The Opposite of Schadenfreude | Election Sanity Series | Tuere Sala
This episode features Tuere Sala, a guiding teacher at Insight Seattle, discussing "sympathetic joy" or Mudita. She explains how to "borrow joy" from others' good fortune to cultivate an abundant sense of happiness and resilience, especially during challenging times like an election.
Deep Dive Analysis
16 Topic Outline
Introduction to Sympathetic Joy (Mudita)
Brahma Viharas: Cultivating Extraordinary Heart Qualities
Understanding 'Super Mundane' Powers in Buddhism
Defining Mudita: Borrowing Another Person's Joy
The Mechanism of Borrowing Joy: A Contact High
Expanding Joy Beyond Personal Circumstances
Benefits of Cultivating Mudita for Relationships and Well-being
Navigating the 'What About Me?' Impulse with Mudita
Joy as a Bridge to Calm and Peace in Meditation
Cultivating Joy to Engage with Difficult Practice States
Nuance in Accessing and Feeling Another's Joy
Mudita as Psycho-Spiritual Armor and Resilience
Applying Mudita in Political and Social Contexts
Sustaining Activism and Fighting Bitterness with Joy
Personal Story: Celibacy, Love, and Mudita
Handing Off to the Next Brahma Vihara: Equanimity
3 Key Concepts
Mudita (Sympathetic Joy)
Mudita is the practice of 'borrowing' another person's joy in their good fortune, rather than trying to force oneself to be joyful for them. It involves feeling their happiness as part of one's own present moment experience, akin to a 'contact high,' and is considered the opposite of schadenfreude.
Super Mundane Powers
In Buddhist history, 'super mundane' powers refer to the ability to cultivate profound heart qualities like friendliness for all beings or the capacity to let go of clinging. These are distinguished from 'mundane' powers (like alleged psychic abilities) because they are more achievable and offer true, lasting benefits for navigating life.
Joy as a Bridge in Practice
Joy is presented as a necessary bridge in meditation practice, enabling individuals to transition from effortful striving to more tranquil, peaceful, and gathered states of mind. It allows practitioners to stay with their practice even when experiencing difficult or averse emotional energies, fostering an interest in observing the mind without being controlled by it.
5 Questions Answered
Mudita is the practice of 'borrowing' another person's joy in their good fortune, allowing you to feel their happiness as part of your own present experience, rather than forcing yourself to be happy for them. It's considered the opposite of schadenfreude.
To borrow joy, identify people, situations, or circumstances that genuinely make you feel joy, regardless of your current personal conditions. Then, connect to the reality that millions of others share in that same joy, allowing yourself to vicariously feel their happiness.
Joy acts as a bridge in meditation, enabling practitioners to let go of striving and relax into tranquil, peaceful states. It also provides the necessary uplift to stay with practice even when experiencing anxious, irritable, or averse mind states, fostering an interest in observing them.
Mudita is not about feeling joy when political opponents prevail, but rather about cultivating an inner wellspring of joy and inspiration to sustain activism and engagement against social injustice. This joy provides the energy needed to fight for change without becoming burned out, bitter, or cynical.
Mudita helps by acknowledging the automatic 'what about me?' response as a normal human reaction, but then consciously shifting focus to the shared, abundant nature of joy. It allows one to connect to the joy others are feeling, recognizing that joy is not limited to one's personal circumstances.
10 Actionable Insights
1. Cultivate Sympathetic Joy
Actively practice sympathetic joy (Mudita), which is the opposite of schadenfreude, by celebrating others’ happiness rather than reveling in their suffering. This skill is massively useful, achievable, and helpful for navigating life’s challenges, reducing jealousy, increasing personal joy, and deepening relationships.
2. Systematically Borrow Others’ Joy
Adopt the practice of ‘borrowing joy’ by intentionally connecting with and feeling the happiness of others in their good fortune, rather than trying to be joyful for them. This systematic approach, like a ‘contact high,’ allows you to access joy beyond your own limited circumstances, making it an everyday experience.
3. Find Personal Doorways to Joy
Identify specific people, places, or circumstances that genuinely evoke joy in you, regardless of your current situation, and focus on borrowing joy from these sources. Avoid forcing joy in situations where you feel resentment or lack, as this will likely lead to misery rather than sympathetic joy.
4. Share Your Joy, Not News
When sharing positive experiences, focus on conveying how you feel about the good thing that happened to you, rather than just grandstanding about the event itself. This allows others to access your joy through Mudita, fostering connection and appreciation.
5. Acknowledge “What About Me?”
Recognize that the ‘what about me?’ or grasping mind is a normal, automatic human response to others’ good fortune. Do not get stuck in this impulse; instead, acknowledge it and then consciously seek the deeper capacity to feel the joy that the other person is experiencing.
6. Joy: Bridge for Meditation
Cultivate joy as a necessary bridge to achieve deeper states of peace, calm, and focus in meditation, especially when facing an anxious or averse mind. Joy enables you to let go of striving and relax into tranquility, preventing practice from becoming mundane or boring.
7. Generate Joy in Averse States
Develop the ability to generate joy from within your mind-heart system, even when meditating with an anxious, irritable, or worried mind. This internal joy, cultivated through practices like borrowing joy, allows you to stay with your practice and explore difficult states with interest and warmth, rather than being owned by them.
8. Balance Anger with Joy
When engaging in social action or facing injustice, balance the motivating energy of anger with joy to maintain steadiness and prevent burnout, bitterness, or cynicism. Cultivate joy and laughter, like civil rights activists singing to the rafters, to provide the inspiration and resilience needed to persist day after day.
9. Practice Metta with Difficult States
Apply loving-kindness (Metta) to difficult mind states like worry, treating them with friendliness and warmth. This approach allows you to stay with and understand the conditions of worry, contributing to a sense of ‘I got this’ and preventing difficult emotions from overwhelming your practice.
10. Recognize Joy’s Abundance
Understand that joy is abundant and always present in the world, as someone, somewhere, is always experiencing a joyous state. By learning to feel and connect with others’ joy, you can access this universal abundance and integrate it into your own experience.
6 Key Quotes
My definition is, for Mudita, is that you borrow another person's joy in their good fortune. You're borrowing their joy rather than getting caught up in trying to be joyful for their good fortune.
Tuere Sala
This is like a systematic way of getting a contact high.
Dan Harris
It is impossible to be around somebody full of joy without feeling joy also. It's contagious.
Tuere Sala
The more you learn to borrow joy, the more joy you have. And there's the decrease, hopefully over time, of the kind of suffering that we all feel if we happen to embrace that old expression, every time a friend of mine succeeds, I die a little bit.
Dan Harris
Suffering can kill us. It's not a joke. It can kill us. It can dissolve us into such a level of bitterness and cynicism that we, you know, depression is a killer, basically.
Tuere Sala
Anger can burn us if we don't have it balanced with joy to keep us steady, upright.
Tuere Sala
1 Protocols
Cultivating Borrowed Joy
Tuere Sala- Identify specific places, people, or circumstances that genuinely bring you joy, regardless of your current personal situation (e.g., romantic love, artistic expression, reading poetry, shared conversations).
- Connect to the reality that millions of other people are currently experiencing or sharing in that same joy.
- Allow yourself to vicariously share that joy, feeling it as a part of your own present moment experience, like a 'contact high.'
- Use this cultivated joy to build resilience, combat bitterness and cynicism, and sustain your energy for facing life's difficulties and engaging in social action.