These last classes have been part of a series on the facets of awakening heart, the different

expressions of love. And so we explored loving kindness, which is the expression of love that

arises very naturally when we bear witness to beauty and to goodness, to the mystery that's

here. And then the facets of compassion and forgiveness that arise when we allow ourselves

to really touch the suffering. There's a tenderness that comes. So tonight we'll be exploring joy,

which is really both. Joy is when we've opened to what the Taoists call the 10,000 joys and the

10,000 sorrows when we're just wide open and letting that aliveness move through us freely. And that

is the experience of joy. It's kind of a weak full aliveness. And it's been, it was an interesting

thing to know. I had kind of designed in advance that I was going to do this sequence. And as I've

shared in past talks, my mother entered hospice a few weeks ago. And so I was wondering what it was

going to be like to be reflecting on joy. You can imagine it's just, you know, it's a time that's

filled with poignancy and beauty and sadness. And she's doing it very, very well. And today's her

birthday, 88. And so it was, there was some interesting moment I'll share with you where one of my

sisters suggested that we, that the siblings and my mom get together and we do a picture. And we kind

of gussied up for it a little. Well, I didn't as much. But, you know, we kind of prepped a little. And in the

background in my mind, I said, oh, we're taking this picture. And then it'll be, you know, something, you know,

we're having a memorial service or something. There's this kind of a sense of the, again, the poignancy and the

container of it. And there we were all set up, you know, in our positions and posed. And, and just as the

camera started shooting, my dog with her muddy paws and I'll just landed right on my mother's lap. And so

so we were all, so there was this kind of hilarious moment. And that was actually the best picture of them all. And as I was

settling around that, I just felt in a way what I described as joy, which is the sorrow, the sense of the space that

that knows the temporariness and the beauty and the fun and funniness and the sweetness. And then just letting it all

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