Happiness Without a Hangover
I would love to take credit for that title but it’s from Pema Chodron’s book, The Places That Scare You. What I think she means is, happiness that’s different from me saying, I won my case! I closed the deal! I got a new coat! Have a glass of champagne!
What I think she means is, happiness that I’m here, on the earth, breathing, writing this note. Happiness that this moment exists, and that I’m right here, paying attention, and not wishing things were different.
Which feels huge, this ability to scan not for danger but joy, and to locate joy, even though the judge is intense or someone is shouting or I’m overwhelmed. I wonder what would happen if we all practiced that kind of joy, just for one day, together…without getting the win, or the coat, or the drink.
Happiness, without a hangover. Sounds pretty sweet to me.
Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 427. Here we are at Chapter 10 of Pema Chodron’s book, The Places That Scare You, and she’s bringing up an idea I love: that joy is a requisite for being a warrior.
And she’s not just saying that joy is a crucial element of warrior-ship. She’s also pointing to a particular kind of joy: a joy that is some combination of peace in the present moment, and confidence that more peace will follow. She starts by saying, “[a]t the beginning joy is just a feeling that our own situation is workable. We stop looking for a more suitable place to be.”
To me that feels like, let go of wanting things to be different. Circling back to our working definition of Mindfulness for the Legal Mind: present moment awareness, courage – because not every moment is pleasant, grace – because that’s how we want to aspire and train to be, in those unpleasant moments, and not wishing things were other than they are. It feels like Pema is pointing straight at the heart of that definition by saying that at first, joy is just a sense that our own situation – or each moment – is workable, and then, that joy is about not searching, or at least not yearning so often, for ways to change the situation – to get more, or bigger, or even better.
It makes me think about how clenched things feel in the law. Starting in school, I learned, and I suppose I also taught for a long time, to always grab for the brass ring. To do better, take on more, strive for the top, be the best, help more people, win more cases, on and on. And our culture of course reinforces those messages at so many levels.
So how do we swim against that powerful stream, to some peaceful place, and some confidence that more peace will follow?
Swimming against the stream is actually a classical mindfulness concept. The legend says that before Gautama attained enlightenment, he realized that not only was wanting more and better and higher, not leading him to freedom, but that neither was asceticism. That what was needed was a middle way. He was supposedly so thin that his ribs were showing through to the front of his body, when he was offered a some rice by a woman named Sujatha. As legend has it, the rice was offered in a golden bowl, and he took the offering at the risk of being derided by his companions, who were firmly devoted to starving themselves to achieve enlightenment. After he finished the rice he tossed the golden bowl into the river, saying, if the bowl floats upstream – against the stream, which was the direction he felt like he was going – then I’ll attain enlightenment. And it did. And he did.
Pema is inviting us to swim against that stream, that current of always wanting things to be different, better, more, in subtle and gross ways. Of believing that if only we could get what we wanted, or more of what we wanted, then we would be happy. Then we would experience joy. Which feels to me anyway like the opposite of peace.
On some level I think we know that’s not true. We know that happiness and joy don’t come from getting everything we want, or more of what we want, past a certain level of ease and safety. They come from letting go of the wanting. The happiest moments I’ve experienced are when I’ve been present and noticing what’s here, and not wanting anything different. Moments of peace
But that does raise the question of what it is about each moment that’s joyful. Pema says, it’s the opportunity to connect with our own basic goodness. When she talks about feeling that our lives are “workable,” she’s talking about how, in each moment, we can place our attention on whatever measure of good health we have, the roof over our heads if we have one, our warm clothes and nourishing meals, our friends, our family. Which she calls, “the fortunate conditions that constitute a precious human birth.” Those, and one more: the great advantage we have to be living in a moment in time when it’s possible to hear and practice mindfulness, and become free.
I find that it’s easy to overlook joy. In order to have joy – the joy that is right here in those moments of gratitude or relief or amusement or appreciation – we first have to notice and not overlook them. And not only notice them, but store them. Which there’s a process for.
Pema’s process is the same seven-part process she offered us for maître or lovingkindness or metta, and for compassion, and which we’ll do together in a few minutes.
Rick Hansen, who studies the science of mindfulness, says this happens through experience-dependent neuroplasticity. As Rick tells it, our brains have life-long plasticity, and we are always changing. Each moment changes our neural circuitry in small or large ways. This time together will change us, and our time before and after this Call will change us or has already done so. The tea or coffee we’re sipping changes us, as do the judge, jury, clerk, opposing counsel. Even our breakfast changes us. And that’s all just the beginning. But, are we being changed for the better? Are we cultivating joy? Because we do have a negativity bias that kept us alive and safe from becoming someone’s breakfast a few million years ago and that’s hardwired into our brains…and that we reinforce in the law, and that we’re at risk for continuing to install and re-install, strengthening their corresponding neural pathways.
In order to change for the better, and notice and orient towards more joy, I like the acronym S.U.N.: see or savor joyful moments, lift them UP, and then notify (tell) someone. (This is a companion to R.A.I.N., which is crucial when working with afflictive emotions - moments that feel bereft of joy.) Practicing S.U.N. for five or ten seconds each time I notice a joyful moment, and in this way, storing joyful experiences, is a solid step in the direction of more automatically remembering the fortunate conditions that constitute this human birth. Or more simply stated, it’s a solid step in the direction of paying attention to how much joy there already is in each moment, there for the picking, like ripe fruit.
Pema offers us a practice – the same one we used for maître or metta or lovingkindness, and that we used the first time we practiced with compassion – of noticing our own joy and rejoicing in it, saying something like “may I be connected to the great happiness available to me at any time,” or something similar. And then of noticing joy as its being experienced by our beloveds, our friends, and even our enemies. So let’s do that together now.
