One of the most learned and highly trained American-born lamas in the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition. He is a meditation teacher and author.
MUDITA: AN OLYMPIC PRACTICE IN THE BUDDHAFIELD
by Lama Surya Das
As an athletic legend in my own mind, I often enjoy watching the various Olympics and other great sporting spectacles, aside from attendant political and social concerns including human rights and the mental health and wellbeing of the rigorously disciplined competitors. I love seeing the youthful athletes rejoicing enthusiastically in the pure joy of hard-earned accomplishment. And often I wonder: If we could practice our spiritual disciplines anywhere near as devotedly and as much as these youthful master athlete-yogis, both we and the entire world be much benefitted, perhaps even more than by the Olympic samsaric trials and travails of themselves. (If one might dare to compare and compete, that is.)
Among other interesting delights, this winter Olympiad has provided me with an immediate and potent opportunity actually to feel into the exhilarating feeling of accomplishment, sympathizing with elite athletes (which I certainly never was) and to consciously cultivate the ancient and beloved, extraordinarily effective and profound practice of mudita, or “vicarious rejoicing”. Mudita is also known as “sympathetic joy”, “sublime joy”, and emphasizes the benefits of rejoicing in the merits and virtues of others. This is taught as a powerful antidote to jealousy and covetousness, and acts as counterbalance to competitiveness and the near-enemy of rejoicing known as “living vicariously through others”– thru our children, for example. Mudita is the antonym of the descriptive German term schadenfreude, taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. With mudita, we simply rejoice in the good fortune of others, ever free of self-interest or repayment as ego-gratification. This important latter aspect of the practice distinguishes mudita, sympathetic joy, from mere pride, its poor cousin (or “near-enemy” in Buddhist lingo).
Mudita has somehow become the orphaned member of the Four Immeasurable Attitudes, much overlooked in the modern Dharma scene and the Western world. Metta (maitri), or loving kindness, is the most popular among the four Immeasurables, and is commonly taught and practiced today.
These Four Heartitudes, or Four Boundless, as I have called them, or Four Divine Abodes (brahma-viharas) are:
These Four Aspects of Buddha’s Love are characteristic of how the most highly realized beings, gods and archangels – that is, the entire “invisible array”, dwelling as if in the heights of Mt Olympus– this is how the supreme beings “see” and roll, with divine sight, and how they live, and breathe through us. They are part and parcel of how we cultivate and nourish our own spiritual heart, mind and emotions, refine our character– through wise actions, wise understanding and altruistic intentions, and self-giving such as thru the virtues of dana paramita and of Seva , selfless service including limitless giving unbound by expectation of return.
Mudita, sublime joy, is taught in Buddhism as a way of experiencing an inner source of infinite joy which is ever accessible. While this kind of empathetic joy is seen as being the most difficult, the most challenging of the brahmavihara (four divine abodes) to achieve, it can greatly enhance the life of anyone who cultivates it. Some say this is a rather unique contemplative practice of Buddhism, dating back to Buddha’s time, bringing one a share of goodness and positivity “simply by rejoicing in the merits and virtues of others”. Buddhist teachers often interpret mudita more broadly as “an inner spring of infinite joy that is available to everyone at all times, regardless of circumstances”. Joy is distinguished here from mere pleasure, elation, grasping and momentary happiness, and is more akin to delight, a lasting inner glow, lightness of being, inner fulfillment. The more deeply one drinks of this spring, the more securely one becomes in one’s own abundant happiness, and the more bountiful it becomes to relish the joy of other people. Mudita is a spontaneous and warm effervescence, which springs from integrity, authenticity and appreciation of the entire magical display. There is no self-and-other dichotomy in such manifestation– simply joy, infused with gratitude and equanimity.
The Four Boundless Heartitudes empower each other, ever nourishing and replenishing us and each other, reinforcing and highlighting our interbeing. Equanimity nourishes loving kindness, loving kindness nourishes compassion, compassion nourishes mudita’s sublime joy, and mudita nourishes equanimity and mutuality, thus equalizing us and them. Likewise, equanimity restores mudita, mudita restores compassion, compassion restores loving kindness and loving kindness restores equanimity.
While Mudita is said to be the most challenging of the Four Divine Abodes to practice and accomplish, LovingKindness the easiest and simplest, and Equanimity the second hardest to realize. The fourth, Compassion, or Compassionate Responsiveness, is cultivated through panacean practices of noble generosity, self-discipline, patience, joyous effort, meditation and wisdom.
In Tibetan Buddhism, as part of the Bodhichitta-developing section of the ngondro Foundational Practices of Vajrayana Buddhism, we chant 100,000 times each of the shlokas (four-line stanzas) that both express and inculcate in us these Four Sacred Virtues, Divine Abodes (brahma-viharas), while reflecting upon their significance, meaning and import. Besides elevating aspiration and strengthening our resolve, inner strength and fortitude; this exercise reconditions our more narrow-minded and hard-hearted, selfish tendencies and narcissistic habits and conditioning. Buddhist Dharma is not a self-help project or merely a matter of self-improvement; there’s no separate self, anyway, and it can’t be helped!
These remarkable Four Divine Abodes characterize Buddha Love. Ever accessible. Ever present. Boundless.
SarvaMangalam. May all beings enjoy peace, harmony and wellness.
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NOTE: Sarva Mangalam or May all beings be happy and well, the well-known loving kindness prayer or resolve we often hear today, is part of the four-line shloka, cultivating loving kindness, from the Metta Sutra (LovingKindness Scripture) said to be the historical teacher Buddha’s own words.
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