Last night I re-read the chapter from Sacred World by Jeremy Hayward called "The Genuine Heart of Sadness and Joy".  Maybe happiness isn't the only word with a "different than expected" meaning on this path, but perhaps "sadness" also means something different from what we typically ascribe.

Perhaps "sadness" means lack of "mania".  Mania in this sense being that frenetic way we zip around protecting ourselves from feeling anything but a huge bolus of energy to accomplish and be on the move. Maybe "sadness" in this sense is an awareness of the pain in both ourselves and others, but not necessarily being brought "down" by it.  We can feel it; appreciate it; understand it; identify with it; and then recognize its impermanence and lack of "personal" quality.

I decided to try to live there today to see what would happen. 

This morning, after settling my mind, I spent a few minutes sending my consciousness out trying to encompass my awareness of everything without attaching to anything.  I was contemplating on the meaning of sadness and thought, by sending my awareness out, I'm still not allowing sadness in.  So I shifted my awareness to let IN the feelings of everything in my evironment....My cat has cancer and arthritis, and I felt his pain as his little body walked by, my hubby was working on something and I allowed myself to feel the energy of his struggle, I felt the air on my body, heard the sounds in the room....and then I allowed myself to feel whatever I was feeling.  After a while, I brought my focus back in and settled on the breath.

I have no idea if doing it this way is a real practice, but it was a good thing for me to do.  I realized that I can be aware, awake, and feeling compassion without taking it on and becoming overwhelmed.  In some ways it was tender and soft.  It was actually sad.

When I finished meditating, Souppi got scratched behind the ears and John got a kiss on the forehead.  Neither suspected the surge of love I was feeling.