We now move from the head to the heart with our discussion of the 8 Pillars of Joy in The Book of Joy. The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu identify four qualities of the heart as forgiveness, gratitude, compassion and generosity.
- Forgiveness.
Forgiving is incredibly difficult for many people. It is widely misunderstood. Forgiveness does not mean that we simply accept or approve of wrongdoing and injustices, or that we allow others to hurt or take advantage of us. Nor does it mean that we simply forget past abuses. This is a very important distinction. Yes, we need to take appropriate action to discourage and/or stop destructive behaviors towards us and others, by us or others. But forgiveness – freeing our heart from the destructive feelings of fear, hatred, the need for retribution or vengeance or “justice”, generated within us in response to real or perceived destructive actions against us – sets us free.
Forgiveness releases us from the hold of the past. It gives us the choice to react from something other than hate, anger, the desire for revenge. Choosing our response, rather than reacting with negative emotions, is the key and power of forgiveness. Without it we are bound by the chains of hurt and bitterness, tied forever to the person that harmed us, trapped and under his or her control. Until we forgive and release the power of our anger towards them, whoever harmed us holds the key to our happiness. “When we forgive, we become our own liberator of our own fate and feelings.”**
“Forgiveness is a sign of strength. We can choose to think, and instead of reacting from revenge or an eye for an eye impulse, we act with humanity and forgiveness.”* We have the choice of two cycles; one of revenge, and one of forgiveness. If we choose revenge, the cycle continues endlessly, harming ourselves and those who we believe harmed us. But if we choose forgiveness, we break the cycle and allow healing, renewal and release of the relationship. Unforgiving leads to resentment, anger, hate, all extremely destructive emotions. From a medical perspective, it genuinely compromises the immune system, heart and glands; it releases unnecessary stress hormones that cause distress throughout the body.
2. Gratitude.
“I am fortunate to be alive.”* If you had breakfast today, think of the many millions of people in this world who did not and are hungry. If you have a shower, clean clothes, and heat in the winter, think of the many millions who are cold and dirty in this world. It is not your fault that they do not, but please please please count your blessings that you do. Gratefulness allows us to shift our perspective towards all that we have been given. It moves us away from the narrow-minded focus on fault and lack to a wider perspective of benefit and abundance. “It is not happiness that makes us grateful, it is gratefulness that makes us happy,” says David Steindl Rast, a Christian Monk.
Every difficult situation is actually a gift, an opportunity to rise to the challenge. It allows us not only to accept the reality of the circumstances but also to see the opportunity in every experience. We move our perspective from counting our burdens to counting our blessings, a potent antidote to envy and a recipe for appreciation of our own lives.
3. Compassion.
“Too much self-centered thinking is the source of suffering. A compassionate concern for others’ well being is the source of happiness.”* For thousands of years, the world’s great religions preached the message of love and compassion. We are social animals. Our individual survival depends on the rest of the community. If we want to be safe and happy, we must also work for the well being of others. If we have an opportunity to help someone in need, offer help. If we cannot offer help, then offer a prayer or wish them well.
It’s just science! Studies show that the more time we spend thinking of ourselves, the more suffering we experience. But an incredible thing happens when we think of alleviating other people’s suffering: our own suffering is reduced. This is the true secret of happiness. We are wired to care for others. We are created in the image of God, we carry God within us. We became suspicious of compassion when we accepted the belief in the survival of the fittest, that we are competing against each other for limited resources and must take and win at all costs. However, research shows that the reward centers in the brain light up when we are doing something compassionate for somebody else. The warm feeling that comes from helping is the result of releasing oxytocin, a hormone that has health benefits including the reduction of inflammation in the cardiovascular system. Compassion literally makes our heart healthy and happy. Plus it is contagious. When we see others acting with compassion, we tend to become more compassionate ourselves.
We repress our innate compassion because we fear experiencing the suffering, vulnerability and helplessness that can come from having an open heart. People are afraid to be taken advantage of, afraid that others will become dependent on them. When we learn the basic principle, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, we will understand that once we love ourselves nothing can hurt us even when, especially when, we give of ourselves to help others. Compassion will become natural once we understand and learn to remove our fears, blocks and our resistance to it.
“It is hard to love others as you love yourself, if you do not love yourself.”* Self compassion is self acceptance. Compassion is one of the most difficult and courageous of all of our motivations but also the most healing and elevating. We internalize society’s voices to follow its rules and play its game, exposing ourselves to constant criticism, competition and judgment, both internal and external. It’s exhausting. We neglect our own needs and are not compassionate with ourselves. Our lack of self compassion is spilling over into our relationships with other people; we judge them as harshly as we judge ourselves.
4. Generosity.
We are filled with joy when we bring joy to somebody else. When we are closed in ourselves we tend to be miserable. Generosity is an outgrowth of compassion, although we don’t need to wait for the feeling of compassion in order to be generous. After all, it is one of the 4 fundamental circuits of the brain that map long-term well-being. Generosity is so powerful, studies show that just thinking of it significantly increases the protective antibodies immunoglobulin A, a protein used by the immune system. One can be generous with money, time, talent, expertise, anything that you have to give. Research shows that generosity gives us a sense of purpose and a high sense of purpose correlates with a 23 percent reduction in death from all causes. Another study showed that people with a high sense of purpose were half as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. There are three types of generosity: material giving; giving freedom from fear (which can involve protection, counseling or solace); and spiritual giving (which can involve giving your wisdom, moral and ethical , and helping people to be more self-sufficient and happier).
Modern life can have the effect of distorting our higher nature. That is because society taught us to obey the rules of the jungle: survival of the fittest, eat or be eaten. Stomach ulcers become status symbols. We work hard not only to support our family, but to outdo others. We downplay the fact that we are made for complementarity. We become dehumanized. “We must learn to live together as sisters and brothers or we will all die together as fools,” advised Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is not a matter of religion; it is a matter of humanity. We cannot survive, and certainly not thrive, on our own. “Give the world your love, your service, your healing, but you can also give your joy, becoming an oasis of peace, a pool of serenity that ripples out to all of those around us.”**
And this, my darling friends, is the recipe of maintaining peace of mind regardless of what happens in life.
At the beginning of Part I, I mentioned my quality of being “transparent”. Transparency, in this situation, is the capacity of letting things pass through, of not allowing anything or anybody to get stuck in my energy system or to push my buttons. Nothing can annoy me if I don’t let it.
We usually respond to others out of our own beliefs, hurts or behaviors. We can take things personally, get aggravated in a conversation when we interpret what the other person said based on our own conditioning . We throw up walls of defensiveness to protect ourselves from a perceived affront or onslaught. Things can get heated, rage may ignite when expanding energy slams against our protective walls. However, when we are transparent, the energy simply passes through and dissipates and has no power to affect us in any way.
One funny story, as an example of this great quality, happened in my dorm at the FCI Danbury camp. It was during the pandemic and each cubicle which was normally meant for two people was now occupied by only one inmate. (We too had to maintain six feet of social distancing.) Technically this was impossible because everything was constructed to be joint???. Sinks, toilets, showers were painfully close, literally elbow to elbow. But back to the story.) So 25 cubicles, now with 25 people in one dorm. One night at about 1:30am when almost everybody was trying to sleep, a group of about six new ladies that were recently transferred from another location gathered into one cubicle, listening to music and speaking loudly. They didn’t know me and clearly didn’t know the rules of the dorm. The night guards pass through the dorm at 12 and 3 to do head counts, and rarely in between counts. Complaining to an officer was not an option. Nobody else was saying anything to the loud ladies. So it was on me to take action or suffer in silence. I thought, if I can do something to improve the situation, I have no right to be aggravated if I don’t. If I cannot do anything about it, at least I tried. Again, no reason to get aggravated. I would very calmly, very politely ask them to lower the volume of the conversations, laughter and music.
I walked to the noisy cubicle. “Please, if you don’t mind -” was as far as I got before I was greeted with a barrage of F-bombs, insults, curses and names. And my favorite, “if you are not willing to take the shit, don’t come to prison!”
OK, fine! I turned and went back to my cubicle. And miraculously, within minutes the gathering scattered and the noise subsided. I fell asleep safe and sound.
The next morning I went to breakfast, nearly forgetting what had happened the night before. And one of the ladies from the noisy group came up to me and apologized. That was my opportunity to welcome her into our dorm and to give her the rundown of the place. We had internal rules that everyone obeyed for everyone’s benefit. The main ones were to be quiet and to keep our individual space clean. Throughout the day I had dorm mates thanking me for taking the matter into my own hands because they were afraid.
There are many, many stories like this one, where letting the energy flow through me helped me muster up strength, not get aggravated, and help the people around me as well as myself. A situation like this can very easily get out of control if the energy of both parties is rough.
In this way I experienced prison, applying the 8 pillars of Joy. I didn’t let myself get infected by the environment. It is a matter of choice. You too have the power to create, transcend, find peace.
*The Dalai Lama
**Reverend Desmond Tutu
