Rebecca Janke

Thich Nhat Hanh on Joy

In the last two issues we’ve been looking at the unique take on the spiritual definition of love and its place in our daily lives given to us by Thich Nhat Hanh. Thich is a Buddhist monk, poet, scholar and human rights activist and was nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Montessori felt so strongly that our spiritual life is so basic to our human needs that she put it on the “Fundamental Needs of Man Chart” and commissioned Sophia Cavalletti, a Hebrew scholar, to develop hands-on-learning materials to aid the children through the different stages of spiritual growth.

It behooves us then to continue to explore the unfolding of the human spiritual story. Thich Nhat Hanh’s ideas are considered by many to be some of the most helpful to us on this evolutionary path.

Thich teaches the Four Immeasurable Minds which are the four elements of love:

loving kindness (the desire to offer happiness);

compassion (the desire to relieve and transform suffering from the other person and lighten sorrows);

joy (the desire to bring joy to people around you and allowing their happiness to bring you joy); and

equanimity (the desire to accept everything and not to discriminate).

It is in the hills of Virginia with Thich, that we will pick up on these Four Immeasurable Minds moving from the first element, loving kindness, and the second element, compassion, to the third element—joy.

There I was in the large room of 300 people, all of us sitting mindfully on the floor practicing breathing in and breathing out, preparing ourselves for deep listening and I heard Thich say:

True love always brings joy to us and the ones we love. If our love doesn’t bring joy to both of us, it’s not true love.

Commentators explain that happiness relates to both body and mind, whereas joy is related primarily to mind. They often provide this example: Someone traveling in the desert sees a stream of cool water and experiences joy. On drinking the water, he experiences happiness—dwelling happily in the present moment. We don’t rush to the future; we know that everything is here in the present moment. Many small things can bring us tremendous joy, such as the awareness that we have eyes in good condition. We just have to open our eyes and we can see the blue sky, the violet flowers, the children, the trees, and so many other kinds of forms and colors. Dwelling in mindfulness, we can touch these wondrous and refreshing things, and our mind of joy arises naturally. Joy contains happiness and happiness contains joy.

It is a joy that is filled with peace and contentment. We rejoice when we see others happy, but we rejoice in our own well being as well. How can we feel joy for another person when we do not feel joy for ourselves? Joy is for everyone.

Here is what he says we can do to begin with ourselves. “Starting with ‘I’ we can say in our meditation, ‘May I be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in myself.’ This is an important practice. Our mind is described as the soil containing many seeds; positive and negative. When we are in touch with our suffering, we have to know that there are other seeds too. Our ancestors transmitted seeds of suffering to us, but also seeds of peace, freedom, joy and happiness. Even if these seeds are buried deep in our consciousness, we can water them and help them grow stronger.”

Tonight as I write this article, I need to decide which seeds I’m going to water. Due to a much busier week than I had planned, I am now faced with having to choose between writing and keeping my commitment to spend the evening with my daughter and two granddaughters. Before my time with Thich I would be calling my family now and asking to reschedule. Or I would be thinking I can’t take that joy away from them and I would go ahead and just force myself to burn the midnight oil.

Instead, I am choosing to water the seed of joy. I’m going to go to their house and focus on the joy I receive being in their presence. I’m going to look in their eyes and celebrate the wonder of their beings. I’m going to drink in the love we have for each other and savor the sheer joy of all they have to share.

I’m also going to water the seed of joy that I have in writing this article—joyful that tonight is the night to talk and be with you. Those other seeds are still there, such as scolding myself for putting myself in this predicament, or focusing on the pressure and stress of too much to do and too little time, why of all nights do they want me to come over, and on and on I could go. Thich made me aware that in this present moment I can choose to focus on joy—the joy of my family when I am with them and the joy of writing and being with you.

We can focus on joy in the classroom as well. When we put the word JOY on yellow paper and post it on the east wall of the classroom we are labeling and naming joy. The naming of joy allows children to know this is a seed they can water.

To practice, joy can begin with each child holding an orange and you can say, “In this moment I am joyful for the sun that helped the orange to grow. I’m joyful for the growers who picked it from the tree. I am joyful for the truck driver that brought it to the store. I am joyful for the feel of it in my hands. As I peel it I am joyful for its sweet smell. As I taste it I am happy.”

Children can be invited to this practice with other things in their life—taking it back to its origins—describing its journey to this present moment and stating, “now I am happy.” When we look deeply into the present moment we can practice joy.

As we get better and better at practicing joy with ourselves we can be joyful over other’s joy.

The other day my grandaughter posted all of her new poster artwork around the room. When her stepsister came home from school and saw this she said, “Why does she get to have all of her artwork up? I can draw better than that!”

My daughter could see that she was watering a seed other than joy. They explored the seeds together and discovered it was the seed of jealousy. Together they were able to talk about how “there will always be someone who can do something better than either one of us can. Each of us has our special gifts and talents. It’s what makes us unique and is part of our identity. Let’s talk about your special gifts and talents for those are your seeds to water. As you water your seed of joy more and more you will become better able to water the seed of joy in your sister.”

This talk helped her to water her seed of joy. She went to her sister and apologized and said, “I am very happy that you can draw so well.”

Once a week you can practice the seed of joy in the closing circle by inviting the children to talk about a seed of joy they experienced since the last Joy Circle. After hearing the story, the other children can extend their hand to the storyteller and say, “And we extend our joy to you.”

Rebecca Janke M.Ed, a former Montessori Director and owner of Hudson Children’s House, is the co-founder and executive director of Growing Communities for Peace. She can be reached for consultation at 651-214-8282 or pe...@umn.edu.