Maintaining Joy Without Conditions
My daily intention is to experience joy without conditions, which mostly means without regard to the circumstances in my life. I am grateful that my Buddhist and mindfulness practices offer so many skillful means to support me in fulfilling my intentions. They help me to be present, let go, experience equanimity, and allow whatever arises to be an opportunity for growth—and maybe even enlightenment. Or, at least, lightening up.
Mind Training
De mind-training slogans (lojong in Tibetan) have been a great tool for me when the going gets tough, helping me to take whatever arises to the path. These slogans are guidelines for living genuinely with compassion and skill.
Even though they were created by Indian Buddhist master Atisha way back in the eleventh century, I marvel at how the lojong slogans are still so relevant. Then again, life’s ups and downs are universal and omnipresent, so of course they still speak to us. As the Buddha said, we all experience birth, old age, sickness, and death. We can’t escape those facts of life, so we might as well use them to learn and grow.
Joy as Skillful Means
As I go through the challenges of caregiving and aging, I have primarily been working with the lojong slogan “Always maintain a joyful mind.” This simple statement is a particularly useful reminder when I find myself falling into self-pity or despair.
Maintaining a joyful mind doesn’t mean closing our eyes and hearts to our own sadness nor to the suffering of the world. Rather, it helps create a sense of perspective and spaciousness and allows us to open up rather than shut down and isolate ourselves in our little cocoons. When we open our hearts, when we see the big picture, we can’t help but feel compassion for all, including ourselves.
Laughter as Upaya
Having a sense of humor goes along with maintaining a joyful mind. Smiling and laughing help us keep our hearts open and allow us to see beyond ourselves and get over ourselves. Humor has enhanced my ability to appreciate everything around me and has opened my heart to all of my emotions.
When I directly experience joy and other feelings, without all the thoughts and judgments that take me away from genuine awareness, I feel alive and connected to others. The sense of perspective that accompanies those emotions prevents me from sinking into isolation, despair, and self-pity.
Grieving Is Also a Skillful Method
Allowing ourselves to fully experience sorrow and grief also helps maintain a joyful mind. A client in my grief-counseling practice once asked how I always seem joyful even while encountering so much sadness. The question took me by surprise since it was the day of a significant death anniversary in my life, and I was experiencing deep grief. But after contemplating, I realized that joy and sorrow are like two sides of the same coin—the more we allow ourselves to experience sorrow, the more joy is available to us.
Directly experiencing our sorrow and grief is not easy. It requires fearlessness and a willingness to be open and vulnerable. We use all kinds of strategies to avoid our feelings: drugs, alcohol, self-cutting, etc. Personally, I avoid the direct experience of sorrow and grief by being hard on myself and negative self-talk. I then add all kinds of stories of guilt and shame, which strengthen my negative self-talk and keep it in place. It’s like I’m putting on a coat of armor against feeling pure sadness.
This strategy is rooted in fear. It can feel scary to allow myself to be authentically open and vulnerable. When I forget the way things are, and that everything is impermanent, I falsely believe that if I allow my heart to fully open to my sadness, the grief will never end. My fear is that I’ll end up in an uncontrollable puddle of tears, that they will drown me.
But we all know that there’s nothing more cathartic than a good cry, especially when there’s no room for a storyline or thoughts. Crying from our depths is like a summer storm that leaves freshness in its wake. It’s such a relief—a relief that feels like joy.
Contemplative Exercise
If you are called to do so, journaling can be a great aid in deepening your personal connection to any lojong slogan. But simply contemplating will also be of benefit.
1. Repeat to yourself the lojong slogan “Always maintain a joyful mind.” What do you notice in your body as you reflect on this slogan?
2. Notice any resistance to accepting the challenge of this slogan. What stories do you tell yourself to prevent you from maintaining a joyful mind?
3. What are your personal strategies for resisting the feelings of sorrow and grief? What can you do instead?
Beth Patterson is a psychotherapist specializing in grief, loss and life transitions. In her work, Beth relies on Buddhist psychology, mindfulness based cognitive therapy and body-centered therapies. Her articles and ebook are available at www.bethspatterson.com. Beth is a longtime Buddhist practitioner and a student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.
