Sadness No More

“Sad? Let sadness prevail until sadness is no more.”
~ Stock art photo. Quote Whispered by A Tree Friend.

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Staying with the emotion of sadness,
what can it reveal?

Compare sadness to happiness.
Compare sadness to joy.
What can be gleaned?

Sadness has a depth that happiness never can.

Sadness and happiness are like two opposite sides of a coin.
Where there is sadness, there will be happiness.

Sadness and happiness are vagaries of Life.

One can track their rhythms & cycles.

One can watch both (and other emotions),
as passengers that come and go on a subway station. 

Joy is not the opposite of sadness,
but arises out of the present moment.

So when I am present, 
can sadness still remain?

Then let me watch sadness and befriend it as one does
an old wound, 
an old enemy,
an old lover,
rekindling the flame with awareness,
and allowing it to pass on its own.

Sadness is not mind to keep,
and this
-except joy-
will past and perish
​as all must.

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🌑 Commentary for the Journeyer

(Tone, Symbolism, and the Inner Terrain)

This piece offers no resistance. It is not a call to transcend sadness—but to be with it. The tone is contemplative and tender, whispering an ancient truth: let what is, be—until it is no more.

There is no rush to resolve. The presence of sadness is not viewed as a fault in the spirit, but as a passing guest in the field of awareness. Even joy is not idolized—it, too, will pass.

Sadness is treated not as an obstacle, but as a teacher of depth. It is compared, not to deny it, but to understand it relationally—to see how its presence carves space within us for subtle awareness. Where happiness sparkles, sadness softens. One lifts; the other deepens.

Symbols and images within the text reflect cycles and watching:

• Sadness and happiness are portrayed as natural opposites, like day and night, yet not enemies—just waves passing through.

• The subway station metaphor affirms non-identification—emotions are seen as passengers, not permanent parts of self.

• Sadness as a wound, enemy, or lover shows the range of our relationship with it—resistance, rejection, intimacy, attachment.

• Finally, the wordplay on “mind to keep” and “past and perish” opens a dialogue between language and awareness, between concept and letting go.

The poem gently invites us to hold sadness as we would a fading ember—with awareness, not attachment. It is a profound reflection on how truth does not arise from fixing the mood, but from presence with it.

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🌧️ Questions for the Journeyer

(For Introspection, Reflection & Meditation)

• What might sadness be trying to show me, if I stopped trying to escape it?

• Do I treat happiness and sadness as enemies, or as part of one whole experience?

• What’s my “subway station”—my inner space where I can watch without grasping?

• Can I allow sadness to be as it is, without demanding it go away?

• What happens in me when I stop labeling sadness as “bad”?

• If sadness is not mine to keep, have I still been holding onto it as part of my identity?

• When sadness passes, what remains?

• Why does sadness have depth and happiness does not? Is sadness part of the vertical dimension, or is it because of the nature of sadness?

  Sadness appears to have depth because it slows us down—it presses us into ourselves. But this “depth” belongs to the horizontal plane: it is part of the emotional field, not the vertical dimension of Being. Only Presence—pure awareness, beyond story—belongs to the vertical. Sadness arises within time and mind, and its apparent depth reflects the mind's immersion in feeling and memory. True depth comes not from the sadness itself, but from our capacity to remain aware within it.

• Is it true that sadness and happiness are opposites? Do they follow each other? What is meant by tracking their cycles and rhythms? Can we record emotions and use this data as part of our awareness and spiritual practice?

  Sadness and happiness are not true opposites—they are dual poles of the same conditioned movement. They follow one another not by logic but by rhythm—like breath follows breath. When one learns to observe these rhythms as vagaries of the body-mind, not the Self, something shifts.
  There are indeed meditative techniques that help us watch emotions rise and fall like waves—Vipassana, choiceless awareness, and somatic witnessing all allow us to track the fluctuations without identifying with them. As one watches these inner tides, it becomes increasingly clear: they are not you. You are the witness. The witnessing itself never fluctuates.

• If joy happens out of the present moment, and I am in presence, can sadness also be there?

  This question opens a beautiful paradox. Joy is not the opposite of sadness. Joy is the felt sense of presence itself—a qualityless quality, a silent bliss that arises when the mind is not chasing or resisting anything.
  Sadness, however, belongs to the passing play of forms—mind, memory, story, nervous system pattern.
  If one is truly in presence, then what we call "sadness" may still arise in the body-mind, but it is no longer experienced from within it. It is seen from the spacious awareness behind it. This witnessing allows even sadness to be present without becoming suffering. Suffering is identification. Sadness without self-identification is just a cloud passing through the sky of Being.

• Witnessing is said to be used as an effective technique in dealing with sadness. Is this why comparing sadness to an old wound, enemy or lover means accepting sadness as part of life? Accepting that in this moment, sadness is there, but I am not that emotion?

  Yes—these are not literal labels, but roles of the ego, archetypes it slips into while relating to sadness. By naming these roles—the wounded self, the adversarial stance, the romanticized identification—we are not indulging the ego, but making it visible.

  In doing so, we accept these roles as part of the drama of life—a kind of cosmic theater. There’s even room here for humor: to see how many masks we wear in response to sadness can be both humbling and liberating.

  Once seen as roles, not as “me,” these aspects lose their grip. Acceptance then becomes less about tolerating emotion, and more about including it in the great play. We begin to recognize, with compassion, that this too is allowed.
  The Witness watches the performance unfold—and knowing it’s a performance, becomes free.

• If I allow sadness to pass, does this mean that by watching it and doing nothing, it will leave? How long will it take to leave— or is this question still a denial of sadness, and means I am trying to rush and get rid of it, and not really understanding the energy that is sadness? Is that why it says to “rekindle the flame,” because I have forgotten that I am to watch sadness and not become it?

  Excellent inquiry. If one watches sadness hoping it will go away, then one is not truly watching—it is still an act of ego subtly rejecting what is.
  True witnessing is choiceless. It does not observe to escape—it observes because it is what is happening. The phrase “rekindle the flame with awareness” speaks to this subtle pivot. By remembering that you are Awareness, not the sadness, the light is rekindled—not to chase the darkness away, but simply to see. When sadness is seen fully, it has no need to persist. It completes its energetic cycle and dissolves on its own.

• Is the word “mind” in “Sadness is not mind to keep” a play on words? While sadness is not mine to keep, does it mean that sadness is part of the ego-mind?

  Absolutely. It is both a wordplay and a pointer. “Mind” becomes “mine”—revealing how language conceals ownership. The ego claims sadness as personal: “I am sad.” But when we examine this, we find no real “owner”—just sensation, thought, energy.
  Sadness is of the mind, and the ego makes it personal. Awareness, however, simply sees it arising and passing. When you are in true seeing, there is no claim—only observation. That is liberation.

• Similarly to Q6, is the word “past” in “sadness…will past and perish” a play on words? While sadness will pass and perish by my watching, does it seem to imply that sadness is from the past, like old memories haunting? Or, perhaps that already in my watching, sadness’ energy is already moving into the past, already receding and going away?

  When sadness is watched from awareness, it begins to move into the “past” not because it is suppressed, but because it is seen without clinging. “Perish” emphasizes that what arises in time must return to silence. Even the watcher, the witness, will one day dissolve into That which watches the witness.
  This phrase subtly points to ego death—not only sadness will perish, but also the one who called it “mine.” What remains? That which is beyond coming and going. Presence itself.