happiness
Take delight in the good fortune of others to create more happiness for yourself.
The Dalai Lama speaks of mudita as a kind of “enlightened self-interest.” As he puts it, there are so many people in this world that it’s simply reasonable to make their happiness as important as your own; if you can be happy when good things happen to others, your opportunities for delight are increased six billion to one!
This is a teaching I try to keep in mind throughout the day. I recently went to collect my weekly box of produce from the community-supported agriculture program I belong to. I was looking forward to buying a dozen eggs laid by the farm’s grass-fed, free-range chickens. These eggs are delicious, and quite precious, because only a limited number of them are available each week. When I got to the pick-up center, I invited two women who had arrived at the same time I had to get into line ahead of me. As you can probably guess, they bought the last two dozen eggs! I could feel my body beginning to constrict as I realized that I was not going to be able to buy any eggs that day. I smiled and thought to myself, while looking at the two women, “May you really enjoy those eggs.” Remarkably, before I had even completed the thought, I felt my heart center expand and a real sense of joyful energy flow through me.
The root of the Sanskrit word mudita means to be pleased, to have a sense of gladness, or, as Patanjali is often translated, “to be delighted.” Although mudita is often discussed as “empathetic or altruistic joy” in the context of overcoming envy at the good fortune of others, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen master, points out that there is a broader way to think of mudita—one that doesn’t depend on defining the Self as separate from others. In Teachings on Love, he writes: “A deeper definition of the word mudita is a joy that is filled with peace
and contentment. We rejoice when we see others happy, but we rejoice in our own well-being as well. How can we feel joy for another person when we do not feel joy for ourselves?” Feeling joy for ourselves, however, is not always easy to do.
adapted from Yoga Journal by Frank Jude Boccio
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