Joy

Joy (Skt. muditā; Pal. muditā; Tib. དགའ་བ་, gawa, Wyl. dga' ba) — the wish that living beings may remain happy and their happiness may increase further. One of the four immeasurables.

Commentaries

Longchenpa writes in Finding Comfort and Ease in the Nature of Mind:

Softened by compassion, train yourself to take delight

When others find their own respective joys.

The object of your focus will be beings who are happy,

The form your attitude will take will be to think,

“What joy! These beings have no need of me

To bring them to the state of happiness!

For, best of all, they found it for themselves!

From this day till they gain enlightenment,

May they never lose their joy and comfort!”

Begin with one, then train yourself until

You have included every being.

The sign of your proficiency will be

That, being joyful, you will have no envious jealousy.

Later, when you concentrate on joy,

You will be free of all conceptual reference.

Naturally you will be at peace

With bliss in body, speech, and mind.

As fruit you will have joy and steady wealth.

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche writes:

If we choose to cultivate sympathetic joy, we can simply associate ourselves with another person and, whatever good happens to them, rejoice and be happy as if it happened to us. With joy in your heart, take pleasure in the happiness, achievements, qualities and wealth of others. Appreciate them exactly as if they were yours!

By rejoicing, we can truly be on the side of virtue. To be on the side of virtue is to rejoice in it regardless of who performs the deeds. Virtue is rare these days, so when it occurs, it's wonderful to appreciate it and rejoice in it.

Rejoicing in others’ qualities is contagious; we will also want to have those qualities. In order to magnetize others’ good qualities, first be appreciative, rejoice in their qualities, and do not feel inferior.

In our current age, there is a great deal of competitiveness and feeling internally impoverished. Many people’s hearts lack richness. People feel squeezed. In the old days, having one gold coin made a person feel rich; nowadays, having a hundred gold coins does not make a person that rich. People feel that no matter how much wealth they have, it is not enough. This has something to do with the era and time. The feeling of impoverishment is strong in everyone’s psychological makeup. Perhaps this could be remedied by rejoicing. When you rejoice, you really feel like you have richness inside.