Written by Rebecca D'Onofrio

Recently, an acquaintance and I were discussing our excitement about upcoming trips that we had planned for our families. As I was leaving, he suddenly shared, with tears welling up in his eyes and guilt in his expression, that he wasn’t sure if he could have any fun since he had just lost his mother.

I responded by saying that joy and sadness can, do, and should coexist.

Even as a young child, I often wondered where the notion came from that sadness and joy can’t exist simultaneously. It seemed so strange to me. Doesn’t our vast human heart have the capacity?

I was relieved to discover that in the Buddhist tradition, such emotions and feelings can and do coexist. Not only do they coexist but they are interconnected and non-dual in nature. This was the only spiritual tradition I had ever known that acknowledged how I actually experienced my own feelings and emotions. They aren’t separate things that contradict each other; they are part of a seamless, interconnected flow of experience.

Sadness is always present in our joy because joy, like all emotions and experiences, is impermanent and we will have to let it go eventually. And joy is always present in our sadness because we can’t be sad about something that we don’t hold dear and greatly appreciate. They are two sides of the same coin, a yin and yang situation.

Our emotions do not need to be controlled and managed. They will arise and dissolve naturally at their own pace. And our heart, in its infinite wisdom, will hold both the joy and the sadness together if we can withhold any judgment toward ourselves.

Allowing ourselves to delight in the joy of watching our children play on vacation, for example, does not have to be in conflict or competition with the grief and sadness we feel from losing a loved one. We can experience both fully and wholeheartedly. They can both have their place.

Practices such as mindfulness and metta meditation can aid us in this process by providing the time and space for us to become more intimate with our emotional landscape, better understand the nature of our experience, and accept it as it is. Once we are able to embrace whatever emotions come up without any guilt or shame, we can also start to embrace the “sad joy” of what it is to be human.