The Brahmaviharas: Unselfish Joy

People often believe that Buddhism focuses on suffering and all the depressing things about life. Even if that were true, the fourth Brahmavihara clearly balances out the picture a little better.  Mudita, sometimes translated as empathetic or unselfish joy, focuses on how we can share in the joy that is all around us.

Some writers think that mudita is a foundational aspect of the Brahmaviharas - that it's difficult to feel compassion or loving-kindness toward someone until you can first find something you appreciate about them. I tend to think that it's actually the hardest of the four, because it's the one we have the least practice with. Most people already have lots of experience with feeling loving towards others, including starting with little of that feeling and watching it grow over time.  We have lots of experience sharing other people's sorrows and feeling some compassion for them. I think that most people have far less experience sharing someone else's joy without feeling competitive, envious, or jealous.

Many years ago I went to a university department faculty function and was asked by one of the main faculty members what was new? I had just been invited to edit a book by a publisher, and that was what was new, so that's what I told her. She said, "Well, the only reason they asked you is because they couldn't get someone good."

I thought this was a pretty funny response. Despite the fact that my success was actually good for the whole department (and therefore also good for her), she couldn't share in the joy. I don't know if she was threatened, or jealous, or what, but this response was a classic example of what we usually do when we hear about someone else's good fortune--we turn it around and look at it from our own limited perspective. We make it about us, even though it's clearly not about us - it's about the other person.

Mudita is often referred to as an antidote to envy, jealousy, competition, or resentment. So when you are feeling one of those types of emotions, we can try to do a mudita meditation to reduce it. The traditional phrase to offer is "May your joy and good fortune not diminish," or "May this good fortune continue, return, and increase." Traditionally we would start by offering this to a friend, remembering a time when that friend got something he/she really was hoping for, and then offering the phrase. After this, you can extend the offering to a loved one, a neutral person, a difficult person, and all beings.

Although the traditional meditation practice doesn't usually begin with focusing on the self like many of the other Brahmavihara practices do, there are practices to help us begin to find joy without feeling competitive or envious. One is to find the joy in all the little things that happen in a day that we tend to overlook. Children are an excellent teacher for mudita. Everything they are doing is so interesting and joyful to them that we call it "play." It's really nothing more than them living their lives, but because they approach it with joy in the execution we soon differentiate it from "work." Yet, what is the difference?

This is training we can do all day long - train to notice that almost whatever we're doing has some joyful aspect to it. The key is to be present, fully connected with whatever is happening in this moment and noticing the details of ordinary life. We have the opportunity to rejoice as we take care of ordinary things: our dishes, our clothing, our work, our hair. When we are taking care of something that needs care, we can express appreciation for all of the things that have come together to make it possible. To take out the garbage, for example, means that you had enough money to buy the things that you enjoyed before throwing the useless parts away, and that you are healthy enough to carry the bag out to the garbage can. These are no small joys.

Pema Chodron says (in The Places that Scare You, p. 85), “Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world. We can do this even at the most difficult moments. Everything we see, hear, taste, and smell has the power to strengthen and uplift us.” This is the first stage in learning joy – learning to practice seeing it in our daily lives. This stage is made greatly difficult because we have years of practicing doing the opposite – complaining about every little problem.

The French writer Collette said, “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.”

Mudita uncovers the truth of our abundance. 


In the Mangala Sutta, the Buddha is asked what the greatest blessing in the world is. This sutra is funny because it's almost like he couldn't make up his mind. He lists about 37 different things and says they're all the greatest blessing! I think this is the truth...we are blessed in so many directions (family, home, skills, friends, values, etc.) that we don't even notice them.

It is certainly possible that as we practice the four divine abodes that we feel ourselves rebelling – why should I be sending all this joy, compassion, and love toward other people when I need it so much for myself? This is misplaced selfishness, because it is through cultivating these that you will receive them, and mudita is the clearest example of that. As I noted in a previous post, we expect and want others to "make" us happy, which is generally inappropriate. Other people can make you happy – when they are happy, you can share in it. You don’t need to manufacture your own happiness or theirs…just allow their happiness to pervade you. 

Whenever some happiness comes to others, you don’t need to feel it the same way they do. You can just be glad that a ray of joy has pierced their life at this time, especially when we all struggle in so many aspects of our lives.

Sharon Salzberg notes several challenges to mudita in her book Loving-Kindness : Judging, comparing, prejudice, demeaning or belittling, envy, greed, and boredom.  We might recognize a need for mudita when we find ourselves criticizing or feeling resentment. Criticism is often an expression of jealousy. Jealousy is an expression of insufficiency.  We tend to cover that neediness with criticism, sarcasm, snarkiness.  Another way we may notice the lack of mudita is that it creates a sense of territorialism.

Salzberg also notes how mudita helps us to not be overwhelmed by the sadness of compassion. “Compassion balances sympathetic joy and keeps it from degenerating into sentimentality or ignorant optimism. Mudita keeps compassion from degenerating into brooding over the enormous breadth, depth, and duration of suffering in the world. It gives solace to the compassionate so that we do not feel flooded or overwhelmed by pain…. And because mudita energizes us, it also helps compassion to be active. We can take the joy of mudita and use it to help translate our inner experience of compassion into an outward act of service in the world.” (p. 132)

Ultimately, each of the four Brahmaviharas are balanced by and need the others.

The Brahmaviharas: Equanimity

Meditation sometimes gets discussed as if it can fix everything.  One reason this is inappropriate is because each meditation technique focuses on specific goals.  If we desire full enlightenment (which I define as being able to live in one's life fully), most of us need to use multiple techniques.  As described previously, Mindfulness Meditation focuses primarily on familiarizing ourselves with our minds.  Once we've achieved some measure of stability, tranquility, and clarity through Mindfulness Meditation, we can be more effective using meditation techniques that focus on cultivating some positive aspects of ourselves.  In this post, we begin discussing Brahmaviharas, or the Four Heavenly Abodes, the Four Immeasurables, or any of about a dozen other translations into English, all of which basically mean that these are four qualities that help us live with a sense of peace, well-being, and joy.

These are four qualities we already have, at least some of the time.  The goal is to cultivate them through a number of meditation practices, and they help to change our habitual reactions to be more open and caring, as well as providing antidotes to difficult emotions.  Specifically, the four are:

• Metta: Loving-kindness - the antidote for selfishness, anger, fear, and negativity.
• Karuna: Compassion - the antidote for frustration and hatred.
• Mudita: Empathetic joy - the antidote for envy, jealousy, and resentment.
• Upeksha: Equanimity - the antidote for both clinging attachment and aversion.

Traditionally these are taught in approximately this order, but I like to start with equanimity, because (1) it is the hardest, and (2) it is necessary for the other three.

By Equanimity, I mean the sense of freedom and balance when we're not reacting to things and wishing they were different.  There are several common questions and misunderstandings about it, however, that should be addressed:

1. Is this the same as being resigned or indifferent?  There is real social injustice in the world, and I don't feel like I should just accept that.
• No, it is not resigning yourself or withdrawing.  There is indeed real injustice, and equanimity means first accepting that it exists.  Then the goal is to be alert for it, being mindful.  This will allow you to see when there is an opportunity to take some action to help.  But once you've taken the action you can do at the moment, then you have to let go of needing a particular outcome.  If you hold on too tightly to your desire for one outcome, then you'll likely miss the next opportunity to take action.
2. Once I achieve equanimity, does that mean that everything is smooth and easy?
• Bad news - No it doesn't.  We'll still have troubles and traumas in our lives.The difference is that we can be fully engaged with them, being completely alive, rather than trying not to experience what we're really experiencing.  This ironically allows us to not be overwhelmed by them.
3. What about when people do harmful things to me?  How can I have equanimity about that?
• A common misunderstanding of equanimity is that it means that we're supposed to adopt an attitude that "It's all good."  No, it bloody well is not!  People do terrible things sometimes.  Evil actions happen.  It is definitely not all good.  When someone is harmful to you, equanimity means that you get angry, you feel your hurt, and then you take some action to try to help the situation.  That might mean you get away from that person.  It means you don't spend your time blaming the perpetrator, nor do you blame yourself.  You understand that bad things happen all the time to all people, and that you can use this opportunity to connect with the pain that all beings feel.  But don't just keep being a doormat. As Thanissaro Bhikku notes, "There's a passage in which the Buddha taught the monks a chant for spreading goodwill to all snakes and other things....Strikingly, the chant concludes with the sentence, 'May the beings depart.'  This reflects the truth that living together is often difficult.

We usually get too caught up in our stories about things, or by wanting to control things, or by wanting only one specific outcome, that we fail to realize that things are really ok most of the time, even when we’re not getting what we want. 

Pema Chodron relates the story about the Zen master who, whenever asked by his students how he was, would respond, “I’m okay.”  Finally one student said, “Roshi, how can you always be okay?  Don’t you ever have a bad day?”  The Zen master answered, “Sure I do.  On bad days, I’m okay.  On good days, I’m also okay.”  We usually get so caught by the detail of whatever specific good feeling or bad feeling that we miss this broader truth that we’re actually basically okay right now.

There’s a Pali term, papañca, that means complication, proliferation, objectification (See the Madhupindika Sutta for details).  It is the tendency of the mind to proliferate thought after thought, to spin out the story.  This takes away our equanimity.  What should we do instead? In the moment that we notice that we’re caught, we can start by naming what’s going on.  Then after loosening the hold the thoughts have on us by recognizing them as thoughts, notice how it feels in the body.  This sounds simple, but what often happens when we try?  We get pulled away by papanca, because we are stuck in the trance of wanting to control experiences rather than just feeling them.  We feel that thinking about something gives us control.  We have practiced this so much that we believe it.  

One approach to helping to overcome this is a useful phrase:  Real, but not True.

You can work with this phrase both in meditation and in your daily life as soon as you start having a reaction to something.  What you are feeling is real.  The story that you are proliferating about it ("I don't deserve this! I can't believe you would say something like that! That person is a jerk!" etc...) is not True.  We have such a limited view on the world, that nothing we think about it can accurately represent what was really happening. Our perspective is real, but not true.  In meditation, you can bring to mind a difficult situation, focusing on the feeling you had, the series of thoughts you have about it, the story that you like to tell yourself about it. Focus on this until you can actually feel in your body the emotional reaction you have to it.  Then notice that the feelings you are having right now are real, but none of the story is accurate at this moment.  None of it is happening now.  The minute that we begin to create a story and make judgments, we solidify what is in reality a constantly shifting and changing set of feelings, thoughts, circumstances, causes, conditions, etc. What is happening to you now is caused by the vast set of interconnected causes and conditions, what Buddhists refer to as Dependent Arising. 

As noted in this post about how we view our "self," we have a very limited idea of what our self is.  We usually only consider voluntary actions of which we're conscious to be our selves.  Therefore, almost everything in our experience "happens to us," rather than the more accurate description that we are happening.  We don't even feel our body is ourself, that we are beating our hearts.  We see our lives as if we are rushing around, bumping into various semi-random experiences, having conflict with some of them, going along with others.  Alan Watts noted that if we looked into our bodies with a microscope, what would we see?  We would see lots of individual cells and proteins, rushing around, bumping into each other, fighting with each other, etc.  But at our normal level of perception, our body is working as a remarkably harmonious whole.  So, which level of magnification is right?

This is another way to cultivate equanimity.  Our normal level of perception of our lives is similar to that of our cells under a microscope.  We perceive our lives to be full of difficulty and conflict and stress.  At a broader level of perception, however, we're getting along remarkably harmoniously with each other and the world.

Consciousness evolved like a radar system, constantly looking out for trouble.  It therefore pays little attention to the things that are constant or that are generally going well.  We scan the environment, but only pay attention to what we think is likely to be trouble.  Constants are generally safe.  We therefore focus on the negatives, and in fact, we make so much of it that we come to identify our selves with the radar system.

But you are more than this scanning system.  You are in constantly shifting relationships with the external world that are, on the whole, extremely harmonious.  Our happiness is not dependent on things being just one certain way.  Once we cultivate this view, then we are free to be happy with all of our life.

One classical way to train in equanimity is to meditate on the phrase, "All beings are inheritors of their own karma.  Their happiness or suffering depend on their actions, not on my wishes for them" or any of several other similar phrases. Traditionally it would go through seven steps, first focusing on a neutral person, then a benefactor (someone who has helped you in the past), then a loved one, then someone with whom you have difficulty, then yourself, then all five of you together (neutral, benefactor, friend, enemy, self), then all sentient beings.

The goal of these types of practices is to learn to be able to sit in balance, being able to participate in all aspects of your life without being overwhelmed, and therefore able to take appropriate action when there is a chance. Sound like something you want? It just takes years of practice, that's all.  

Mudita and the Angry Itch

It's a real burden to want to be happy all the time.  In fact, it's such a burden that we often think others should help us to shoulder it - we look to others to "make" us happy, which is a Sisyphean task (at best). Not only that, but it's a thankless task, because we feel so entitled to be happy that when others "make" us happy, we take it for granted.  It can easily be the case that we only tell others about it when they're not making us happy - this is our angry itch.

With this mindset of expecting others to make us happy and punishing them when we're unhappy, it's no surprise that it's such a burden and that repeated scratching doesn't really ease the itch.  We become the cruel taskmasters of others' impossible tasks.

The real shame is that others can make us happy easily, without our micro-management or prodding.  All we need to do is cultivate mudita, sometimes translated as empathetic joy.  It is the opposite of schadenfreude (taking pleasure in others' suffering).  Instead, we take pleasure in others' successes, happiness, good fortune, and enjoyment.  

Parents may understand this perhaps more easily than non-parents, because we have so many opportunities to witness our child's joy in something in a way that cuts through our frustrations.  I may want to leave the park and get on with what I think I should be doing, but seeing my daughter's delight at finding a rock in the sand cuts through my preoccupations and shows me the joy in each moment.

It is significant that the four divine abodes (lovingkindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity) are considered to be antidotes to three poisons (plus one).  Cultivating lovingkindness toward others counteracts irritation and aggression. Cultivating compassion toward others counteracts indifference.  Cultivating empathetic joy counteracts greediness and jealousy.  Cultivating equanimity counteracts worry about the past and future.

At some points in our path, we can have a very selfish attitude toward the four divine abodes.  "Why should I spend so much energy trying to feel good about others when I have so much work to do on myself first?"   This attitude is misplaced selfishness - it's trying to scratch the angry itch that we can't really reach.  If we truly wanted to be successfully selfish, meditating on lovingkindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity will help us to feel better about ourselves.  Specific to mudita, if we learn to feel and share in others' joys, we then have many people helping us to feel happy, and they are doing it without our making them feel they should!  It's like the students who park outside my house to "share" my wireless internet connection (because I don't password protect it).  They get what they want just by being near someone who has it.  You can be happy just by sharing in the happiness that is going on all around you all day.  Finally, that itch can be scratched, and no one has to work to reach it!

This post originally appeared on the Inderdependence Project blog.