Scroll down for a transcription of this episode.
Buddhist meditation teacher, Anushka Fernandopulle, guides us through a practice of Mudita, or appreciative joy, to help us share in the happiness of others.
How To Do This Practice:
- Get comfortable and ground yourself: Sit comfortably, close your eyes if you’d like, and take a few deep breaths.
- Relax your body: As you exhale, release tension in your face, jaw, shoulders, and anywhere else you feel it.
- Think of someone whose happiness is easy to celebrate: Bring to mind a friend, child, pet, or anyone who is experiencing joy.
- Connect with their happiness: Imagine their joy and allow yourself to feel uplifted by their happiness.
- Offer them joyful wishes: Silently repeat: “May you always be happy. May your happiness increase. May your happiness continue. I’m happy for your happiness.”
- Expand your joy outward: Think of a group of people experiencing happiness, and practice sharing in their joy. Carry this mindset with you, noticing others’ happiness throughout your day instead of comparing or feeling jealous.
Today’s Happiness Break Guide:
Anushka Fernandopulle is a Buddhist meditation teacher and leadership coach.
Learn More about Anushka: https://www.anushkaf.org
Related Happiness Break episodes:
How to Awaken Joy, with Spring Washam: https://tinyurl.com/ybpuvuj6
The Unexpected Joy of Slow Looking: https://tinyurl.com/4uudwwc2
The Healing Power of Your Own Touch: https://tinyurl.com/rrtpje2x
Related Science of Happiness episodes:
How Joy Helps Save the Planet: https://tinyurl.com/2d5hjz9s
Are You Remembering the Good Times: https://tinyurl.com/ysbwrnr4
The Contagious Power of Compassion: https://tinyurl.com/y6bpvbv5
We’d love to hear about your experience with this practice! Share your thoughts at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.
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Transcription:
DACHER KELTNER: Welcome to Happiness Break, I’m Dacher Keltner.
You know each week we share a practice with the goal ultimately, of increasing happiness.
Yet it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that often, there’s happiness all around us – others’ happiness – and we can actually tap into that and feel good, too.
Just takes a little shift in our attention.
So today we’re turning our attention to joy – other people’s joys.
Studies show that, beyond just feeling good, the ability to feel this form of sympathetic joy has been linked to greater life satisfaction and happiness. And it may also make us more compassionate.
Buddhist meditation teacher Anushka Fernandopulle is going to guide us through a practice in Mudita which is this vicarious joy.
ANUSHKA FERNANDOPULLE: Hi, this is Anushka.
Find a place that is comfortable to sit down and if you feel safe and comfortable enough, you could gently close your eyes. Take a deep breath in, and as you exhale just allow yourself to get grounded in your connection to being here in this moment can feel yourself sitting.
Can take a deep breath in, and as you exhale, you can relax any tension there might be around your face, your jaw, your eyes, your shoulders.
In the Buddhist tradition, this is called Mudita. There's not even a good English translation, but the closest ones are appreciative joy or sympathetic joy. Basically being happy for someone else's happiness.
You can actually allow yourself to be buoyed up by that joy. You can take another deep breath in and as you exhale, just relax into being present here.
I want you to bring to mind someone who it's easy for you to be happy for this happiness. Could be a friend who's had a recent success, or it could even be a dog you've seen recently wagging its tail or a little kid laughing. So bring this image to mind or invite that person into your heart in some. Allow yourself to connect with their joy and happiness, and then we'll practice with some wishes for them. May you always be happy. May your happiness increase. May your happiness continue.
You can expand out to include groups of people who might be happy. It could be that there's a team that you've been rooting for that’s won their match. Could be a group of people you see playing together. Enjoying something together, picnicking. So just having a sense of them. May your happiness continue, may you always be happy. May your joy increase. I'm happy for your happiness.
So when you're ready, you can open your eyes, move your fingers and toes, and connect again to your surroundings. You can use this practice as you move out in the world when you see people being happy and instead of just walking by or instead of finding the opposite, coming up of jealousy. You can remember that you can connect with a sense of happiness at their happiness, and some of these phrases might help you connect with that.
So I hope this has been helpful for you and I wish you well. Thank you.
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