The Buddha Project 
Is joy an object of shamata?
Ven. Gendun Is joy an object of shamata, or does it manifest itself when the mind becomes unified in a stable practice of shamata on an object like the breath?
When joy manifests as a result of breath meditation, it is a mental factor. When cultivated as a brahmavihara it is called empathetic or appreciative joy and a more complex emotion, that is an object of the main mind (and therefore also apprehended by the mental factors, as they share the ‘similar object of observation’, as one of the five modes of similarities between main mind and mental factor).
