The Art of Zen Living

Sympathetic Joy is the ability to be happy when other people are happy.  I know it’s a challenge for me.  Our culture is very competitive.  When we see someone succeed, or someone that is doing better than we are, it’s hard to think “Well, good for them!”. Reverand Kusala tells a story about sympathetic joy that I can really relate to.  He says sometimes, when we’re watching TV and we see the spot about the person that just won a million dollars, it’s hard to happy for that person.  Because I’m thinking “What if it had been me?  I could REALLY spend that money well.  That person is just going to blow it.  They’ll be broke in five years.  In debt, too!”.

That isn’t sympathetic joy.

That’s pretty much the opposite of sympathetic joy.  For most of us, it is the way our minds operate.

The Daili Lama makes an excellent point in favor of sympathetic joy.  He points out that if you can learn to be happy when someone else is happy, then you increase your own chance of happiness by a factor of 6.6 billion.  He’s saying that if you are willing to give up your own happiness, you will be happy anytime someone else is happy.  If you’re willing to give up your own success, you’ll be successful anytime anyone else is successful.

Wow.  Most cool.

This is also a really, really difficult level of spiritual practice to attain.  Watching my niece discover something new, the way her face lights up with unfiltered joy and amazement, my heart lights up with that same unfiltered joy and amazement.  I think we’ve all experienced, at some time, true sympathetic joy.  Can you imagine what an incredible place the world would be if you could feel that way no matter who you saw that was happy?

I’ve heard it said that Buddhism hasn’t done a very good job of changing the world.  I don’t think it’s designed to.  I think it’s designed to change those who practice it.  The premise is simple and profound: change your mind, change the world.  Not the physical world, but the world you live in.

Change your mind, change the world.  You can quote me on that.