Joy is an intrinsic attitude of mind that includes gladness of the heart, softheartedness, and tenderness that supports a capacity for appreciation, contentment, and gratitude. Just as our hearts can tremble in the face of suffering, they can also tremble in the face of happiness and beauty. Its affective tone is gladness, aliveness, and vitality. It is associated with a range of emotions, including contentment, wonder, radiant pride, gratitude, and delight. Empathy is as central to the cultivation of joy as it is to compassion. When we encounter pleasant states, empathy can blossom into appreciative joy, contentment, and gratitude.
The Enemies of Joy
The Enemies of Joy
The near enemies of joy are sentimentality and exuberance. We may be carried away by the idea of joy, rather than being truly alive to it in a given moment. For example, we denote days of the year to celebration, and it is possible to get caught up in a pretense of gaiety rather than being open to joy whenever it arises. Joy helps us befriend difficulties and meet suffering with equanimity and compassion. We have a capacity for joy and a capacity to find joy in others’ happiness and success. Indeed, in the foundational teachings, the empathic, altruistic dimensions of joy are emphasized, creating the conditions for connection and harmony. The far enemy of joy is resentment and the wonderful German word schadenfreude, where we take pleasure in someone else’s failure. Finding joy in others’ happiness is an antidote to resentment, lessening our own sense of inadequacy and tempering our tendency toward envy. When we free our minds and hearts from envy, resentment, covetousness, and continual judging, we can really appreciate our own and others’ well-being.
Cultivating and Practicing Joy
Cultivating and Practicing Joy
Joy—like attention, befriending, and compassion—is an intention, cultivation, and a practice. Often neglected, joy is both a capacity we all have and a capacity that can be trained and developed. It is a primary component of psychological well-being, encompassing moments of appreciation, enduring contentment, and a sense of confidence and gratitude. It is an attitude of mind that can be cultivated through mindfulness practice and through how we live our lives. When we intentionally cultivate joy, we discover that it can be the home where we reside; we come home to joy. We withdraw from the tendency to orient to insufficiency that drives the elaborative judgment of distress and suffering. It takes only a small step of mindful wholeheartedness to enjoy a piece of music, notice the stars in the sky, the sunlight glistening on the leaves, the people we love around us, a good meal, or all that is right in our bodies in any given moment. These moments are available all of the time. They offer a glimpse of a more enduring contentment. This step takes us out of automatic pilot and reactivity. Appreciation develops the capacity for responsiveness. Appreciation involves a certain innocence of perception, in which we override our tendencies to judge or to rely on automatic, familiar ways of seeing the world. For example, one parent described how she would sometimes sit with son while he was asleep, and to bring full awareness to her bodily sensations, feelings, and thoughts in these moments.
Mindfulness Exercise: Appreciative Joy
Mindfulness Exercise: Appreciative Joy
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Willem Kuyken June 4, 2019
Willem Kuyken October 10, 2019
