Multiply Your Joy Last weekend, The Washington Post reported that the Buddhist concept of mudita — sympathetic joy, or taking delight in the success of others — was headed to College Men’s Basketball’s Final Four. It seems the Alabama Crimson Tide men’s basketball team had taken to the concept, and credited their success to it as they headed into the Final Four for their first time. The team talked mudita up in interviews again and again. Alabama’s star point guard, Mark Sears: “The word ‘mudita,’ having vicarious joy through others’ success, even though you may not be playing to your best . . . and you know, just being joyful for others, that’s really how we got here, and that’s really what brought us to our success.” Though the Crimson Tide fell to UConn in the Final Four match, Sears managed to set new records for the team. Anyone can enjoy mudita’s benefits, and they’re simple to realize. As Christiane Wolf explains in “ How to Multiply Joy in Your Life,” it comes down to making space to rejoice in one’s life and to rejoice in the happiness of others. In Buddhist terminology, mudita is known as one of four brahmaviharas, or immeasurables, or “heavenly abodes” — positive qualities that also include loving-kindness ( metta), compassion ( karuna), and equanimity ( upekkha). You can read more about mudita, loving-kindness, compassion, and equanimity and how to cultivate them in the articles included here. Thanks for reading, and thanks for your practice. —Rod Meade Sperry, editor, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Guide |
|
Christiane Wolf on how to practice sympathetic joy, or mudita — delight in the happiness of others.
Why is being happy for another often so challenging? It might be that we feel we’re already somehow missing out on life. So if someone else has good news, we may reflexively compare ourselves to them and feel envious, no matter how sincere our intentions are. In addition, our feelings are often based on the belief that there is only a limited amount of happiness to go around and, therefore, when something good happens to another, there is less left for us. Although this argument has no rational foundation, it is surprisingly persistent.  |
|
Ayya Khema on cultivating loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. True love exists when the heart is so broadly trained that it can embrace all human beings and all living creatures. This requires a learning process that is sometimes hard, above all when someone turns out to be very unfriendly or unpleasant. But this condition can be reached by everyone, because we all have the capacity for love within us. Every moment we spend on the training of our hearts is valuable and brings us a step further along the path of purification. The more often we remember that all our heart has to do is love, the easier it will be to distance ourselves from judgments and condemnations. But that doesn’t mean we can no longer distinguish between good and evil. Naturally we know what is evil, but hatred of evil needn’t forever be stirring in our heart. On the contrary, we have compassion for those who act in a way that does harm. |
|
Melvin Escobar teaches metta, a concentration practice to cultivate unconditional goodwill for all. In precarious times like these, it’s a way to listen to our hearts.
Precarious times like these call for us to be quiet and listen to our hearts. According to its etymology, the word “precarious” derives from the Latin prefix prec, which means “prayer.” An especially potent form of prayer for times of crisis like these is metta. Metta is a Pali word that has been translated as loving-kindness, universal goodwill, or loving-friendliness. My favorite translation, which I learned from Vipassana teacher Anushka Fernandopulle, is “unstoppable friendliness.” Tradition tells us that, like the sun, metta is always present and doesn’t discriminate. Metta is the heart of what are known as the four divine abodes, which include compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. As a prayer, metta offers an authentic experience of our interconnectedness. |
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment