Cultivating peace and happiness within the experience of loss

Chronic illness is among other things an experience of profound loss. The loss of one’s health necessarily means a host of other losses that can include one’s friends, family, job, home, security, independence, mobility, strength, and stamina – the list can be almost endless. But it doesn't have to include happiness and peace of mind.

In fact we can use the opportunity of illness and suffering to generate something that Buddhists refer to as boundless joy - sometimes called sympathetic joy.

How do we develop such a quality of joy? By rejoicing whenever we see or hear of someone else’s good fortune. We have lots of opportunities to practice sympathetic joy because when we’re sick we often see or hear about other people enjoying life in ways we no longer can.

Of course it isn't always easy to feel joyful especially if we have habits of jealousy or resentment, which most of us do to some degree. This is our chance to become familiar with some of our negative habits and develop positive ones instead. At first it takes practice. In the beginning we have to make some effort but eventually feeling genuinely happy for other people becomes a new habit.

If we notice we’re feeling resentful or jealous that can be a reminder: “oh, yeah, instead of feeling resentment I can use this chance to practice feeling joyful.” Then we flip the negative habit – we drop it – and give rise to  happiness for the person towards whom we were feeling jealous. We smile and feel genuine happiness in our heart that the other person is happy and that good things are happening for them.

Notice that the happiness is in our own mind and heart. It actually feels good! With a little practice we start to automatically feel happy for other people when good things happen for them. We start to develop a happier and more peaceful mind.

This is part of a Buddhist practice called the Four Immeasurables: boundless equanimity, boundless compassion, boundless loving-kindness and boundless joy. They are called “immeasurable” or “boundless” because we cultivate these qualities towards all sentient beings. Since the number of sentient beings is considered to be infinite these qualities are also infinite as we develop the ability to extend them to all beings.

In brief, equanimity is considering all beings including friends and enemies as equal and having no partiality towards those we think of as friends or enmity towards those we consider enemies. Compassion is the desire to free all sentient beings from suffering and loving-kindness is the wish that all sentient beings have happiness.

We can use the opportunity of chronic illness to develop all of these qualities. When we suffer we can think that we don’t want anyone, not even someone we might think of as an enemy, to have such pain. Then we can extend our compassion and think how we would like all beings to be free from suffering. We think how wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were happy; we make the wish that everyone would have everything they need in order to be happy. Then we can practice sympathetic joy by rejoicing when we actually see that other people are happy.

When doing these kinds of practices it’s best to start with those we care about and have some feeling of affection for, otherwise it’s too difficult. Gradually we can extend these practices towards those for whom we have neutral feelings. Eventually we can include people we have difficult relationships with or whom we think of as enemies or have some feelings of revulsion or aggression towards.

In the Buddhist tradition when we do such practices at the end we always dedicate the merit so that all sentient beings have happiness and are free from suffering. These profound practices enable us to generate vast loving-kindness and compassion as well as a happy and peaceful mind.