This week’s meditation explores the third of the Four Immeasurables — the practice of Joy.
As we discussed in the previous post, we practice Joy in stages, just as we did in the guided meditation posts on Love and Compassion. You start with finding you Basic Inner Goodness, that clear knowing inside that all is well, and reflecting on your own qualities that reflect this knowing.
You then reflect on the fortunate circumstances of your life, much as we did in the practice of contemplating the precious human birth (see YMD5 for a summary).
Once you settle in with meditation on the precious and rare qualities you have if you are reading this, you use as a way to discover your Basic Inner Goodness. From here you simply expand this realization towards others.
How To Proceed Through These Meditations on Joy
You proceed in all each Four Immeasurable guided meditation by allowing each stage to mature before proceeding on to the next. Once you are comfortable with connecting, appreciating and rejoicing at the marvel of your life, you choose someone with whom it is easy for you to feel this.
You work when you feel comfortable with meditations focused on indifferent or neutral persons, and ultimately with persons with whom you may be in conflict, persons who may push your buttons, or for whom the mere mention of their name may elicit unpleasant emotions.
The process of the meditations on Love and Compassion is to reflect that just as I want happiness and don’t want suffering, others also are the same as I. We progress in those meditations by feeling these reflections deep in our hearts to the point that these wishes arise spontaneously for all beings.
Progress With Meditation on Joy
The process in the meditations on Joy proceed just the same. The key difference here is that rather than feeling Love and Compassion for all beings, we begin to work with cultivating Joy in their basic goodness, they’re good fortune, and their Buddha Nature.
Cultivating Joy may sound clinical, when it’s really emotional. We are learning how to rejoice in the good fortune of others. This practice opens some of the initial obstacles we may experience in the earlier meditations in ways you may see as you start these wonderful meditation practices. Read More →
