Joy is the Present Moment with Nothing Added
In the late 90s, I took an eight-week Mindfulness Meditation class. Before I could enroll, the instructor asked me why I wanted to do it. I said I wanted more joy in my life. His response was, “My 80-year-old Jewish Zen master defines joy as the present moment with nothing added.”
Joy is the present moment with nothing added.
This wonderful bit of wisdom helped me understand the energetic play of being content with my current life and work situation while feeding my desire for more growth, excitement, change, passion, accomplishment, and money.
Several times in my life leading up to that moment, I often felt and said that I was happy and content with my daily life. At the same time, I was having thoughts and exhibiting behaviors that would ultimately totally upend the ordinary life I was genuinely content with.
I’m happy and content, but …
This happened because I made decisions about my current life by focusing on what else I wanted and didn’t yet have. The thought that my life would improve if I had more money, a different job, or a different person in my life kept my energetic focus on what I didn’t have rather than what I did. At the same time, when I took the time to be present, I was almost always content to be in that place and time.
In his book, Heart Aroused, David Whyte says, “We must make a hearth and home at the very place where the life we feel we are stuck with and the life we desire meet and overlap.”
My past thinking went something like this: If I feel and recognize my current contentment, I will somehow stop my forward progress and miss the opportunity to live my dreams. The challenge is to not misinterpret the desire for more as a complete negation of the joy we feel in the present moment, and the gratitude for what we have in our life right now.
Reaching for and achieving a big vision is not limited or hampered by deep satisfaction and contentment with your current life. Recognizing and being grateful for all that lights you up in your current situation provides the grounding energy to help you create the next vision. The desire for expansion, coupled with lights-on daily living, creates aliveness energy that pulls you to a bigger vision and a more enlivened present.
Staying aware of the joyful present moments,
Gary
