How to Live a Joyful Life

So there’s a place in Hudson, NY called Banque (pronounced “bonk” which is apparently French for “bank”). It reads like the opening of a Stefon bit from Saturday Night Live: “In a converted bank, you’ll find Hudson’s hottest new eatery…” — and, honestly, you will. The massive space, once an actual bank, is now a beautifully lit, vibrantly decorated high-end breakfast spot. It’s gorgeous.

Having heard about it for months, Adreanna and I finally took advantage of a rare Saturday with a babysitter to treat ourselves to brunch. After an appropriate amount of time marveling at the space, we took our seats. The waiter brought over large napkins embossed with the words A Joyful Escape.

“This,” I said to Adreanna, “is what people want these days — a joyful escape.” I said it without judgment because, really, who am I to judge? We, too, were escaping for the afternoon, indulging in an overpriced breakfast to bask in each other’s company sans kid.

But it made me wonder: An escape from what?

My child? I love my child. She brings me so much joy.

An escape from being at home? We have a lovely home, one that’s currently transitioning from a cozy nest to a more brightly-lit, spacious one with the change of season.

The overall political hellscape that keeps everyone on edge? Well, maybe. But if I’m upset about the nonstop barrage of news emanating from Washington, who’s making me read it several times a day? Me. It’s a bit like that Taylor Swift lyric: It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.

Yes, it’s important to stay informed, but after refreshing a “developing” news story hour after hour one night I had to realize that the Buddha taught us that things are always developing (that’s the truth of impermanence).

So what, exactly, am I escaping from? Nothing.

And yet…I indulge in temporary escapes anyway. I play a dumb game on my phone more than I should. Now that the weather’s warming up, I’ll likely sneak off to hit golf balls at the range. Every night, I take an hour to watch TV. (While watching My Brilliant Friend, it felt like an escape to Naples; now that we’re watching Severance and Yellowjackets, it feels more like escaping to somewhere much worse).

Here’s the thing, though: when the game is over, when I come home from the range, when the credits roll on the latest episode — I am still me. My mind is still my mind. My life is still my life. A joyful escape is a misnomer. I’m not escaping my existence — just distracting myself from it for a brief period of time.

There was a time when, in periods of struggle, people would say to me, “Okay, time to get serious about working with my mind. Let’s check out this Buddhist study and practice you keep talking about.” But for the first time in my decades-long career as a meditation teacher, I’m hearing more people say, “I’m not sure I have the bandwidth for that.”

And I get it. Right now, it’s not appealing to sit alone with ourselves. It’s easier to opt for a joyful escape — whether that’s a drink with friends, a particularly gripping Netflix show, or a luxurious brunch in a well-appointed bank-turned-restaurant.

But what we are doing with our joyful, temporary escapes is slapping a bandaid on a gaping wound.

These escapes are merely attempts at trying to delay the discomfort we experience as part of everyday life. They too are impermanent and only provide momentary reprieve from a much larger feeling of unease. Perhaps it would be better to cut down on them a bit and look at what we’re trying to escape to begin with.

I try to keep things light here, but I was born and raised Buddhist, and there’s a little of the old fire and brimstone in me. The Tibetan Buddhist master Patrul Rinpoche put it bluntly in The Words of My Perfect Teacher:

“Although we know that we are going to die one day, we do not really let our attitudes to life be affected by the ever-present possibility of dying. We still spend all our time hoping and worrying about our future livelihood, as if we were going to live forever. We stay completely involved in our struggle for well-being, happiness, and status — until, suddenly, we are confronted by Death wielding his black noose, gnashing ferociously at his lower lip and baring his fangs.”

In other words, we don’t know how long we have in this lifetime. Chasing after one temporary escape after another — whether it’s a new brunch spot or the next rung on the career ladder — is a bit futile.

The bill comes due for all of us. And at Banque, it’s not cheap. I don’t think I will savor the time spent on my phone when I die. But I will savor sitting across from Adreanna at brunch. Which brings me to the big question I have been pondering:

Instead of endlessly seeking joyful escapes, what would it mean to build a joyful life?

This is a deeply personal question — one worth contemplating often. What if we put down the silly iPhone game long enough to ask ourselves what brings us true joy? Would we spend more time with family? Call our friends more often? Take an extra moment to hug our pets?

Here is what I’ve come up with thus far:

A joyful life isn’t built on a thousand escapes. It’s built by showing up — fully, authentically, as much as we can. It’s created in the moments we stop reaching for distractions and start soaking in the goodness that’s already here, instead of getting lost in thoughts about what may come for us tomorrow.

The only person preventing me from regularly enjoying my life? Again, it’s me. When I am able to let go of (and Patrul Rinpoche really called me out here) the worrying about future livelihood or the health concern du jour of my family, then I realize, my life? It’s good. I am okay. I am, for the most part, healthy. I am not living somewhere that is currently being bombed. I can take a breath, develop gratitude, and move forward with a larger capacity (and yes, bandwidth) to do things that I find meaningful and that are helpful to others.

If any of the above resonates with you — if you’re ready to shift from escaping life to deeply living it — I’d love for you to join me for my Buddhist Immersion. It’s a chance to not just take a break from the chaos, but to learn how to meet life with more presence, more resilience, and (yes) more actual joy.

I spoke with my own Buddhist teacher, Dza Kilung Rinpoche, the other day. After I lamented that people were less interested in Buddhism, more interested in joyful escapes, he brought up a beautiful analogy as for why the dharma is helpful:

“It’s like preparing a very nutritious meal,” he said, “but because people have their own resistance and really what they want to do is go to McDonalds.”

Do we want to spend this life eating nutritious food or pop out for something that will fill the stomach but make us feel worse off than when we started? Instead of putting a bandaid on the gaping wound, or plugging our hunger with a Happy Meal, we can take the time to meet this moment fully, and the Buddhist teachings are the thing that really help us do that, in my experience.

More on that here, but for now, maybe just join me in taking a breath. Look around you. See what there is, right now, that might bring you happiness. Because right here, right now, joy is available to us — no reservation required.

This piece originally appeared on Lodro’s Substack: The Laundry. For more of his recent writing, check out The Laundry today.

Lodro Rinzler is the award-winning author of 7 books including The Buddha Walks into a Bar and Take Back Your Mind: Buddhist Advice for Anxious Times. He has taught meditation for 20 years in the Buddhist tradition, is the co-founder of MNDFL meditation studios and travels frequently for his books, having spoken across the world at conferences, universities, and businesses as diverse as Google, Harvard University and the White House. Named one of 50 Innovators Shaping the Future of Wellness by SONIMA, Rinzler’s work has been featured in The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, FOX, CBS, and NBC. He lives in upstate New York with his wife Adreanna, daughter Ruby, and a menagerie of small animals. lodrorinzler.com