Like compassion, appreciative joy is a natural human capacity. I would expect to feel it in response to a happy bouncing dog, a child’s joy at experiencing the world or when being welcomed into a dear friend’s home.
On the other hand, when many things seem to be going wrong at once, grief can overwhelm me and joy can seem far away. I try to remember the Dalai Lama – certainly no stranger to all kinds of suffering. He repeatedly emphasizes the importance of joy, in how he relates, in his writing and his documentaries. The Daoists speak of the 10,000 sorrows & 10,000 joys – so both, not just sorrows.
I also like to think of Indra’s net where each intersection contains a jewel that reflects every other jewel. That would also include our reflecting our joys to each other.
Keeping the door open to appreciative joy is also a choice in that cultivating it takes effort. Being willing to speak the truth to myself and others, being humble about that, seems critical. That my individualistic, competitive and commercialized culture – not to mention social media – encourages envy, helps me to cut myself some slack.
When I am able to feel genuine appreciative joy, speaking the truth helps me to feel the enlargement, ease, connection and freedom – a taste of liberation from the bonds of self. And joyous connection is possible, maybe even critical, right in the midst of serious suffering. Here is one example:
Someone I don’t really know, who had just lost her mother, wrote on Facebook, ”Tonight I got a chance to chat online with a former next door neighbor when I was a teenager and she was 6 or 7 years old. She has amazing memories of things that happened then, 50+ yrs ago. She remembered many wonderful things that my Mom did with her and her family. She wished that she had a Mom like mine. Wow! Her sharing brought many memories back for me. This wonderful surprise brought me tears and joy. I am extremely grateful for her memories and her sharing. A precious part of my grieving.” I felt glowing warmth in my body-mind that ripened to awe. So honestly and simply told, that story was spreading its blessings well beyond just the two of them.
I find that Insight Dialogue with its sharing of heartfelt truth, provides powerful support for experiencing appreciative joy. The safe, caring space that everyone is holding makes clear we are not alone in our vulnerability. At times, the depth of mutual understanding, and naturally caring response to shared troubles produces a profound joy that seems to be felt at the level of the whole group. With the help of the guidelines Pause, Relax, and Open, an embodied experience of the practice’s rock-solid caring energy helped me to understand why Buddhists speak of spiritual friendship being “All of the Path.”
The power of appreciative joy can also be felt when we unexpectedly find ourselves in a position to help. A Chinese women used her few words of English to let me know she was looking for a local Chinese restaurant. I thought how brave she was to come to a new Country where she did not speak the language. She made clear her gratitude nonverbally. By the time we had walked to what I assumed was her new place of employment, it seemed totally natural to hug each other at the door. The meaning expressing by that hug went well beyond words. There was joy in her feminine strength and bravery that we both understood – in that short time we had become genuine friends.
Speaking the truth about appreciative joy to myself and others seems particularly important in these challenging times. In fact, I have been told it can be critical to many, particularly when few other resources are available. Keeping the door open to appreciative joy makes clear just how much of a relational superpower that kind of shared joy really is, as it points the way to freedom while providing ease, clarity and motivation to work at making our actions more beneficial. May all beings never be separated from the supreme joy that is beyond all sorrow.
You might want to try bringing to mind a time now or in the past when you unexpectedly felt or witnessed appreciative joy. How does that feel now? Are there any new insights that you were not aware of at the time?
Radiant Refuge 