SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS – 314

WE ARE EXPLORING THE HEAVENLY ATTRIBUTE OF JOY

+ We are called to create and enjoy a realm of compassion, peace, justice and sustainable abundance for all.

+ So, personally, I prefer the last five decades of refugee life. It’s more useful, more opportunity to learn, to experience life. Therefore, if you look from one angle, you feel, oh how bad, how sad. But if you look from another angle at that same tragedy, that same event, you see that it gives me new opportunities. So, it’s wonderful. That’s the main reason that I’m not sad and morose. There’s a Tibetan saying: “Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.”
-- The Dalai Lama in The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

+ Wow.  What faith in the steady process of our evolution toward more compassion, peace, justice and sustainable abundance for all.

This is the post scheduled for November 9, 2016, the day after the presidential election here in the USA.  So, as I write, I do not know the outcome.  And, it does not matter ultimately as much as we might think.  There are a lot of happy people on the winning side of the election and a lot of disappointed people on the losing side.  But what the Dalai Lama said in this wonderful book makes the point that our joy does not depend on the turn of political fortunes.  A verse in the Psalm read every Tuesday in the ecumenical lectionary says:

Do not put your trust in princes,

in mortals, in whom there is no help.

When their breath departs, they return to the earth;

on that very day their plans perish.

-- Psalm 146:3-4

The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu certainly have faced political winds which could easily have killed their bodies and even their spirit but they knew where joy really comes from and it is not in our political order.  These two wonderful “wise guys” teach this truth in their speaking and writing and definitely when you see them smile and laugh either in person or on a screen.  In SE244 I linked to a video where you can see and hear both of them speak.

Now there is a book which comprehensively presents these two amazing teachers in dialogue: The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World.  The author who writes about this fantastic meeting of minds is Douglas Carlton Abrams.  He makes it possible for the reader to experience this encounter intimately.

+ Spirituality & Practice offers plenty of resources on the spiritual practice of Joy. Also, there is an S&P Twelves Gallery of memes on Joy.

+ I would love it if you offered a guest post.  And, I have work to do on the Abundancetrek Joy page.  Maybe you can help.  Send an email with the subject “Joy” or “Heavenly Attributes” or “Guest Post” to John@abundancetrek.com.

+ You can always find a link to any of the Spiritual Explorations posts by going to http://abundancetrek.com/sepostsaccess.html

+ I would love it if you offered a guest post.  And, I have work to do on the Abundancetrek Joy page.  Maybe you can help.  Send an email with the subject “Joy” or “Heavenly Attributes” or “Guest Post” to John@abundancetrek.com.

+ You can always find a link to any of the Spiritual Explorations posts by going to http://abundancetrek.com/sepostsaccess.html