Best Of

I just had an interesting chat with Claude.ai, in which it suggested that my reduced joy was likely because of grief not just from my father, but also my stepfather, aunt and uncles. It also suggested that I try finding a creative project to help regenerate my inner joy. That was the first really helpful discussion I’ve had with ai, it was quite insightful.

Funny that you should mention sorrow, @shoshin1, my mother suggested it might be an after effect of my father’s death. That grief over his passing is blocking my joy.

Over the last ten years I have done a lot of letting go: news, television, novels, computer games. Recently though I was considering many of these things were distractions from the spiritual path, but they also lent my life a joyful quality, and I found I was losing my joy in life. Many things that used to give me joy, were now appearing as merely neutral. Even my morning coffee is no longer the joy it once was.

The process of letting go eventually leads one to live a life that is lean and devoid of the juicier aspects of lay life. For example, for a long time I read The Lord of the Rings every year, and I used to take great pleasure in that book, which Tolkien intended as a mythology for our times. So it now appears to me that being too drastic in letting go is also a danger on the path — we don’t have to live as monastics, even though our tendencies may take us in that direction.

I find it interesting, that when I was focussed on Buddhism all these things disappeared from my life, and now I am finding my life is too lean, and I’m seeing the need to cherish and protect the things that give me joy. That doesn’t mean I will go back to computer games, I think there are too many negatives to that, but I may broaden my reading somewhat, for starters.

Also I thought it useful to pay more attention to what gives me joy. One thing I noticed was that I feel more joyful when I am not thinking, like when I am focussed on my breath, or when I am riding my bicycle and am too engrossed in the feel of my tires on the path. When I’m busy being in the moment.

@Lionduck
I like your comment.
The body changes. Nobody has the body (or mind) of a baby or a toddler. That is gone.
As Lionduck suggests. Mind and body are interdependent.

The monkey mind that we mention on many occasions flits and flaps. We can occupy it with breath or different boredoms and techniques that @Jeffrey mentions.

Bodyscans and led meditations are very effective.
https://www.tarabrach.com/guided-meditations/

Is consciousness hygiene a type of brain washing? Tee hee!
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/mar/05/michael-pollan-book-a-world-appears-consciousness-hygiene