At a time when a noble disciple recollects the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Saṅgha, virtue, generosity and the gods, his mind is free from greed, hatred and delusion. His mind is straight and fixed upon those things, and with a straight mind he expresses the gladness of the good, the gladness of the Dhamma, and the gladness that goes with Dhamma. In one like this gladness arises, from gladness comes joy, because of joy the body is tranquil, with a tranquil body one is happy, and the mind of one who is happy goes into samādhi.
AN 11.11
I think I am deficient in saddha, the emotion, but plenty of confidence in the triple gem.
I once came to the realisation, that I take the refuge of attachment, aversion and ignorance unconsciously.
My mind is occupied with many thoughts of attachment, aversion and ignorance.
When I realised this, it was easy for me to turn my refuge towards Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.
I became more calm and composed.
Particularly given my personality type (is short: neat logic - yeeeah, confounding emotions - boooo ) I was massively discombobulated when I was innocently cycling along one day and then I was like: “Golly, I seem to have a awfully queer feeling… analysis indicates that I am experiencing an involuntary positive emotion belonging to the gladness range of the classification options and it seems to emanate from some equally involuntary emerging stability of trust in the Buddha.”
Nevertheless, in answer to your actual question, in view of its entirety, on balance my own answer has to be a very clear, ‘no’. I’m always a little bit uncertain how ‘noble’ is intended in any one given application. As I presently understand it, in most instances ‘noble disciple’ is used to indicate one who has directly seen the Dhamma (ie. stream enterer onwards), but in many places is used more casually.
If ‘noble’ is being used in the first way, this takes the terrible joy burden right off. Phew !! If not though (and actually in any case), at the minute I’m quite taken with redirecting myself a little away from and more towards soft investigation - I mean it’s all just suffering to be understood, right?
I say ‘at the minute’, because your question happens to coincide with one that came up for me last week specifically with regards to virtuous conduct. I adore decency, but I did have to pause and acknowledge that I haven’t so much been able to experientially link it with gladness - there again, maybe I’m still just a little too much on the side of life (;-)).
Suravira, you appear to be making a television-based, popular culture reference. I do not have access to the necessary data to positively identify the source material your comment is constructed out of and perform the computational processes required to fully comprehend its implications in order to initiate an expression of the appropriate amount of hilarity. That is to say I didn’t watch Star Trek and I was quite young when I saw some episodes of Mork and Mindy so I working with a bit of a cultural deficit, all the same, if I understand things correctly, I could learn a thing or two from Spock’s impressive emotional dexterity.
I just know Spock was a Jhana master. Wouldn’t it be great to have a discussion between him and Bhikkhu Bodhi on, oh say, the Brahma Viharas?
Getting back to the topic, Bhikkhu Bodhi has a wonderful set of instructions on practicing the recollection of the Triple Gem for gladness. Unfortunately they were given as a Tricycle Retreat, so I don’t think I can upload them.
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Golly, I seem to have a awfully queer feeling…
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Thank you for noting that pleasant feelings should arise when one’s virtue is pure. I had a good response to that so this got me thinking that it isn’t just a broad brush hindrance.
I managed to tap into some early memories in my meditation. I must have been just a small child. I recalled seeing the giant Buddha statues, sitting without responding to me, even when I worshipped them and a few other mildly negative memories which has coloured my reaction to the Buddha, as a child. I was able to brush away some of the aversion and that seemed to do the trick. Now I’m waiting to see if it holds out long term.
This applied at the time of the Buddha in particular by the fact that people knew who was what, from nothing to Stream-enterer to Arahat, so they could go to these people and ask their questions because they had confidence these people had walk the path and that they could give them useful practical advices.
Today we do not take refuge in the Buddha and the Sangha, as he said in a SN and was copied into the biggest DN sutta, we take refuge in ourselves first then in the dhamma second and that’s it.
Of course this approach does not go well with all Buddhist traditions who want us to be supportive and dependent not free.
It is interesting. The Buddha took refuge in the Dhamma, and kept it as his teacher. Purely in terms of giving rise to joy, I think it must be difficult to have oneself as the refuge and be joyous. But of course, there is no need to be dependant for our development in the path. Even during the Buddha’s time, he said he could ‘only lead the horse to water, but not to make it drink’ remarking about his teaching. This could only mean one had to rely on oneself to strive.
In a talk once, a monastic interpreted this idea of “refuge in oneself” as meaning in one’s own practice, one’s own mind, the phenomena of one’s own experience, which is the only place you have to work in to reach the goal.
) I was massively discombobulated when I was innocently cycling along one day and then I was like: “Golly, I seem to have a awfully queer feeling… analysis indicates that I am experiencing an involuntary positive emotion belonging to the gladness range of the classification options and it seems to emanate from some equally involuntary emerging stability of trust in the Buddha.”
!! If not though (and actually in any case), at the minute I’m quite taken with redirecting myself a little away from 
side of life (;-)).
