Playing my way to an integrated mind
The value of mudita (sympathetic joy) is always clear. Mudita increases your capacity for joy. Let me explain.
Ancient Indian architecture featured something that was referred to as a Gajadwaram in Sanskrit. This translates to ‘the entrance for an elephant’. A practice like mudita is an attempt to build such a broad gateway for joy in one’s emotional structure. If you only are concerned with your own personal successes in life, and these are the only source of joy in your life, then you have a limited means to access joy. On the other hand, if you master mudita, and learn to feel joy when someone else is successful or has a pleasurable experience or a joyful experience, then you have broadened the pathways through which you can access joy in your emotional structure. So, how do we do this broadening? Rich visualizations are a great way to do this.
How do I integrate mudita, and the other IMMEASURABLES into the fabric of my daily life. I’d like to develop a clear but unoppressive schedule to achieve such integration. I suspect that the opening chapter to such a contemplation is in fact the spirit of play. Think LEGO blocks, think Thangka style paintings, think Franco-Belgian comic book art, and so on. The key there is playing with the delicate balance required for immersing oneself in that sort of visualization, with an alert, vigilant section or current of mind that never allows such immersion to be taken as absolute.
The opening of the visualization mode of mind seems to be possible only when not passively consuming habitual entertainment. This brings me back to an old question - when a strong craving for snacks or habitual entertainment arises, what is really being soothed by the “stuff”. To hold onto this aspiration for an alert, spacious mind that is capable of extraordinary feats of attention, is wise. However, complete integration of all four immeasurables into this spacious and alert mind, has been a challenge. Moreover, the hindrances keep arising. This is not the first time that I’ve had clarity of vision. When I turn around and step back into habitual modes of being, there is an enormous or perhaps deceptive return to mental currents that further neuroses and weaken clarity.
So, what is a good way to complete this project of integrating all four immeasurables into my habitual mind? It is the same method that I’ve used ad nauseam to master anger, lust, depression and every other shade of neurosis. Practice. Repeated practice. Once. Twice. Thrice. A trillion times. The project of entirely flooding my mind with metta, karuna, mudita and upeksha is doable, but it requires repeated practice. This is where sincere analysis of the play/creative aspects of this will be very valuable.
