Joy

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Joy

As I continued working on a rambling tale about Surrender, (or actually just thinking about it and not making much headway), I realized that I needed yet another tale after the one about a life of service and consciousness. Yikes, will I ever get to the tale with my current thoughts on romance. Perhaps not. Just more rambling tales.

As I mentioned in my tale about service, there is a wonderful spiral of meditation (and developing an inward focus), service, and joy. What I didn't mention was the how and why of joy being included in that cycle.

It has been my experience that the natural state of life is a deep and lasting satisfaction and inner joy. Life is truly sweet if you allow it to be so. That is not to say that there are never times when I don't feel anxious, worried, sad, angry, depressed, afraid, aggravated, etc. (you get the idea). However, in those times, what I try to do is stop and consider why it is that I am not feeling joy. The answer is always that I have allowed some aspect of outward focus to slip into my thinking. The solution is developing the needed inward focus and adjusting my priorities.

Indeed, any anger or frustration is, for me, the result of some desire or expectation which was not met and those desires or expectation were always for an external event or circumstance. That is my clue that I should spend time working on getting my priorities right, being the kind of person that I want to be. That I can always do and is the only goal I really aspire to.

Similarly I can get down on myself for not living up to my own expectations, not accomplishing what I wished or not meeting my goals. While these are more subtle, they are also the result of an outward focus. I can never really aspire to do more than my best and, so, my best is always good enough. That is not to say that I should passively accept whatever with no thought as to how I could make things better. It only means that it is not my responsibility to insure that everything turns out as I would like, just that I use those capabilities which I have in order to promote a more positive outcome.

Of course there are numerous occassions when things don't turn out the way I intended (more numerous than I might care to enumerate), but that is most often the result of ignorance. Ignorance is not a bad or even unnatural thing. We are all born quite ignorant (having very few native skills) and we learn what we can. Indeed the only way we learn is through experience and so 'bad' outcomes are not really bad, just opportunities to learn and expand on our experiences. I try to avoid getting to down on myself.

There are also cases where we 'knew' that we ought to take the tough route, but we didn't do it. The problem may be that we just don't have the strength or fortitude to follow through with what we knew was right. However, that is almost identical to acting out of ignorance as we all have a limited ability to resist the impulses of our past. It takes time to increase our fortitude and change our habitual ways. If we regret past choices, that is OK. The past is useful to learn from and to strengthen our resolve to change in the future. Over time we can develop new habits, but it doesn't help to just give up when we have difficulties. It is best to simply accept that our best is good enough and keep working at improving. It is only by false external time tables that we imagine there isn't enough time to improve.

Another way we lose the sweetness of life is to feel bored. Of course if we think even a little about it, that is obviously a case of outward focus. We are bored because we want something more from our environment (excitement, pleasure, or whatever). However, if I am in line or waiting, I can use that time to contemplate how I can be more caring and compassionate (after I consider how silly it is to waste this blissful quiet time). If I am doing some mindless task like sweeping floors, along with having time for contemplation, I can also look for ways to do my job even better (get the job done faster and cleaner with less bother to other people) as there are always ways to do something better (doing my best is not a static goal, but instead, in most cases it is an ever increasing challenge). Indeed, even if I am just breathing I am receiving the gifts of countless plants (oxygen) and, in turn, producing gifts for countless plants of the future (carbon dioxide). While I am breathing I can appreciate their gifts to me (accepting it with love) and sending my gifts with love. Every moment can be very sweet with the right focus of doing our best, being loving, considerate, ....

Some people believe that they can't have a sweet life while experiencing pain, but that is a mistake, too. I think of pain as my friend; it reminds me when I ought to consider changing something (an early warning system to help prevent serious damage). In truth, all other things being equal, we should choose those things that bring us pleasure and avoid those things that cause us pain. That helps the body stay strong and healthy and increases our capacity to help others. Of course there will also be cases where we need to endure pain to be consistent with our values and sometimes just because the pain is unavoidable. In that case, I endeavor to just accept the pain. While most people think of pain as a synonym of misery and suffering, the truth is that we each get to choose whether pain leads to misery and suffering. If I choose pain (deciding to exercise often means a little pain), then I can usually just accept the pain. Misery and suffering only come about when I choose to give meaning to the pain (that I deserve to be punished or that it is wrong for me to be hurt). By accepting the pain that comes into my life, I can still have a sweet life even with pain.

Of course while it is generally good to choose pleasure and not choose pain when those choices are presented to us, that is completely different from actively seeking pleasure or avoiding pain. When we make choices we should take those paths where the expected consequences are most in line with our values. To me that is improving the well being of all people, myself included, which could well be less pain and more pleasure for myself and others. However, once my choice has been made, I need to let go of my expectations (that is an outward focus) and accept that I did my best when I made my choice and what happens will happen and is not my concern. There is an important difference between choosing pleasure over pain and actively seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. The first can and should be done with an inward focus while that latter is the hallmark of an outward focus.

I could go on trying to cover all the countless ways that we slip into an outward focus, but I think I have covered enough to convey the general idea. Joy is most valuable as a guide; any time your life is not very sweet and full of joy, that is the clue to how you have lost your inward focus and what aspect of outward focus you could address. Furthermore, there is a great relief when you let go of the burden of an outward focus. When you stop worrying about what might happen you are free to experience the joy of being true to yourself. The joy of life is also important as it is the motivation for facing other challenges which will come up for us; an outward focus is a deep and complex tendency.

Misery

This is important as we approach a life of service. One of the truths that is seldom recognized is that all misery and suffering is self created. On first consideration, most people reject this idea as ridiculous and come up with a long list of counter examples. However, this is a very good exercise as in every case you should be able to see the illusion of each case; the problem is really one of an outward focus. When we first try to serve others, there is a strong tendency to focus on the external conditions which people mistakenly believe is the cause of their suffering. The problem is that if we also focus on these external conditions we are really feeding their misery and suffering. The first step really needs to be to improve our own perspective, eliminating the suffering which we create through our own outward focus. When we are full of joy, then we will do what we can to reduce the external conditions which trouble other people, but the most important thing we are doing is helping to bring joy into their lives, seeing past the illusions of an outward focus, by being an example of inward focus and celebrating the joy of life.

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This page was last updated on May 4, 2007