really evident to us.

We might even be a little bit jealous of them.

This is a great antidote to that jealousy.

But most especially,

Taking a look at someone's good qualities,

Identify one or two and go,

Wow,

That's wonderful.

Really rejoice that they have that.

Rejoice in the happiness they get from having that quality and from the benefit it happens to others.

How it's sharing that is beneficial for others.

And just,

Yeah,

Appreciate it.

Let that feeling of joy come up.

Enjoyment.

Delighting in their virtue.

Thank you.

And then let's bring to mind one more person,

Someone who's close to you,

Someone in your family or a dear friend,

Someone you really appreciate.

Think about them not in terms of all the ways that we're attached to them,

But take a moment to just look at and think about their good qualities.

Things that arise from their own kind hearts.

And you can rejoice and take the light in that goodness.

And I'll spend a minute with that one.

And I see that we have time.

Actually,

This one's a little bit tougher.

But just think of somebody that's a little bit difficult for you.

Not the worst enemy,

Not the worst,

But someone that's a little bit hard to communicate with or you have a little thing with.

See if they don't have a good quality or two answer.

Looking past whatever our issue is with that present person,

Do you really see that good person?

And then we'll finish by rejoicing that we've taken this time to rejoice.

Really rejoicing.

Rejoicing that we've taken on the difficult people too.

And that's ourULY.

.

Reviews

Nice talk and meditation with elements of lovingkindness ✨

Wonderful. Thank you 🙏.

This meditation brought me a lot of joy to start the day. So thank you. 🦋😊

Your style of presentation and smooth voice go nicely with this dharma presentation. Thank you.