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Each flower smiles with me.
–Thich Nath Hahn
Let your wings of forgiveness flutter and take you into a garden where the flowers of peace blossom.
–Dodinsky
I have arrived – I am home, my destination is in each step.
–Thich Nath Hahn
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…if only there was a way to post the scent.
El Diablo saw a home devoid of doggie joy and knew this would not do…
…and so, we welcome Moon Pie (aka “Moo-Moo”) into our lives this week…
Moon Pie
Moon Pie immediately set to work using her formidable puppy power to manufacture joy.
Nilla Bean
Negativity is like a virus. It infects and spreads, creating more of itself.
If you can’t free your voice, how do you expect to free your soul?
–Yogi Hari
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Working to cultivate joy is good for you and it’s good for the world. A natural by-product of cultivating joy is that it tends to spread to those around you. Lorne Lander refers to this as resonant empathy. We have a natural tendency to reflect the emotional energy that others project. If this language is too touchy-feely and woo-woo for you, hang tight while I couch it in different terms. There is empirical evidence at the cellular level that supports this idea. In the 1980s and ‘90s a group of Italian neurophysiologists (Rizzolati, Giacomo , Lacoboni and others) discovered mirror neurons in both non-human and human primates. (Don’t monkeys make everything sound more scientific and cool?) These brain cells respond to observing behavior as if the observer is the one performing the action. In other words, if I watch you make a frowny face my own frowny face neurons fire automatically.
Now, I am the child of Nanook the Barbarian and the Angry Russian, whose battles rage as fierce as their names imply. As you may expect given this lineage, I inherited a volatile temper. I tend to bottle my anger and flee the scene so it won’t explode on anyone in a violent outburst. Sometimes I fail miserably and spew caustic nonsense. Sometimes I keep it contained and the anger turns to resentment. Figuring out what to do with this surplus of negative energy has been an ongoing struggle. It may always be a challenge I have to deal with, but I think it’s worth finding peaceful solutions to the problem.
In yoga boot camp I learned a couple practices to deal with negative emotions. One practice is to replace the negative with its opposite on the emotional spectrum. If greed is a problem, practice generosity. Give more away than you hoard. If you find yourself depressed, work to cultivate joy. Replace the anger you have with peace. Pretty simple idea. Trickier to do.
Two other practices we learned are raja and nada yoga. Raja yoga is meditation and I’ve written about it elsewhere (Be Quiet, Be Still). Nada yoga pertains to the power of sound. I’m a bit obsessed with this topic. I’ve devoted over a decade to studying the production of sound and resonance as it pertains to speech development, production, and disorder from the perspective of American linguists and speech-language pathologists. Nada yoga breathed new life into this discipline. According to this belief system, everything in the cosmos is vibrating at some frequency. Even you. Pause a moment to think on that. It’s an amazing concept. There’s your own inner music, or anahata (can you catch the strains of your own personal tune?) and the vibrations that surrounds you (ahata). You can harness the energy of both through music, mantra, and chanting. If the terms mantra and chanting don’t work for you, then replace them with the metaphor that does. Mantra – what words do you repeat over and over to yourself? Are they protecting your mind from negative energy or creating more of it? Chanting – whose words and tune are you singing? Both will affect your mood. For example, if you’re feeling depressed then singing along to Reba McEntire’s For My Broken Heart may not do much to elevate you out of your funk. Try an inspirational or devotional song and make a joyful noise. I’ve found U-2’s Beautiful Day works wonders for me.
How to radiate joy? First be responsible for the energy you project. Cultivate joy and it will naturally bubble over.
This is a repost from October 6, 2010. This needs to be where I can find it because I need the reminder.
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I am in good health. I have a stable job. I have a loving family and a supportive network of friends. I have good food and more than ample shelter. I have leisure time. I live in a country of great wealth. I enjoy freedoms and liberties that others in this world do not. I am well educated. I have the ability to communicate, to walk, to run, to dance. My life overflows with an abundance of blessings great and small.
Yet when confronted with your need, I am still so selfish, so arrogant. I judge myself as somehow better than you. I tell myself, “I have made better decisions than you. I am more determined, more motivated. I work harder. And I give you so much already. So…why can’t you work harder? We share so many of these same blessings. Why do you squander yours? Why do you make excuses? Why do you waste your time? Why do I need to give up my rightful earnings for you? What have you given me?”
I will help you, yes, because that is what a decent, responsible person does. But, oh, how I will resent giving away this piece of what’s mine! It makes me downright angry.
How easy it is to pretend that I am somehow deserving of my many blessings.
And then Luke reminds me:
To whom much is given, much is required.
And Dorothy’s word’s ring out:
Love in action is harsh and dreadful when compared to love in dreams.
And Thomas says:
Peace begins when the hungry are fed.
Anger is an acid
that can do more harm to the vessel in which it stands
than to anything on which it is poured.
In the struggle rewards are few.
In the fact, I know of only two,
loving friends and living dreams.
These rewards are not so few it seems.
Peace is the work of justice indirectly,
in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace;
but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity,
according to its very notion causes peace.
And Frederick shares his perspective:
Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave,
and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you,
there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me.
To see reality
–not as we expect it to be but as it is—
is to see that unless we live for each other
and in and through each other,
we do not really live very satisfactorily;
that there can really be life only where there really is,
in just this sense, love.
And finally the message from my teachers sinks in this thick skull of mine. I am not as bright as I sometimes think I am. My blessings are undeserved. These gifts must be shared, not begrudgingly, but with a glad heart. That is love in action. And I am slowly learning: if charity doesn’t hurt, I’m not doing it right. The sacrifice that burns also purifies.
My Little Spacebook 