Dear Friends, Chapter three of Christina Feldman’s Boundless Heart delves into the heart quality of joy. She explains that joy can be cultivated, that joy can be a place where our heart rests. One master of describing joy was Mary Oliver, a poet who managed to capture in words the beauty and wonder of this world. In honor of… Read More »
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. Yesterday, we looked at the first three of the seven factors: mindfulness, investigation, and energy. Today, we’ll look at the next three: joy, tranquility, and concentration. Joy As our mindfulness deepens, we investigate, and then that rouses… Read More »
Dear Friends, When the Buddha was giving instructions to his son, Rahula, one of the teachings was “Develop the meditation of appreciation. For when you are developing the meditation of appreciation, resentment will be abandoned.” This is the heart quality of muditā. In her book, Lovingkindness, Sharon Salzberg tells us that this practice of muditā is a way… Read More »
Dear Friends, Today is the last day of the 5 day retreat with Adrianne Ross, so I’ll be back to the land of technology later this afternoon. I thank you for your patience! Meanwhile, here’s a reflection for today! I look forward to catching up with your responses. It’s hard to believe we’re at the end of January!… Read More »
Dear Friends, A few years ago, Brené Brown shared a quote on her blog from Brother David Steindl-Rast: The root of joy is gratefulness. We tend to misunderstand the link between joy and gratefulness. We notice that joyful people are grateful and suppose that they are grateful for their joy. But the reverse is true: their joy springs from gratefulness.… Read More »
Dear Friends, Yesterday, we reviewed a common occurrence when trying to bring mindfulness to daily activities – we start off with good effort and results, but then the novelty wears off, and we stop being so mindful. I related this to two short-lived types of joy that Chade-Meng Tan discusses in Joy on Demand: the joy of novelty and the joy of… Read More »
Dear Friends, In Joy on Demand, Chade-Meng Tan describes four sources of joy, two of which he says are short-lived, and two which are “very important and highly durable.” The two that he describes as short-lived are the joy of novelty, and the joy of perceived agency. The joy of novelty is the excitement of experiencing something new,… Read More »
Dear Friends, We’ve covered a lot of ground these past few days, so let’s take a moment to recap. We started by talking about intention – setting an intention for the year, the day, a meditation practice, a chore – and we also looked at closing the day, practice, etc. with a dedication. We reviewed a few different… Read More »
Dear Friends, The Sunday Morning Insight Meditation Study Group listens to a recorded talk in the week, and then meets to meditate and discuss the talk on Sunday mornings. The talk this week is on joy. In the talk, Adrianne Ross shares a slogan from Pema Chödrön: Stop. Notice. Appreciate. Share. Here’s what Pema says about this slogan: Sharing… Read More »
