2021-03-05 Mindfulness of Breathing (46) Joy Factor of Awakening
IInsight Meditation CenterMar 5, 2021 at 4:35 pm13min
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00:01Gil Fronsdal
Continuing on this series of the Seven Factors of Awakening, the factor for today is joy. The particular joy that is a factor of awakening is a product of doing the practice of mindfulness. It's not joy that comes from reflection that wonderful things are happening to us in the world. It's really joy that arises out of the practice, doing the practice, really engaging in the practice in a sincere, wholehearted way.
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00:50Gil Fronsdal
I like to think of this joy as an expression, enactment, or manifestation of our freedom that grows as we practice mindfulness. The Seven Factors of Awakening can all be seen as enactments of freedom. Rather than waiting for freedom to occur – a big bang of enlightenment down the road, if we just huff and puff, and get concentrated enough. Eventually, maybe by magic, there will be a big transformational moment. Boom! Now you'll live happily free for the rest of your life. You have it made. Enlightened retirement.
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01:54Gil Fronsdal
I think it's much more valuable to appreciate that we're taking a seed of potential for freedom inside of us and germinating it. Caring for it in the greenhouse. Tending to it carefully. Transplanting it out into the world. Letting it grow, develop and mature into freedom, full freedom. Now we're beginning to take a bit more responsibility for this freedom ourselves, rather than thinking that something else is going to do it for us.
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02:39Gil Fronsdal
So recognize the little movements of freedom that we all use all day long. I would guess that most of us have more moments of freedom throughout the day than non-freedom. But the reason we don't feel like we're free is that we let our attention focus on the ways we're unhappy – what we want, what we don't want. We get swept up into the world of thinking. In thinking there's not much freedom, more often than not. We get hijacked by our thoughts, concerns, fears, or desires. So it might seem that in important psychological ways, we're not free – but there are plenty of ways we are free.
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03:48Gil Fronsdal
If you sit down in a chair, you have a fair amount of freedom about how you adjust yourself into that chair. You probably never really gave much thought to how you sat in the chair, or how you adjust yourself to be comfortable. But that movement of sitting down and choosing how you sit in the chair is a manifestation of some freedom.
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04:20Gil Fronsdal
Reaching to open your front door is an expression of freedom that you can do that. There are people who can't do that, for all kinds of reasons. There are a lot of little moments when you choose to do something, and there's freedom in doing it. Through mindfulness practice, we can begin to recognize how mindfulness itself can be an enactment of freedom.
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