4,580 Quotes About Joy

Joy is your heart's housekeeper.

I'm actually very humbled listening to His Holiness,' the Archbishop said, 'because I've frequently mentioned to people the fact of his serenity and his calm and joyfulness. We would probably have said 'in spite of' the adversity, but it seems like he's saying 'because of' the adversity that this has evolved for him.

Until we heal the root cause of our suffering, and awaken to our true nature, our inherent confusion will continue to manifest itself in the world around us.

Buddhist philosophy points out that the true nature of all forms is essentially formless. Forms do not have an existence of their own, but rather they arise together, and are mutually dependent on one another. Everything in the world of form is constantly changing, constantly dying, and constantly being reborn—which is why Buddhists say that there is no-self; no form that has an existence in and of itself.

No label can define the immensity of your True nature. You are the awareness that precedes every label, the awareness that is perceiving these words and turning them into thoughts, the awareness that creates the world with every act of observation.

You cannot be aware of yourself, for you are awareness itself. How can a witness witness itself? That is like trying to see your own eyes without a reflection, or cut a knife with the tip of its own blade—it is impossible. The subject can only observe the object; it cannot make an object out of itself. But by the very act of observing, you indirectly know yourself as the observer, as the subject. No witnessing of the witness is needed to prove its existence.

The modern scientist attempts to step outside of himself in order to observe himself, an attempt that is always doomed to failure. You cannot make an object out of your subjective experience, but you know that consciousness exists, simply because you exist.

This witnessing consciousness, this formless dimension of yourself, is the awareness in which your experience happens, yet it remains untouched by this experience at all times. It is similar to the background of white on which you are reading these words. This white background allows any and every word to exist within it, yet it is not confined to any of these words. Similarly, your awareness allows any and every form to exist within it, but it is not bound to any of these forms.

Your true being, as Consciousness, is ever at peace, ever at rest, eternally existing in the dimension of here and now. It is the formless and eternal quality within you that expresses itself through the world of form.