Sympathetic Joy
Muditā
मुदिता
Sympathetic joy is the gladness that rises at another’s happiness or success as if it were one’s own.
Also known asAppreciative Joy / Empathetic Joy
Sympathetic joy is the gladness that rises at another’s happiness or success as if it were one’s own. It stands opposite to envy and comparison — the good of another becomes, without effort, one’s own delight.
It is one of the four attitudes taught in Yoga Sutra 1.33 — friendliness (maitrī), compassion (karuṇā), sympathetic joy (muditā) and equanimity (upekṣā) — directed respectively towards the happy, the suffering, the virtuous and the unvirtuous. Muditā is directed towards the virtuous, and quietly dissolves the envy that clouds the mind.
It is practised as the turning of comparison into gladness at the moment it arises, when one sees another practitioner progress. In class, creating an atmosphere in which everyone rejoices at what someone has newly found is itself the practice of muditā.
Convey that sympathetic joy is not produced by effort; it appears of itself when comparison loosens. Do not let students blame themselves for "not being able to rejoice" — noticing envy is already the entrance to practice. A teacher who visibly delights in the growth of other teachers and of students gives the strongest teaching of all.