Joy is an important aspect of the Buddha’s path to freedom, appearing as both an awakening factor and one of the four heart qualities known as the brahmavihāra. However, for many people it can feel elusive - or even irrelevant – in the midst of so much global, societal and individual suffering. For this reason, the word Joy in the title of this talk is accompanied by question marks, as an invitation for us to explore together some common questions and/or doubts that often come up in relation to joy in the context of insight practice. Together we’ll discover some of the ways that cultivating joy can help nourish the heart and deepen wisdom, even amid the challenging everyday realities that most of us face.

We will explore how the Buddha’s teachings map onto the challenges that many face navigating this arena of life. Concrete practices and suggestions will be offered.

Amma Thanasanti began meditating in 1979 under the guidance of Jack Engler, Ajahn Chah, and Dipa Ma. She spent 28 years as a Buddhist nun, including 20 years in Ajahn Chah monasteries, and has taught internationally since 1996. She is the founder of Awakening Truth (awakeningtruth.org) and developed the Integrated Meditation Program (IMP), an attachment-repair pathway for meditators. Her work integrates classical Buddhist training with contemporary psychology and trauma-informed practice, helping practitioners discern where meditation supports awakening—and where relational wounds and trauma require direct healing. This integration allows the stillness, clarity, and goodness from meditation to become more natural and sustainable. SHINE is a practice Amma developed as a counterpart to the RAIN method by Michelle McDonald and Tara Brach. While RAIN helps us meet difficulty, SHINE supports cultivating positive states—training the nervous system to recognize, sustain, and deepen what's good.The acronym stands for Sense, Hold, Inquire, Nourish, and Enhance. Integrated into the broader Integrated Meditation Program (IMP), SHINE addresses a gap many practitioners experience: we become skilled at observing suffering but less adept at stabilizing ease, joy, and goodness when they arise. In this session, we'll practice SHINE together and explore how cultivating these states helps stillness, clarity, and goodness become more natural and sustainable in daily life.