In Zen, we say, “Always keep a bright mind.” It means we train to stay open to joy in the darkest of times, and we are in some very dark times: the suffering in Africa, the suffering caused by abuse of power, and the suffering caused by greed, hate and delusion. In the midst of it all, we can see people holding a bright mind, a joyful mind. Just watch Creston’s volunteers extending joyful mind to others under all conditions. They have succeeded in maintaining a joyful mind.
Pure expressions of joy (squealing, throwing arms into the air, jumping up and down, sitting like a Buddha glowing in bliss) are often suppressed in polite society. We tend to associate behaviors like this with intoxication or a madness of some sort. Many of them are noisy. Can’t these happy people see the suffering all around them? What about child abuse, power abuse among clergy, therapists and teachers, the suffering of the people in Chernobyl and Japan? How can they be joyful when there are so many problems?
Furthermore, joy seems boring. There is no drama in it. Every fiction writer knows that there’s no story if there is no conflict, anger and intensity. So we stir up trouble and joy loses its place to fear, anger and pain.
Clearly this slogan is not referring to an ignorance-is-bliss type of joy. And it does not imply that everything is OK. Buddhism is known for its insistence that we must face hard truths — and the truth is, everything is not OK. There’s a lot of suffering in the world, in our communities, in our lives. Yet this slogan advises us to be joyful.
We take things so seriously — we take ourselves so seriously! This slogan is a direct challenge to our usual earnest and heavy-handed approach to spiritual practice, to the world, and to ourselves. Effort to maintain a joyful mind challenges the mistaken assumption that the way to fight heavy-handed problems is with heavy-handed solutions. And it challenges our desire to make everything of utmost importance. Making everything into a big deal is just another way to ramp up tension in the story.
According to this slogan, it is beneficial to enter Zen training with delight, not gritted teeth. Soon we feel grateful for a teaching that talks about how to uproot suffering and understand its causes; a teaching that talks about maintaining joyful mind and then shows us how to do so. Joyful mind laughs like the Dalai Lama.
Maintaining joyful mind is easiest when things are going well. It’s when we engage injustice and things heat up that a bright mind is most important. To join joyful mind with pain, anger and fear is to touch whatever we do with a sense of lightness.
Today’s practice: For today’s practice, I would like you to try something that is simple, but effective: No matter what you are feeling or what is going on, smile at least once a day.
This column is a long series of short essays exploring the meaning of the Lojong Slogans. It is inspired by the work of Judy Lief.
Kuya Minogue is the resident teacher at Creston’s ZenWords Zen Centre. For more information, she can be reached at 250-428-3390.