With spiritual practice you get better
at noticing and recognicing the patterns, even in tiny, every-day
events you learn to see how your mind fluctuates and darkens. Since
you obviously gain a lot by not being drawn so quickly and furiously
into a vortex of negative emotions and thought-structures, it becomes
natural to keep up the effort.
However, joy too brings attachment. On this the Buddha was adamant, and it may seem like backward thinking. Shouldn't I hold on to, and cherish the little luck and joy I have in my life? When things finally go my way, of course I shall revel in it! Everything else would be wasting the good of life wouldn't it? - to spoil the gifts of God...
Truly, this is hard to realize, and I suspect experience is the key as always. When you have that experience of a truly calm mind, which isn't moved much by the fortunes or misfortunes of life, you come to discover another kind of joy. Inner stillness unveils a previously hidden spring, from which true delight and happines flows out into our being.
I suspect most of us have had some taste of this water, when momentarily happiness gives us the infrequent ride for no apparent reason? When there is no obvious cause for joyfulness but simply being alive? In either case, that spring is there to be found, and its wealth and freshness is astonishing. Where the joy we normally experience is dependant on the situation at hand, and the many jesters of earthly life, this well of water, discovered through non-attachment, simply can't dry out.
Certainly, we have to settle with the odd glass of it once in a while, until we complete our spiritual journey, but the taste is so satisfying and thorough that when a lucky stroke comes to rock us from our position of equanimity, we firmly realize that this promising wind will fade too. So we remain silent, watching as it comes and goes, letting it take us where it must, while internally we remain seated by the waters of The Lord - laughing, by the zero-shaped pond of freedom.
However, joy too brings attachment. On this the Buddha was adamant, and it may seem like backward thinking. Shouldn't I hold on to, and cherish the little luck and joy I have in my life? When things finally go my way, of course I shall revel in it! Everything else would be wasting the good of life wouldn't it? - to spoil the gifts of God...
Truly, this is hard to realize, and I suspect experience is the key as always. When you have that experience of a truly calm mind, which isn't moved much by the fortunes or misfortunes of life, you come to discover another kind of joy. Inner stillness unveils a previously hidden spring, from which true delight and happines flows out into our being.
I suspect most of us have had some taste of this water, when momentarily happiness gives us the infrequent ride for no apparent reason? When there is no obvious cause for joyfulness but simply being alive? In either case, that spring is there to be found, and its wealth and freshness is astonishing. Where the joy we normally experience is dependant on the situation at hand, and the many jesters of earthly life, this well of water, discovered through non-attachment, simply can't dry out.
Certainly, we have to settle with the odd glass of it once in a while, until we complete our spiritual journey, but the taste is so satisfying and thorough that when a lucky stroke comes to rock us from our position of equanimity, we firmly realize that this promising wind will fade too. So we remain silent, watching as it comes and goes, letting it take us where it must, while internally we remain seated by the waters of The Lord - laughing, by the zero-shaped pond of freedom.
