Another talk is now available on the GBF podcast and website:
https://gaybuddhist.org/
Mary Stancavage explores the vital necessity of cultivating joy as a spiritual practice to maintain internal balance and equanimity in a world marked by violence, cruelty, and despair.
Drawing on the wisdom of The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, she argues that joy is an internal ease that remains independent of external circumstances. By embracing her personal mantra, “right now it’s like this,” Mary invites us to meet the present moment—whether it holds a beautiful sunrise or deep grief—with intimacy and kindness, rather than reactivity or denial.
Mary provides a roadmap for navigating the obstacles to well-being while actively “inclining the mind” toward joy. She explains that much of our distress arises from the “Eight Worldly Winds”—the fluctuating pairs of praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, and fame and shame—which we must learn to hold without being swept away. To move toward this “lightness of being,” she suggests several practical shifts:
- Regulating Despair: Cultivating joy to balance the human tendency to fall into “doom,” which Mary describes as a state of being out of alignment with reality.
- Identifying Obstacles: Recognizing “foreboding joy” (the fear of experiencing joy because it might end) and the “shoulds” of societal conditioning that block self-compassion.
- The Power of Gratitude: Actively acknowledging simple gifts—such as the many hands involved in bringing food to a plate—to neurologically prime the brain for well-being.
- The Bliss of Blamelessness: Living a life of integrity and non-harming, which creates a sense of safety for others and a lightness of spirit for oneself.
- Mindful Presence: Using mindfulness as a foundation to stop reacting to discomfort and instead rest in the “sweetness of loving ourselves.”
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