Part 4 - The meditation of joy

a. The purpose of meditating on joy

Now joy will be explained. As just taught:

After beings have thus been moistened by compassion,
And each is happy, then we should meditate on joy.

When we see happy sentient beings, we should meditate on joy. The Prajñaparamita in Twenty Thousand Lines says:

Whenever we see sentient beings joined to their particular happiness, we should think, “May they be inseparable from this happiness. May they also possess the happiness of omniscience, beyond that of gods and human beings.”

b. The object of meditation on joy

What is it ?

The proper object of joy is happy sentient beings.
The content is thinking, “E ma! there is no need 
For me to try to establish these beings in happiness.
All of them have gained their proper happiness.

Until they attain the essence of enlightenment,
May they never be parted from this happiness.”
First think of one, then meditate on all of them.

Thinking like that, go from meditating on one happy sentient being to all of them.

c. The measure of joy

As for the measure of training:

The sign is the arising of joy that is free from envy.

True joy has no envy for the wealth of others.

d. The essence of joy

After a session of meditating on conceptual joy:

Then meditate on joy without a reference point.

Meditate on the objects of joy, all sentient beings, as appearing while they do not exist, like an illusion. The King of Concentrations Sutra says:

Just as in the midst of many different people
Magicians may emanate illusory forms of things,
But the horses, chariots, and elephants they conjure
Do not exist at all in they way that they appear,
Every Dharma should be known to be like that.

The Precious Garland says±

Secret from people in general
Is this very deep Dharma teaching,
The amrita of Buddha’s teaching
That the world is like illusion.

Just as illusory elephants
Appear to arise and vanish,
While in truth and reality
There is nothing to rise or vanish,

Likewise this world of illusion,
Appears to rise and vanish,
But in real and absolute truth,
Nothing rises or is destroyed.

As an illusory elephant
Coming from nothing, goes nowhere;
By exhausting mind’s obscuration,
It is really and truly gone.

This world, just like the elephant,
Coming from nothing, goes nowhere;
By exhausting mind’s obscuration,
It is really and truly gone.

With a nature beyond the three times,
Unperceived by conventional labels,
How could this be a world
With existence and nonexistence?

e. The virtues of joy

In meditating in this way, by the joy of the natural state:

Body, speech and mind have spontaneous peace and bliss.

This is the measure of accomplishment.

f. The fruition of meditating on joy

By the wealth of fruition, joy is stabilized.

The Prajñaparamita in Eight Thousand Lines says:

Immeasurably vast, joyful mind is never taken from us. With this unsurpassable perfection we attain the heights.