Does a Buddha feel sadness? Does a Buddha feel joy?
A Buddha is established in Upeksha, which we can translate as dispassion or detachment. Many Westerners conclude that to be a Buddhist one must suppress or annihilate all one's feelings. This misinterpretation makes Buddhism seem nihilistic and even depressing to Westerners.
Yet it is precisely the quality of Upeksha that empowers a Buddha to embrace the richness of human emotion, without getting stuck in it. A clear empty mirror reflects every details of the world, yet the world is really not in the mirror. The mirror is always clear and empty. When the events are over, they do not stick to the mirror. So detachment allows a Buddha to experience the passions of others with understanding and forgiveness, as if they were her own. Sakyamuni Buddha compared this state to a mother's infinite care for her only child. When the child cries, the mother feels the cry, yet does not share the baby's fear of abandonment or craving for milk. Such is Metta: universal compassion. Yet it is dispassion that allows for this compassion.
The void is bliss. Bliss is beyond both joy and sorrow. Yet in the emptiness of the transcendental void, a Buddha embraces both sorrow and joy. The Buddha feels the sorrow of sentient beings and weeps their tears. This empathy is called Mudita. The Buddha likewise feels the joy of sentient beings and laughs their laughter. This sympathetic delight is called Karuna. Yet both Mudita and Karuna are reflections in the empty mirror of Upeksha: deeply felt yet ever dissolving without a trace.
In the words of the English poet, William Blake: "He who clings to a joy, doth the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity's sunrise." Upeksha, Metta, Karuna, and Mudita are called "The Four Immeasurables." They are the emotions of a Buddha.
You are a Buddha when you do not resist any part of your humanity whatsoever, letting every laugh or tear arise like a cloud and dissolve like a cloud in the spacious sky of your heart. Laugh all your laughter, cry all your tears, but never try to be detached. Non-attachment already is. Upeksha, the space of Being itself, is not attached to anything that it contains. That space was here before you were born into it. And when you die, you will dissolve into that space, as into a living womb.
Do you have to practice space? Of course not. You live and move in it always. Neither do you need to practice detachment. To practice detachment is like the sky trying to stop the wind.
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