A few weeks ago I was musing over a reading in the Yijing, Hexagram 58, Dui, Joy. It spoke to me of a harmonious self. It's wisdom reminded me that joy needs nothing outside itself, and that joy comes from inner peace and balance. It suggested that I should "allow myself to be joyful just as I am." It was a salutary reading. For a few weeks I had been struggling more than usual with my "thorn in the flesh," paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. In my journal that day I wrote:
I'm sitting in a house at the beach, looking out on the canal, a wet and windy day, the pugs are gently snoring in their baskets, I'm here with the love of my life, my best friend, and I have had three days of atrial fibrillation ... I shall allow myself to be happy just as I am.It seemed to me then, and now, that joy is a settled state rather than a response to externals. Joy comes in the balance of yin and yang, in the realization that whatever the case is now, it will not be the case for ever, and that everything changes.
Joyfulness is a virtue that is the mean between its deficiency in doom and depression, and its excess in excitability and manic happiness.
Joyful is a state you can allow yourself to be in, despite external circumstances.
And to be sure, externals plunder such a steady state if we allow them to. Disappointments, illness, losses of many kinds, unfavorable political circumstances—all seek to upset the balanced state of joy. One of the adverse effects of the constant avalanche of social media is the sheer weight of issues to upset us, causes that plead for our support, and issues to oppose. It's possible to argue that people have never been so well-informed. Political issues that smoldered in the background have recently become the stuff of angry headlines. Yet, here's the rub: it is possible to have too much information—information that is hard to understand without a deep knowledge of the issue, and which then becomes indigestible. Everyone has an opinion and those opinions become unshakable convictions, based on information gleaned from half-baked snippets on social media, where everyone is their own expert. And this is to leave aside the pervasiveness of "fake news." Such works against any steady inner state.
So, what is the steady inner state of joy? My best guess is a quiet confidence that all will be well, an intuitive understanding that the very best and very worst of externals will not last for ever, and a tapping into the deep inner reservoir of peace and hope—the divine within. It is a state of inner well-being. Joy brings a gentle smile to your face.
Allow yourself to be joyful today,
+Ab. Andy