July 18, 2026

Where Joy Actually Begins

All the joy there is in this world arises from wishing others happiness, and all the suffering there is in this world arises from wishing only for one's own happiness.

Shantideva was an 8th-century Buddhist monk-scholar at India's Nalanda monastery, and this verse comes from his long poem The Way of the Bodhisattva, written to guide fellow monks toward the awakened heart of bodhicitta. In it he draws a stark contrast: every joy in the world traces back to caring about someone else's happiness, while every kind of suffering traces back to chasing one's own pleasure first. Eastern traditions treat compassion not as a feeling to wait for but as a practice, deliberately wishing others well, even those who are hardest to love, including oneself when self-judgment runs loudest. Metta, or lovingkindness meditation, trains this directly: phrases of goodwill are repeated first for oneself, then for loved ones, then for strangers, and finally for those found difficult. Shantideva's insight is that this is not self-sacrifice but the actual mechanism by which a narrow life opens into a joyful one.

A principle of Eastern Wisdom: Compassion and Lovingkindness →