Maximizing Joy
In Your Life, Work, Relationships — and World

An 8-session recorded course with

Saniel Bonder & Linda Groves-Bonder

And our bonus quest speakers,
in order of appearance:

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Mirabai Starr, Ken Wilber,
Stephen Dinan & Devaa Haley-Mitchell,
Miranda Macpherson, Anodea Judith,
Ejna (formerly Jean) Fleury,
and the late Terry Patten

Welcome to our 8-session recorded evergreen course, “Maximizing Joy™ — In Your Life, Work, Relationships — and World.” We're grateful and delighted that you've chosen to be part of this exciting exploration with our special guest speakers, and other participants past and present.

It's our hope and goal that Maximizing Joy will remain a central, widely accessible, and much appreciated offering in our total Human Sun HEART Work for a long time to come. We're just thrilled that you are taking this journey!

Love and Heart-blessings,

 Saniel and Linda

Co-founders, Human Sun Institute and Human Sun Media
Co-presenters, Maximizing Joy

Session Titles and Bonus Interview Guests 

Session 1: Why Non-Joy Seems to Win So Much of the Time, and What We Can Do About It
▶ Interview with Rick Hanson, PhD, neuropsychologist and author of Buddha's Brain, Hardwiring Happiness, Resilient, and Neurodharma

Session 2: Serving and Being Served — Secrets of Unstinting Generosity and Delighted Receptivity
▶ Interview with Mirabai Starr, spiritual teacher, translator, and author of Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, Ordinary Mysticism: Your Life as Sacred Ground, and other titles

Session 3: The Endless Dance of Being True to Yourself While Helping Others Do the Same
▶ Interview with Ken Wilber, philosopher, founder of the international Integral movement, author of The Religion of Tomorrow, Integral Spirituality, The Spectrum of Consciousness, and other seminal works

Session 4: Acting Local, Being Global, and the Grace of Contribution
▶ Interview with Stephen Dinan and Devaa Haley-Mitchell, Co-founders of The Shift Network; Stephen is also author of Sacred America, Sacred World

Session 5: Drinking From the Fountain of Blissful Nectar in Your Own Heart
▶ Interview with Miranda Macpherson, spiritual teacher and author of The Way of Grace: The Transforming Power of Ego Relaxation

Session 6: Why Trust Is the Ground of Joy — and How to Strengthen It
▶ Interview with Anodea Judith, founding director of Sacred Centers, therapist and global teacher, author of Wheels of Life, Eastern Body—Western Mind, The Global Heart Awakens, and more

Session 7: The Serene Joy of "Foundation Friendship," the Radical Unity That Liberates Us into Our Uniqueness
▶ Interview with Ejna (formerly Jean) Fleury, Lakota Grandmother, Visionary, and Peace Ambassador for the Crow Creek Sioux tribe

Session 8: What the One Great Heart We All Share Won't Settle for Less Than
▶ Interview with the late Terry Patten, Integral leader, (r)evolutionary, author of The New Republic of the Heart and founder of The New Republic of the Heart community

Recordings

Introduction and Overview

"The Two Kinds of Joy, and
Why It's Totally OK for You to Maximize Both"

Session 1:
“Why Non-Joy Seems to Win So Much of the Time,
and What We Can Do About It ”

Key points:

• Corresponding to the two general kinds of joy — experiential and existential — experiential non-joy and existential non-joy seem to win so much of the time, each in different ways and for its own reasons.
• To overcome experiences of non-joy and so maximize experiential forms of joy, we mainly need to cultivate empowering mindsets and practice actions oriented to joy.
• To outgrow existential forms of non-joy and so maximize the innate, unshakable joy of being who we are, we mainly need to cultivate joy-sustaining, whole-being recognitions and develop new worldviews.

Presentation:

Rick Hanson:

Conversation:

Experiential Practices

Gazing:

Recognition Yoga:

Session 2:
“Serving and Being Served — Secrets of
Unstinting Generosity and Delighted Receptivity”

Key points:

• Because we exist in — and even as — a field of "interbeing" that includes everyone and everything, a most potent way to foster both experiential and existential joy is by serving and being served, giving and receiving.

• A crucial foundation of our serving and being served, giving and receiving, is wise self-care: physical/practical, emotional/relational, energetic, mental, and spiritual.

• When we devote ourselves to unstinting generosity — a life of service — our delighted receptivity takes many forms, the most meaningful of which aren't always pleasant but are always profoundly joyful.

Presentation:

Mirabai Starr:

Conversation:

Session 3:
“The Endless Dance of Being True to Yourself
While Helping Others Do the Same"

Key points:

• This endless dance of being true to ourselves while helping others do the same is a tantric tension, hardwired into reality, that never gets perfectly or completely resolved.

• Maximizing joy requires us to "wake up, grow up, clean up, and show up" in all four quadrants: our inner and outer selves, and in both the inner and outer dimensions of our relationships with others.

• Over time, as living in these ways tempers and refines us, we become more capable of "holding" the paradoxes of sameness and otherness, including all experiential joys and even extreme non-joys, and our existential joy shines ever more brightly.

Presentation:

Ken Wilber:

Conversation:

Session 4:
“Acting Local, Being Global, and the Grace of Contribution"

Key points:

• "Acting local" begins with and is always grounded in our stewardship of our own "local" bodies, minds, and souls, and all of our personal relationships.

• It's not enough to "think" global-fully cultivating, radiating, and sharing joy requires us to BE global, continually attuning to the interbeing of every body, even every sentient being, everywhere.

• The grace of contribution is one of the ultimate gifts we can access to maximize both kinds of joy.

Presentation:

Stephen Dinan and
Devaa Haley-Mitchell:

Conversation:

Session 5:
“Drinking From the Fountain of Blissful Nectar in Your Own Heart"

Key points:

• In these times of unprecedented global turmoil, the Heart and its Unshakable Joy — its "Blissful Nectar" — are becoming accessible to everyday people in unprecedented ways.

• Though each of us naturally points to our heart as the core of who we are, and though nearly all cultures have championed the heart as the wellspring of personal integrity and courage and of both human and divine love, the Heart, capital "H," is only now widely revealing itself as the ultimate nature and in many ways the unprecedented worldview of our shared reality, the "Totality Identity."

• As the one and only "Sun" in the one and only, shared Heart of all our hearts "rises" — as it becomes increasingly obvious and radiant — we naturally "wake down" into deeper embodiment and integrity, drinking from that fountain of "blissful nectar" or "unshakable joy" at all times, in ourselves and "in mutuality" with one another.

Presentation:

Miranda Macpherson:

Conversation:

Session 6:
“Why Trust Is the Ground of Joy — and How to Strengthen It"

Key points:

• There are four kinds of trust that we need to be able to move with to be able to maximize joy in our lives, work, relationships, and world: trust in self, trust in other or others, trust in Being, and trust in Becoming.

• Profound trust of all the kinds we're exploring here is crucial for humanity's healing of its Spirit/Matter split and all of the historical and developmental divisions, dissociations, and violence we perpetrate on ourselves, on one another, and on all Life.

• Gratitude has a key role in how we can strengthen trust and, by doing that, maximize joy.

Presentation:

Anodea Judith:

Conversation:

Session 7:
“The Serene Joy of "Foundation Friendship,"
the Radical Unity That Liberates Us into Our Uniqueness"

Key points:

• "Foundation friendships" are recognition-based relationships grounded in each person's deeper connection with the ultimate Mystery of existence.

• Foundation friendships arise among participants in many paths to oneness and joy-in our approach, those friendships come alive and thrive in our communion with the Heart.

• However any foundation friends connect with and embody the great Mystery, their shared foundation liberates each one into her or his unique, always evolving expression.

Presentation:

Ejna (formerly Jean) Fleury:

Conversation:

Session 8:
“What the One Great Heart We All Share Won't Settle for Less Than"

Key points:

• The "One Great Heart we all share" is the singular reality that includes all consciousness, mind, energy, and form-the root of every body's fundamental sense of identity and the evolutionary driver of all growth and transformation, including of course our own.

• One simple way to express what that Heart won't settle for less than is this: It simply won't allow us or even the whole cosmos to stop short of the ultimate maximizing of joy, in, as, and through all beings and things, everywhere and forever.

• What all this could possibly imply for humanity and all life on Earth over the next several hundred years, never mind the next several million years, is unimaginable — and inconceivably joyful.

Presentation:

Terry Patten:

Conversation:

This is the essay, The Unspeakable Glory Equation,
that Saniel read the final sections of in this session.

We hope you appreciate the full piece!