If the gap between our desire for joy and our fundamental value is created by the 6 truths then how do we respond? How to we make it easier for people to be conscious to their fundamental value. These six virtues are proposed pathways that help us hold the tension between joy and the other truths. By cultivating and exploring these pathways we can make it easier and easier for people and communities to value themselves an each other.
Freedom is about finding joy in the face of mystery. Rather than ignoring mystery (becoming dogmatic) or abandoning the pursuit of truth (becoming nihilistic) freedom calls us focus on the truth of joy. All experience is valuable and we should do our part to affirm that value. There will always be experience beyond ourselves, so we should keep our minds free that we may honour those new experiences as they intersect with us. Truth seeking pursuits like science, relgion and the Joy Movement itself are valuable insofar as they are able to hold the innate mystery and value of experience.
Trust is about finding joy in the face of change. Often in the face of change people focus on control or chaos fueling perfectionism, anxiety or disengagement. When we view change from the lens of joy we are able to see that our value is nestled in a world of value. We are able to affirm what we can control and embrace the newness of the evolving world around us.
Fullness is about finding the joy of existence. Sometimes we forget the full breadth of our life we can lead us stuck opperating in a limited capacity. We can become depressed or run our bodies into the ground because our focus is too narrow on a specific feeling, emotion or quality of our life. Fullness is the gentle reminder that we are full beings. That all of our selves, our whole body and all of our sensual experience is available to us. Like traditions of spriritual and physical wellness we can find joy by cultivating our relationship with our body, mind and soul..
Love is about harnessing the joy of connection. For beings that are surrounded by so much other, it is so easy for us to feel alone. Maybe that is because we begin to compare our value with that of the world around us or our attention gets too attached to certain parts of life and forget the whole or maybe we allow ourselves to spiral into devalue. Love is here to remind us of that connection. When combined with joy it becomes a blanket of value that enwraps all of life. Animals are valubale, plants are valuable, strangers are valuable, those we hate and fear are valuable. Since we can't seperate ourselves from the world anything less than love is self destruction.
Imagination is about harnessing the joy of the self. Many spiritual traditions undervalue the self, they fear the ego distracts us from joy. Many secular traditions overvalue the self, they fear restricting the ego limits our joy. The structures of the self are an important part of our experience, they filter every sensation with a whole chorus of commentary (consciously or subconsciously). The joy of the self is the path of unpacking the power of our inner worlds. We choose what parts of the self we lsiten to, we get to decide how we see ouselves. The power that comes from this inner world can be transformative, but only if we allow ourselves to be creative enough to harness it.
Grace is about finding joy in the midst of violence. It can be pretty demoralizing to comes to terms with the funamental violence of ourselves and our world. So often we associate violence with the traumas we cause and we face. However, these cycles of impact do not neccasrily need to leed to harms or the trauma they leave in their wake. Like a plant that has been watered or trimed or fertilized sometimes violence can lead to growth. This can only happen with space. space to be more intentional and mindful in our impacts, space to build resilience and healing, space to process violence and turn it into transformation. Grace stands for growing space, the process of holding violence with joy.