Meditations7 by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Author:Thanissaro Bhikkhu [Bhikkhu, Thanissaro]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Dhamma, Dharma, Buddhist, Buddhism, Meditation, jhana, Pali Canon, Thai Forest Tradition, Theravada
Publisher: Metta Forest Monastery
Published: 2016-08-07T07:00:00+00:00

Empathetic Joy

August 20, 2013

We chant the phrases for the brahmaviharas or sublime attitudes every night before we meditate because they’re attitudes that really are conducive to getting the mind to settle down with a sense of well-being. You have no ill-will for anyone, no desire to see anybody suffer. You don’t resent anyone’s happiness; and as for the things that you can’t help or can’t change, you learn to put them aside for the time being.

All of this helps make for an easy break with all the issues of the day so that you can focus on the work at hand, which is your awareness right here, keeping your awareness focused on the breath.

If you can’t be generous in practicing the brahmaviharas, it’s really hard to settle down. There’s a passage where the Buddha actually says that people who are stingy can’t enter strong states of concentration. They mistrust them. A sense of ease comes up, and they don’t feel right about it. There’s another passage where he says that the inability to enjoy pleasure is a sign of something wrong. This may sound strange. After all, the Buddha has a lot to say about the drawbacks of sensual pleasure. But when pleasure comes, when happiness comes—they use the same word in Pali, sukha, for pleasure, ease, well-being, bliss—when any of these things come, you have to learn how to enjoy them. If, after enjoying them, you begin to realize that they have their limitations, you can move on in a mature way. If you’re afraid of happiness, your letting go of happiness will be neurotic and unbalanced. You find yourself coming back to nibble at the happiness in secret, or at least trying to hide it from yourself, because the mind does crave happiness.

This is where one of the least emphasized of the brahmaviharas is especially useful: mudita, which can be translated as empathetic joy or appreciation. Basically, it’s an attitude that when you’re happy, you appreciate it. When you see other people are happy, other beings are happy, you appreciate it. You don’t resent it; you’re not jealous of anyone’s happiness. If you’re jealous of other people’s happiness, it’s very difficult to enjoy your own. That’s a karmic consequence right there. You don’t have to wait for the next lifetime. If you have a very narrow heart that resents other people’s wealth when it’s greater than yours, their intelligence when it’s greater than yours, or whatever their good fortune may be: If you resent it when they have it, you’re not going to be able to enjoy it when you gain it yourself.

Mudita is an attitude you extend not only to the results of skillful actions—which is what the happiness is—but also to the skillful actions themselves. When you see someone else doing something meritorious, and maybe you’re not able to do it yet, if someone’s further along in their meditation or they’re able to be more generous, whatever, you learn not to resent that. You appreciate it. And that appreciation in itself becomes part of your own merit.

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