On Joy

“What are you doing?” a mom asked her young son who she found sitting cross legged, smiling, with eyes closed on the couch. “I’m enjoying my body,” he replied. From power outage induced darkness, Sensei Amie Diller offered us in the candlelit zendo and those at home an uplifting talk on joy. With its emphasis on suffering, it may seem as though Buddhism is not concerned with joy. Amie reminds us of the 4th Noble Truth, that there is a path out of suffering, and considers how this could look a lot like allowing and basking in the joy inherent within each of us and life. She offers practices around noticing moments of joy, noticing ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts), and lingering in the sense experience of joy for at least twenty seconds. She also shares the benefits of rejoicing practice, which cultivates sympathetic joy, wishing for joy in another.