This week’s meditation session is led by Kimberly Brown and the theme is Joy. The guided meditation begins at 13:23.

The birth month of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama invites us to reflect on the nature of joy – as a resilient quality cultivated through wisdom, compassion, and spiritual discipline. In his most recent incarnation, the Dalai Lama is committed to exploring the question of how we find joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering. Here, we have the Fif5th Dalai Lama, known as the

“Greath Fifth,” who was a visionary leader who unified Tibet, and commissioned sacred architecture and art that endure as symbols of harmony and spiritual flourishing. His meditations on visual culture remind us joy arises when we recognize the impermanence of suffering.

The Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682), was the first theocratic ruler who unified Tibet with Mongolian military support. He was considered an embodiment of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion and the patron-deity of Tibet associated with Songtsen Gampo (r. 617–650), the first of the Buddhist rulers of the Tibetan Empire. The Fifth Dalai Lama consolidated religious and political power through the construction of monasteries, government taxation, strengthening diplomatic connections, and systematization of knowledge including medicine and the arts.This finely carved sculpture portrays him in a typical manner, with his right hand holding the stem of a lotus that blossoms above his shoulder, and the left hand at his lap, which usually holds a bowl with a long-life vase but is now missing.