Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

Awakening Joy: Practice as a Path of Happiness

With James Baraz recorded on January 13, 2019.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

Joy is both a Factor of Enlightenment and one of the four Divine Abodes. Today, as we are bombarded with news that heightens our fear and sadness about the world, more than ever it’s vital to understand the importance of joy as a central aspect of spiritual practice. We need to remember how to stay connected to that place inside that makes life worth living. In this session we explore principles and practices from the teachings to incline the mind towards true well-being.

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    Receptivity: Deep Listening as an Antidote to Reactivity and Violence

    In these hyped up divisive times, there is an ever-greater need for tools to de-condition ourselves from reactivity. The practice of listening – within ourselves and with others – is much more significant than we often acknowledge. The contrast of receptivity against the backdrop of a world conditioned to impose, label, judge, and solve, is…

    Read More

  • Dave Smith

    The Gratification, The Danger and The Escape

    The triad of gratification, danger, and escape is one of the Buddha’s most concise and simple teachings for investigating everyday lived experience. This formula can be applied to every single aspect of our experience. Many Buddhist scholars point out that this teaching contains the earliest roots of what we have come to know as the…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Caverly Morgan – Week of April 20

    We’re very grateful to have Caverly Morgan hosting our Daily Meditation Series for North America. To find out more about Caverly, and to view her past recordings and contributions to Sangha Live, click here. Monday, April 20 Freeing the body from perceived limitation Wednesday, April 22 Welcoming what is Friday, April 24 Acceptance as a…

    Read More

  • Is there compassion for the self? Go deep. Is compassion the end of self?

    The Dharma flies with two wings – compassion and wisdom. Compassion emerges from a liberated wisdom. That happens when constructs in the mind lose their significance. The emptiness of self and the emptiness of dependency on feeling tones take priority. This talk also explores the contraction of compassion into self interest. The liberation of compassion…

    Read More

  • Daigan Gaither

    Precepts as Orientation

    The 5 precepts often given to lay practitioners are (with positive instructions in parenthesis): I vow not to kill (Love and support all beings)I vow not to steal (generosity)I vow not to misuse sexuality (contentment)I vow not to lie (compassionate truthfulness)I vow not to intoxicate self or other (staying mindful) We can think of precepts…

    Read More

  • Awakening to the New Year: creating conscious intentions

    When we move on behalf of the recognition of our true nature, a conscious intention becomes a way to align all aspects of our lives with our deepest understanding and recognition of truth. A conscious intention is seeped in possibility. While it may even look similar on some level, on the surface, to a conditioned…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Milla Gregor – Week of 26 May, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Milla Gregor leading our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and deepen your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Being Grounded: Five+ Ways

    What is it, to feel grounded, for you? Contact with the earth, with fundamental interrelatedness, your body, values or lineage; with the histories of the land? What’s the opposite of being grounded? We’ll explore such ideas, grounding our reflections in embodied meditation practice.

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More