At our wedding ceremony Jenny and I vowed four vows, one of which was: "when you are present, I vow to be as joyful as I can be about your presence." We anticipated that joy would not always be automatic and easily accessible. We recognized for us the critical importance of maintaining joy to the marriage, and promised that we would work at it. Further, we saw joy not only as a fruition of our path, but as a critical ingredient to the path, one that would keep us open, connected and motivated.
We have been presenting the notion that for us joy is a virtue, that being joyful not only benefits ourselves but others, that it is something that needs continual work and support, and that it is, indeed, our obligation to work at it. Since we started this practice, we have been noticing how common this approach is. For example, I was surprised to see recently in a popular jobhunting manual the suggestion that deep joy was itself a mission or calling, an overarching purpose and orientation.
In the portion of the Torah that Jews read last week in the synagogue, there is the command to enjoy the bounty of the harvest, and to enjoy sharing it with others. As harvest time and Thanksgiving holidays approach, it is intriguing to consider putting our attention not only on an appreciation and sharing of all that we have, but on honoring it by really enjoying it.
A beautiful analysis of the Torah portion can be found on a friend's blog at http://parshathoughtsmore.blogspot.com/2011/09/parashat-ki-tavo-on-joy-and-arrival.html
Friday, September 23, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Creating Exercises for the Ground Of Joy
Jenny and I have entered the next phase of our virtue practice: creating exercises to till our "ground." This is something we always enjoy. These exercises will relate to one or more of the grounds of joy, not necessarily directly to joy itself. It is best if the exercises are playful, doable, a little out of the ordinary – small moments that are intriguing to our deep self and disrupt, to some degree, our habitual patterns.
For example, one of our grounds of joy is flow – when there is physical, emotional, and creative flow, we find it easier to be joyful. Anything that might get some flow going outside of our daily routine would probably work here. How about:
1) dancing hard to a Motown song within a minute of waking up?
2) talking animatedly for three full minutes, using not just our minds but our hands and whole bodies?
3) creating a painting together, using the method of throwing globs of paint on the canvas?
4) heavy breathing?
5) each of us gets two full minutes of applause from the other?
6) developing a cheer for the universe and performing a cheerleading routine to go with it?
7) slow dancing while doing the dishes?
8) doing tai chi together in the swimming pool?
Alternatively, we might play with flow by restricting it. For example, we could:
1) make the bed without bending our knees or elbows
2) have a conversation in which we count to three between each word
3) do the dishes with our hands tied together
The idea here is not that the exercises do or don't bring us joy. Rather, we are playing with the ground so that on a level outside of our awareness we can bring some fresh air into the issue of how, on a moment to moment basis, we keep ourselves from being joyful.
We aren't asking ourselves why, we aren't analyzing, we aren't trying to do anything about it, we are only playing with an aspect of it in order to shake things up a little bit. After a week or two or three of exercises like this, one after the other, we have been finding that what is shaken up begins to settle down into a new place, and, as if by magic, we have more access to our virtue.
For example, one of our grounds of joy is flow – when there is physical, emotional, and creative flow, we find it easier to be joyful. Anything that might get some flow going outside of our daily routine would probably work here. How about:
1) dancing hard to a Motown song within a minute of waking up?
2) talking animatedly for three full minutes, using not just our minds but our hands and whole bodies?
3) creating a painting together, using the method of throwing globs of paint on the canvas?
4) heavy breathing?
5) each of us gets two full minutes of applause from the other?
6) developing a cheer for the universe and performing a cheerleading routine to go with it?
7) slow dancing while doing the dishes?
8) doing tai chi together in the swimming pool?
Alternatively, we might play with flow by restricting it. For example, we could:
1) make the bed without bending our knees or elbows
2) have a conversation in which we count to three between each word
3) do the dishes with our hands tied together
The idea here is not that the exercises do or don't bring us joy. Rather, we are playing with the ground so that on a level outside of our awareness we can bring some fresh air into the issue of how, on a moment to moment basis, we keep ourselves from being joyful.
We aren't asking ourselves why, we aren't analyzing, we aren't trying to do anything about it, we are only playing with an aspect of it in order to shake things up a little bit. After a week or two or three of exercises like this, one after the other, we have been finding that what is shaken up begins to settle down into a new place, and, as if by magic, we have more access to our virtue.
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