In mindfulness practice, we often speak of suffering, learning to sit with discomfort, meeting stress and pain with presence. This is important work.
But there is also room for something gentler and more nourishing: gladness.
Gladness is not as intense as joy. Joy, or pīti in Pali, can feel like a sense of rapture, with tingling energy. Gladness, or pāmojja, is quieter. It arises before joy, and opens the way for positive growth in our practice.
Not euphoric but subtle and wholesome, gladness appears when we recognise we have chosen well, when we see wholesome qualities taking root:
Sitting with the breath instead of scrolling endlessly; pausing to feel the breeze instead of rushing past nature; tending to constructive thoughts instead of feeding destructive ones; holding back harsh comments and choosing instead to offer kindness.
In those moments, there is ease. A sense of “enoughness”. There is no striving, and no remorse. Just the simple, quiet gladness of being here—present, breathing, and alive.
In this Take A Pause session recorded on 8 Jun 2025, the TAP community practiced tuning in to the breath and noticing the beauty of gladness blooming within. We closed the meditation by listening to the poem, The Orange, by Wendy Cope.
Meditation Begins: 07:30
Reading Begins: 27:05
Meditation Duration: 20 minutes
Finding Joy in Absence
While the world urges us toward more - more doing, more consuming, more achieving, mindfulness invites less: less clutter, less busyness, less stimulation, less excess.
