Monday, 30 January 2017

This week @ Beaches Sangha - Sympathetic Joy

Ok, so here's a photo of the group at 7.10pm last Thursday night. I discussed with myself the idea that perhaps going ahead with Sangha on a public holiday wasn't such a good idea. 


I was just about to meditate on my own, which would have been nice anyway, but then Kate showed up. We had a lovely evening together and everyone lived happily ever after.

This week @ Beaches
This week at Beaches Sangha we are kicking off our program for the year with Sylvie leading a session on 'sympathetic joy' (I like to call it empathic joy). This is one of the 'divine abodes' - one of the telltale signs of awakening, where we feel genuine joy at the good fortune of another. Here's Sylvie's taster:

There are many types of enjoyment. There is even one that the German call "Schadenfreude", which means relishing in another's misfortune. But the Buddha believed that such joy, based on envy or jealousy, was short lived and sooner or later would bring suffering to his or her beholder. 

The opposite of "Schadenfreude" is sympathetic joy. It is often undervalued and not spoken about as much as other qualities to be cultivated such as compassion and loving-kindnesses. But there are numerous benefits to experiencing joy for ourselves and others.

Come and explore this with us this week.

Something nice from Kate
A couple of weeks ago, in our discussion, Kate quoted Rainer Maria Rilke with a phrase 'living in the question'. That resounded with many of us in relation to being curious about our own processes. She brought along some material from Rilke, but because no-one was there to share it with, we thought we could do so in these little updates for the next few weeks. Here's our first one:

“Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered”

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