2020-12-22 Brahmavihāras: Appreciative Joy (2 of 5)

Insight Meditation Center13min

Gil Fronsdal

00:02

So good morning, good day. And I realized I'm beginning to go over time with both the meditation and also the short talk, I plan to get back on track, but maybe it's a little bit the nature of the topic this week: appreciative joy. And so muditā is the Pali word for what often in English is called appreciative joy, or sympathetic joy.

Gil Fronsdal

00:37

And I like to call it this week rejoicing. It's kind of more energetic and more full, full experience to rejoice than just appreciate. It seems like sometimes a little bit of a small word compared to rejoicing. And in my vocabulary, rejoicing is something almost embodied, whereas appreciating is a more of a cognitive thing, to just appreciate.

Gil Fronsdal

01:11

It's a meditation practice in Buddhism. And as a meditation practice, it has a lot of benefits. And one of them is that it helps to dissolve, soften, and maybe get rid of the feelings we have of discontent, jealousy, envy - kind of a discontent, in the success and well being of others. And of course, it's very, it's very odd to say that we could have discontent at the joy of others. But for some people, jealousy and envy is a very big part of their lives. And maybe for many different reasons - sometimes, maybe there's historical reasons why that's been cultivated or developed in us.

Gil Fronsdal

02:11

Or sometimes there's fear, to really acknowledge the wellbeing of others. Or there's a comparison to ourselves. And we're discontent because, you know, if I, if I really admit and celebrate the success of someone else, that kind of implies that my lack of success, that I'm kind of, you know, not really a good person somehow. Or, it's, it's a reflection on me that someone else is doing well, and I'm being left behind by life in the world or something. And, and these kinds of thoughts and ideas that stand in the way of feeling just genuine, real appreciation, real delight and gladness and seeing the gladness, seeing the joy and wellbeing of others - is a hindrance. It keeps us limited, and keeps the heart from really opening up to be present for this life in a full way.

Gil Fronsdal

03:10

And as I said, I've been saying that part of the function of this ideal of appreciative joy, rejoicing is not to obligate us to feel that way. But to help us to use that as a reference point, to notice how we're still closed, to notice what keeps us in the way of opening in the heart and a full and honest way. And so what we do as we discovered that discontent, that's the word in the Pali text, that for the primary hindrance to this appreciative joy.

Gil Fronsdal

03:53

So discontent can mean many things. But classically, it's often associated with envy, jealousy, and certain kind of conceit. And the conceit that this says something about me. And maybe it says something bad about me. Conceit in Buddhism - not just thinking you're better than someone else, but also that somehow you're less than someone else, or you don't measure up to someone else. All this concern with self-measurement and comparative thinking is a hindrance to really having the heart just open and relaxed and present.

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