MUDITA
The Practice of Mirror-Joy
- Pleasure
- Challenge
- Meaning
Mudita – To find joy in other people’s joy.
To have pleasure at seeing other people being happy.
Buddhist teachings call it –
The inner spring of infinite joy that is available to everyone at all times, regardless of circumstances.
The more deeply one drinks of this spring, the more securely one becomes in one’s own abundant happiness, the more bountiful it becomes to relish the joy of another person.
Mudita Examples-
- Giving a thoughtful present to someone that you really like, and doing it without seeking any reward in return.
- Watching someone become joyful because you created the opportunity for them to feel joy.
- Sending someone some flowers or a card for a special occasion like a thank you or anniversary, or a birthday.
- Doing a “silent” good deed for someone without telling them or letting them know. Then seeing them discover the deed and gratefully realising it was you. But also, never expecting them to discover. Nonattachment to outcome.
- Giving someone tactile attention like a hug or a kiss, being thoughtful and affectionate.
- Spending time in another person’s company listening to them, because you know they appreciate your company and candour.
- Giving pleasure or setting up a situation that gives your partner pleasure, like a birthday party or buying them a gift they’ve said they wanted, or an evening out that is designed to please your partner.
3 Types of Mudita concepts (ways)
- Just your concepts
Setting up or organising an event or date by you as a surprise.
- You & Partner’s concepts
Setting up an event or situation with your partners consent, knowledge and involvement.
- Your concept involving, or not, your partner and another person or people.
Setting up a surprise party. Arranging or doing a task for your partner that involves others.
To Cultivate Joy
To cultivate joy you have to be aware of its opposites, or close enemies, which are –
- Sorrow
- Jealousy
- Envy (attachment)
To counter the opposites to joy, one should develop the 4 mind states of –
- Loving kindness and benevolence.
- Compassion
- Empathetic joy
- Equanimity (letting go of the reaction)
The Two Types of Joy
- Sympathetic Joy
Learning to feel joy for others can help transform our own suffering and self-centeredness into joy. The third boundless abode is sympathetic joy. Sympathetic joy is joy in the basic goodness of all beings, and joy in the fundamental well-being of ourselves and others. Sympathetic joy is essentially unconditional.
Example of Sympathetic Joy
I feel really happy seeing a woman I love being adored by cats I love. Scientists have a name for this feeling, which they borrowed from the Buddhist ethic of Muditā: sympathetic joy, which is sometimes called appreciative joy, empathic joy.
- Vicarious Joy
Example of Vicarious Joy
A vicarious pleasure or feeling is experienced by watching, listening to, or reading about other people doing something, rather than by doing it yourself. She invents fantasy lives for her own vicarious pleasure.
The musician, artist, entertainer and lover.
Vicarious Happiness
A broader concept is ‘vicarious happiness’, which encompasses all forms of positive emotions that we experience through others. This can include joy and excitement as well as other positive emotions that we feel when we witness the success, happiness, or wellbeing of others.
Vicarious Definition
adjective
- experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person. “This catalogue brings vicarious pleasure in luxury living”
- acting or done for another.
The 7 elements of Joy
- Self-aware.
- Gratitude.
- Positive thinking.
- Mindfulness.
- Social connections.
- Physical health.
- Purpose and meaning.
Essentially it is all about being able to give without seeking reward, in order to be able to be able receive love from others without your resistance. In giving one receives one’s own joy as a free return gift.
The Humble Mistake
When we do a good deed for someone willingly, because we want to, from our free will, we are helping another by showing our love. This makes us feel good. Yet there are some people that appreciate what you do freely and also wish to do the same for you and show you freely their love for you in return.
Only some people who give out will be the type that doesn’t let others do the same for them. In this way they deny other people the chances to reciprocate back their love from the same example they had received. This is because they feel they do not deserve the love back or are not easy accepting it back from others like a transaction. It was not given out as a prompt to be measured and then obliged by recipient to return like for like as a commodity. But if it is returned freely, then don’t be one of these humble types that doesn’t accept it back please, as you are denying others the chance to do the same as you like to do for them. Everyone needs love.
It may be difficult to accept other people’s love, but you must also allow them the same chance to show their love for you too.
That is also part of self-love. Knowing you are loved is also nourishing for the soul. So being able to accept and receive other people’s love is just as important as being able to share and show your own love to others.
The Joy Feedback Loop
Your Actions
By doing something for others of our free will, there is no negative feedback because your intention is purely selfless and positive.
You are not expecting or wanting a reward, but you know that by your actions you may receive a reward, because you accurately guessed or thought correctly that your specific type of action would be enjoyed by another. At the same time, you are not attached to the outcome of your action to give joy to another if it is unsuccessful or rejected.
You have given of yourself freely (surrender to the universe) and even at the request of others, knowing that by your actions, thoughts, words and deeds, you have brought your unconditional joy to another.
By not seeking reward (surrender to the outcome) so that then if a type of reward does come back to the person practicing Mudita, it is that much more rewarding.
Surrender Key
This is a key code to inner happiness and contentment.
You are being of service to others, which makes you feel good about yourself and is of service to yourself.
Yet it is selfless service to self, in that you are aware you are gaining inner peace and contentment by feeling good about giving others joy, happiness and pleasure, and seeing, watching and thinking about pleasing others makes you feel joy, happiness and pleasure within your own spirit, mind and body.
Conscious Surrender
When you surrender yourself to the universe, you should never do it unconsciously, it should always be done consciously as a choice.
It does not mean to make yourself vulnerable to people who would take advantage of you and abuse you or leave you in deficit no. Definitely not!
Always be aware, discerning and protective of your personal belongings and free will and bodily autonomy. I’m talking about what it means to be surrendering yourself to the universe, you are not putting any blocks in the way. Blocks or obstacles that your mind will create. It also means having trust in the divine process.
“The water does not argue with the rocks in the river, it just flows around them.”
By surrendering yourself to defining a sequence of events or labelling them, by just letting go and letting what will be, be what it is.
Often, it’s a good practice to surrender yourself partially to others, to see where they will take you. It gives you an idea of what’s in their heart and mind for you, or for them. It informs you of what others think of you, and from that, what you think of them. You, through your surrender, get to see- both received love and pleasure for yourself, or you get to see others receiving pleasure and love from yourself. (win,win)
Resistance
The only resistance you have, is the one that your mind creates.
Resistance in thoughts creates blockages in flow of energies through you. They become lifeless and stagnate. Stagnation of energies can lead to pressure on certain parts putting more strain on the mind or body. This could be emotional & mental stress, fatigue, overactive or under active organs or organs that are starting to atrophy and die.
So, to surrender is to flow in the eternal spring of the ever-divine present now moment and to drink its vital life waters. To do this is to release yourself from any emotions, reactions, thought forms and attachments
Life and Light Joy Practice
This is also a wellness and well-being of life practice. Many couples practice the art of Mudita.
Keeping the “living waters flowing” or the “flame of the heart blazing” with fierce burning love, are just a few ways in which people describe their way of being.
If you are in a long-term partnership then practice your non-attachment and surrender your body to your partner. This is also a trust exercise too, because it allows your partner to know you trust them, and it allows your partner to show you that they trust you too and can be trusted with care of you that you appreciate.
So, this form of surrender to your partner is also a form of devotion to them, because you appreciate the sacred in them wants to pleasure the sacred in you.
By doing these daily practices, people report long happy and contented lives at peace with themselves. It fosters trust, communication and security within ourself as an individual, and also with others in long lasting and loving relationships at peace with each other.
Matt Bell
💖🙏🌟