Joy
It's not what you think
This missive finds me dissolving blissfully into the misty hills of Kwa-Zulu Natal at The Buddhist Retreat Centre having just finished facilitating a Retreat on Joy.
I always teach what I need to learn.
As I wrote in my last post, I am no stranger to sorrow and have been a grief walker for several years. So how on earth do I begin to be a proponent of joy?
Ross Gay provided solace for me during the hard days of lockdown with his focus on delight and I’m currently reading his Book of Delights which, contrary to the title, is rather harrowing. As he says:
“Joy is what emanates from us as we help each other carry our sorrows. Joy understands that no one is without sorrow. Period. Everyone’s heartbroken. Which is also to say that everyone has the capacity for joy….
Is sorrow the true wild? And if it is—and if we join them—your wild to mine—what’s that? For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation. What if we joined our sorrows, I’m saying. I’m saying: What if that is joy?”
Andrea Gibson lives it so well and manages to articulate the complexities of it all for which I am deeply grateful:
A difficult life is not less worth living than a gentle one. Joy is simply easier to carry than sorrow. And your heart could lift a city from how long you’ve spent holding what’s been nearly impossible to hold. This world needs those who know how to do that. Those who could find a tunnel that has no light at the end of it, and hold it up like a telescope to know the darkness also contains truths that could bring the light to its knees. Grief astronomer, adjust the lens, look close, tell us what you see.
You might want to hear her speak the whole of it:
Long time beloved Rumi:
“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
I love how rephrasing something, for instance gratitude as delight, can help refresh our appreciation for the world and her many gifts. I’m grateful for, or delighted by, the insight that we’re not joyful in the absence of sorrow, but because of it.
The playfulness of being embodied is often lost in our serious grasping for the next thing. As Brené Brown says in Atlas of the Heart, it’s difficult for us as humans to rest in joy because we’re wired for novelty. Often our joy is tainted with fear which she calls foreboding joy and which Zadie Smith describes so well in her essay. One way to counteract these tendencies is to nurture gratitude.
On retreat we Move —
shaking, tapping, qi gong, yin yoga, dance, walking meditation…
Go ahead, shake your sillies out to our joyful playlist:
I sometimes forget that I was created for joy My mind is too busy My heart is too heavy Heavy for me to remember that I have been called to dance the sacred dance for life I was created to smile to love to be lifted up and lift others up O sacred one Untangle my feet from all that ensnares Free my soul That we might Dance and that our dancing might be contagious. ~Hafiz
We Meditate —
inner smile, loving-kindness, mantra, breathwork…
and we Make –
natural mandalas, collages, poetry…
There were twenty of us here together in joyful communion, seven of whom were young, including a delightful 13 year old who came with his mom and dad, a 16 year old who arrived here alone having saved up money from washing dishes to give herself this as an early Christmas gift, a first year student of mine from Stellenbosch University (imagine my surprise! Nay, delight!) who brought a buddy, a young artist on the brink of big changes and two fresh matriculants. What a blessing to have this youthful zest in our midst. And how encouraging for the future of this planet.
Choose joy. Choose it like a child chooses the shoe to put on the right foot, the crayon to paint a sky. Choose it at first consciously, effortfully, pressing against the weight of a world heavy with reasons for sorrow, restless with need for action. Feel the sorrow, take the action, but keep pressing the weight of joy against it all, until it becomes mindless, automated, like gravity pulling the stream down its course; until it becomes an inner law of nature.
If Viktor Frankl can exclaim “yes to life, in spite of everything!” — and what an everything he lived through — then so can any one of us amid the rubble of our plans, so trifling by comparison. Joy is not a function of a life free of friction and frustration, but a function of focus — an inner elevation by the fulcrum of choice. So often, it is a matter of attending to what Hermann Hesse called, as the world was about to come unworlded by its first global war, “the little joys”; so often, those are the slender threads of which we weave the lifeline that saves us. ~ Maria Popova
For those who would like to explore Qi Gong, one of my greatest joys, further I can recommend Nick Loffree and Yoqi as just two of the many wonderful teachers offering beautiful practices freely online.
If you would like to practice our mantra for the weekend I have linked a video of 108 repetitions and herewith a translation from the ancient sacred sanskrit:
Lokah ~ universe / realm
Samastah ~ to all living beings
Sukhino ~ Ease / happiness.
Bhav ~ the state of union with the Energy of the Universe/Divine.
Antu ~ may it be so
"May all beings everywhere be happy and free”
It was beautiful to watch the love blossom between families and friends newly made. Heartfelt conversations and hugs, some tears, plenty of hearty laughs. I’m delighted by our capacity for transformation. To witness people truly showing up for themselves and one another is a wonder.
Shall I end with Emily Dickinson?
Find ecstasy in life;
the mere sense of living is joy enough.
A little highlight reel - enJOY!
I love this, thank you for sharing your beautiful soul. I love you so much!