Our minds tend naturally toward critical thoughts, always on the lookout for what’s wrong and what can be fixed. This is often even more pronounced in relation to ourselves. The Buddha spoke about Mudita, or “appreciative joy”, as one of the core practices we can use to stabilize our reactive tendencies, but when it’s discussed it usually refers to cultivating appreciation for the joy of others, and not for happy experiences we have ourselves. The earliest Buddhist texts, however, give us a much more broad definition to this traditional antidote. This Sunday, Payton examined how we might make better use of Mudita as a living practice.
Payton played a short talk by Jill Shepherd to prime this discussion. You can listen to the talk here: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/66211/
Burlington Buddhist Sangha 