Sympathetic Joy Quotes

Sympathetic joy is a practice. It takes time and effort to free ourselves of the scarcity story that most of us have learned along the way, the idea that happiness is a competition, and that someone else is grabbing all the joy. ~ Sharon Salzberg

The practice of sympathetic joy is rooted in inner development. It's not a matter of learning techniques to "make friends and influence people." Instead, we build the foundations of our own happiness. When our own cup is full, we more easily share it with others. ~ Sharon Salzberg

To celebrate someone else's life, we need to find a way to look at it straight on, not from above with judgment or from below with envy. ~ Sharon Salzberg

By experimenting with sympathetic joy, we break from the constricted world of individual struggle and see that joy exists in more places than we have yet imagined. ~ Sharon Salzberg

The more we identify and acknowledge moments when we're unable to share in someone else's pleasure and ask ourselves whether another person's happiness truly jeopardizes our own, the more we pave the way for experiencing sympathetic joy ~ Sharon Salzberg

The manifestation of the free mind is said to be lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. ~ Sharon Salzberg

To help us bring benefit to others through our words and actions, it is useful to cultivate an attitude of sympathetic joy in others' achievements and good fortune. This attitude is a powerful antidote against envy, which is not only a source of unnecessary suffering on the individual level but also an obstacle to our ability to reach out and engage with others. ~ Dalai Lama

These are times when sympathetic joy comes naturally, but in a complex relationship the heart may not leap up so easily. ~ Sharon Salzberg

The more we practice sympathetic joy, the more we come to realize that the happiness we share with others is inseparable from our own happiness. ~ Sharon Salzberg

So overjoyed were they at their deliverance that they laughed aloud, and the Earth seemed to them like a flower of silver, and the Moon like a flower of gold. ~ Oscar Wilde

wonder, then, at the disciples' joy? Once they understood where Jesus was going and why He was going there, the only appropriate response was celebration. They danced back to Jerusalem. His physical presence was gone, but His spiritual and political presence was enhanced. His words console his "absent" bride: "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the ~ R.C. Sproul

The good life doesn't knock on the door.
Joy is a job. ~ Lionel Shriver

How do we cultivate the conditions for joy to expand? We train in staying present. ~ Pema Chodron

So it is said, for him who understands Heavenly joy, life is the working of Heaven; death is the transformation of things. In stillness, he and the yin share a single Virtue; in motion, he and the yang share a single flow. ~ Zhuangzi

Be grateful that yesterday ended well; be thankful that today begun well; be joyful that today will end beautifully. Live this pattern of life every day! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

And even when success comes, as I am sure it will, bear in mind that there are more quiet and enviable joys than to be among the most sought after women at a ball ... ~ Blanche Wiesen Cook

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared
myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

If depression has taught me one thing, it is this: what a rare and beautiful treasure is the simple human gift of joy. For me now, joy - our capacity to delight in one another and in the world - is the reason why we are here. It is as simple as that. And I feel compelled to spread the word. ~ Giles Andreae

She would live every day fully. She was not the same girl she'd been nearly a year ago. She would never see things so blithely again. Even now, as Evie watched the parade and the people alight with pride and joy, she knew how easily that same crowd could become angry. The things that divided them. The things that brought them together, too. They couldn't afford to become complacent. ~ Libba Bray

Beautiful Savior, King of creation, Son of God, and Son of Man! Truly I love Thee, Truly I serve Thee Light of my soul, my joy, my crown. Fair are the meadows, fair are the woodlands, Robed in flow'rs of blooming spring ~ Lisa Tawn Bergren

True saints know that the place where all the joy comes from is far deeper than that of feelings; joy comes from the place of the very presence of God. Joy is God and God is joy and joy doesn't negate all other emotions - joy transcends all other emotions. ~ Ann Voskamp

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your earnings for what does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness [the profuseness of spiritual joy]. ~ Anonymous

We are often infinitely mistaken, and take the falsest measures, when we envy the happiness of rich and great men; we know not the inward canker that eats out all their joy and delight, and makes them really much more miserable than ourselves. ~ Joseph Hall

The world comes to us in fragments and shards. Whatever stories we shape from our days, we're always dealing with gaps, blank-spots, and blackouts - and in handling all these breakages, we are, at all times, so incredibly intimate with sharp edges, the unending knife-like moments of failure and joy in our lives. ~ Alex Lemon

At that moment I remembered something Cal had told me: that there is beauty in darkness in everything. Sorrow in joy, life and death, thorns on the rose. I knew then that I could not escape pain and torment any more than I could give up joy and beauty ~ Cate Tiernan

A child screams with joy and a child screams with pain, and the difference is in the timbre of that scream. Decibels of joy strike the inner ear differently from those of pain. ~ Fred D'Aguiar

So you can't make a living as a novelist - why not try farming or teaching? Or even begging - what difficulties would that present? Were you born into the world to make a living? Or have you another aim, that of becoming a novelist or something akin? If you want to become a novelist but are worried about how you will eat, then let me share my bowl of rice with you (though
I am not as well off as I once was). If, in return, you become a great novelist,
it will be my greatest joy. . . . I do not presume to urge you to become a novelist. I say only this - be firm of purpose and don't worry about trivialities.

And remember the saying: the final tax you pay to achieve your goal is your life. ~ Masaoka Shiki

The pieces of the bodies of infidels were flying like dust particles. If you would have seen it with your own eyes, you would have been very pleased, and your heart would have been filled with joy. ~ Osama Bin Laden

Struggle is the meaning of life; defeat or victory is in the hands of God. But struggle itself is man's duty and should be his joy. ~ Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III

But this does not take away the fact that Luke sees the frustrations women face, including the constant discipline of being quietly useful while others crowd in to take the more obviously attractive roles. Furthermore, he remembers Jesus as a teacher who was willing to recognize the value of women's contribution. Working in partnership with a man also protected the women from being bothered by other men who resented their independent activity or simply wanted to meddle. For the women of Galilee, Jesus was invaluable as a sympathetic male focal point around which their activity could be organized. The presence of such a person in their midst would have been a godsend even if the man in question had not been a miracle-worker. ~ Kate Cooper

I have learned there is no joy without hardship. There is no pleasure without pain. Would we know the comfort of peace without the distress of war? ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross

In that moment I'm able to accept the inevitability of how I feel, though not with joy. I need to talk to someone. I need to trust someone. And for whatever reason, I know, I know it's her. ~ Veronica Roth

Friends are like the stars that glow in the sky ... you don't always see them, but you know they're always there overhead, and even when it's cloudy, snowy or stormy, even when the power goes out and you're trapped in darkness, they'll always find a way to shine through to you. ~ Rebecca McNutt

Dissatisfaction is like a cancer of the spirit. It eats away at every possibility of love and joy. ~ Marty Rubin

So far from genius discarding law, rather is it the supreme joy of genius to re-enact the eternal and unwritten law in the chamber of its own intel-lect. ~ Charles Henry Parkhurst

Yet for all that I have had more joy than any of them, they were positive and depressed, and I am negative and happy. ~ Charles Bukowski

The statue was of a young man with a tall, gaunt body and an angular face. He held his head as if he faced a challenge and found joy in his capacity to meet it. All that Dagny wanted of life was contained in the desire to hold her head as he did. ~ Ayn Rand

It's funny how it only takes one person taking the time to show you they care for all that bad shit to not seem so bad for a moment. It's not like the demons go anywhere. What haunts you is still right there when you go back under, but that one gesture from one person can bring you to the surface for a second or two. And for a very long time, all I'd really needed was to come up for air. ~ David Joy

If during creative processes the desire for money and fame comes before passion and joy, the chances for a big hit decrease considerably, at least in my experience. ~ Klaus Teuber

Have you ever noticed that, though we breed, raise, and kill ten billion animals per year, most of us never see even a single part of the process of meat production? ~ Melanie Joy

I think that (Alister) MacKenzie and I managed to work as a completely sympathetic team. Of course there was never any question that he was the architect and I was the advisor and consultant. No man learns to design a golf course simply by playing golf, no matter how well. But it happened that both of us were extravagant admirers of the Old Course at St Andrews and we both desired as much as possible to simulate seaside conditions insofar as the differences in turf and terrain would allow. ~ Bobby Jones

For all beings within this universal kingdom, their magnetic north rests in genuine mirth. ~ Gabriel Brunsdon

We are born, we grow up, we live our lives as best we can. If we are thoughtful we are good parents and good partners. If we are wise we strive for integrity and intimacy. If we are fortunate we discover love and joy. If we are able, we make the world a little better than we found it. That is all there is for any of us. ~ Robert B. Reich

The most treasured and sacred moments of our lives are those filled with the spirit of love. The greater the measure of our love, the greater is our joy. In the end, the development of such love is the true measure of success in life. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

will triumph over evil, and that, in the end, truth will be revealed and the story will come full circle. It all happens within a few pages, and it all happens on this earth. But we do not live in Hans Christian Andersen's world. We live in this world. As Christians, we know there will come a day when all tears will be wiped away, when peace and joy will be the only songs we know, but we have a long road to walk until that Day of the Lord. For the moment, we have to live with one another, with all the good and bad that come with it. The sad truth is that we will let one another down. We will bruise each other. We will fail. So how should we live in the midst of this reality? ~ Sheila Walsh

It is very easy for you to say what I ought to do, there is nothing to prevent you; but if you had felt how much it hurts to see the grief of a person one loves, how his joy becomes yours, and how difficult it is to say No when you want to say Yes, you would not be surprised at anything; I felt it myself, I felt it very keenly, I do not yet understand it. ~ Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

There is unspeakable joy ... for the person who knows release from guilt and the relief of forgiveness. ~ Stuart Briscoe

Spread joy. Chase your wildest dreams. ~ Patch Adams

Never underestimate the joy of being married to the one man at the party who knows how to dance. ~ Claire Cook

The Man of Sorrows is now anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. Returned in triumph from the overthrow of all his foes, he offers his own rapturous Te Deum in the temple above, and joys in the power of the Lord. Herein let every subject of King Jesus imitate the King; let us lean upon Jehovah's strength, let us joy in it by unstaggering faith, let us exult in it in our thankful songs. Jesus not only has thus rejoiced but he shall do so as he sees the power of divine grace bringing out from their sinful hiding-places the purchase of his soul's travail; we also shall rejoice more and more as we learn by expeience more and more fully the strength of the arm of our covenant God. Our weakness unstrings our harps, but his strength tunes them anew. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

May you love blossom like a lily. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Depending on the inflection, ah bon can express shock, disbelief, indifference, irritation, or joy - a remarkable achievment for two short words. ~ Peter Mayle

Flying is such a joy. You just want to hoot. ~ Cathy Rigby

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

God is joy. Joy contains light that illuminates your entire being and those that come in contact with you. ~ Vivian Amis

but I never forget.
I've engraved your name
on the palms of my hands. ~ Joy Ladin

A word of consolation
may sweetly touch the ear.
Now and then a quiet song
will clear the mind of fear.
A simple act of kindness
can ease a load of care.
Stories told in memory
diminish all despair.
A whispered prayer of comfort
draws angel arms around.
Counting blessings, great and small,
helps gratitude abound.
These acts, all sympathetic,
will kindly play their part.
But seldom do they dry the tears
shed mutely in the heart. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Joy is produced in our hearts when we know that God loves us, when we have a close relationship with Him through reading His Word, praying, and desiring to honor Him in all that we do, and by serving others. ~ Billy Graham