By: William Blake
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise
William Blake, Eternity (1757-1827)
Joy
The Joy That Comes From Insight
By Ajahn Sumedho
Once you have insight, then you find you enjoy and delight in the beauty and goodness of things. Truth, beauty, and goodness delight us; in them we find joy.
Ajahn Sumedho (born 1934) is an esteemed American monk in the Thai Forest Tradition.
The Sublime Joy Realized Through Dharma Practice
By Nyanaponika Thera
Life, though full of woe, holds also sources of happiness and joy, unknown to most. Let us teach people to seek and to find real joy within themselves and to rejoice with the joy of others! Let us teach them to unfold their joy to ever sublimer heights! Noble and sublime joy is not foreign to the Teaching of the Enlightened One. Wrongly, the Buddha’s Teaching is sometimes considered to be a doctrine diffusing melancholy. Far from it: the Dhamma leads step by step to an ever purer and loftier happiness.
Nyanaponika Thera (1901-1994), born Siegmund Feniger, was a German born Theravada monk and scholar who lived in Sri Lanka. He was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. Nyanaponika Thera was a co-founder of the Buddhist Publication Society and the author of, among other things, The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, an excellent guide to mindfulness meditation and his most famous work. Upon his death, he was given a state funeral in Sri Lanka.