The Wellspring of Joy

Envy may seem to be human nature, but deeper still is mudita, the innate delight in the well-being of others.

By Anne Cushman

Flipping through the San Francisco Chronicle not long ago, I came across a glowing review of a collection of short stories called Yoga Hotel, which recounts the fictional adventures of expatriates traveling in India. As a writer and yoga student who has traveled extensively through the sacred sites of India myself, I'm embarrassed to report that my immediate, wholly unenlightened reaction was, Damn! Why didn't I write that book?

Responding to the good fortune of others with envy is a natural—if not particularly laudable—human characteristic. It's as if we're hardwired to believe that there's only so much happiness to go around and that if someone else gets too big a chunk of it, there won't be any left for us.

If you keep your eyes open, it's not difficult to see this habit in action—in yourself and others. When your lover has just dumped you, probably the last thing you want to do is go to a wedding. A good friend of mine—a yogi who has been practicing for more than 20 years—recently told me how hard he finds it to look around a yoga class and see younger practitioners melting effortlessly into poses that elude him. And writer Anne Lamott describes how difficult it is to deal with the triumphs of other writers, particularly if one of them happens to be a friend. "It can wreak just the tiniest bit of havoc with your self-esteem to find that you are hoping for small, bad things to happen to this friend," she says, "for, say, her head to blow up."

Fortunately, this competitive reflex is not an expression of our deepest nature but a conditioned habit that can yield to another, more satisfying way of being. Instead of envying others, we can cultivate our innate quality of mudita, or "joy"—a boundless capacity to savor life's blessings, regardless of whether they're showered on us or on other people.

During a rainy retreat in Dharamsala, India, I heard the Dalai Lama—someone who radiates joy, despite the horrors he has lived through—explain the benefits of cultivating mudita. "It's only logical," he said with an infectious giggle, looking out at the maroon-robed monks huddled under umbrellas in the temple courtyard. "If I am only happy for myself, many fewer chances for happiness. If I am happy when good things happen to other people, billions more chances to be happy!"

Drinking from the Fountain

In buddhist philosophy, mudita is the third of the four brahmaviharas, the inner "divine abodes" of lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity that are every human being's true nature. The term mudita is often narrowly translated as "sympathetic" or "altruistic" joy, the pleasure that comes when we delight in other people's well-being rather than begrudge it. But since in practice, it's all but impossible to experience happiness for others unless we first develop the capacity to taste it in our own lives, many Buddhist teachers interpret mudita more broadly as referring to the inner fountain of infinite joy that is available to each of us at all times, regardless of our circumstances. The more deeply we drink from this fountain, the more secure we become in our own abundant happiness, and the easier it then becomes for us to relish the joy of other people as well.

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