Be happy for others

• Some very good friends got engaged yesterday! This is soooo exciting!
• Found out today that a colleague also got engaged on Saturday. Lovely!
• M had a good holiday
• A is feeling happy and in control of her life again, she too had a great holiday recently
• K is preggers

by saying that this is “done” i don’t mean to imply that i’ve perfected the Buddhist art of “metta” Just that I’ve succeeded in starting my journey…

one never really finishes this, unless one becomes a realized being.

when someone shares their good news with me… and am working through my own anxieties about not having something by realizing that being happy for someone else is something that I truly want, within my self.

the more I practice this, the easier it gets.

also, the more i practice it, the more i realize that it doesn’t take away from me, from what i have, in order to be happy for others! quite the contrary.

I am happy for:
A – she’s lost a lot of weight and is looking and feeling great
M – she’s going on a fabulous holiday soon
AE – lots of people remembered her on her birthday
J – for finding a house

thanks to Zanna, I went on a webquest for the word Schadenfraude, and on the wikipedia page for that word, i found reference to its opposite, the Buddhist word Mudita

To show mudita is to celebrate happiness and achievement in others even when we are facing tragedy ourselves.

It also says:

Mudita is also traditionally regarded as the most difficult of the brahmaviharas to cultivate.

I find an odd comfort to read that this is indeed considered a difficult to cultivate virtue. That doesn’t mean I don’t wish to cultivate it… Just that it gives me encouragement that I am not bizarre in finding it difficult. Of course it makes it all the more important to instill in myself too.

Brahmaviharas are four virtues that Buddhists strive to cultivate:

1) loving-kindness or benevolence

2) compassion

3) sympathetic joy

4) equanimity

These virtues are also highly regarded by Buddhists as powerful antidotes to those negative mental states (non-virtues) like avarice, anger, pride and so on.

(all information in green is from Wikipedia)

that it can, at times, be surprisingly difficult to be genuinely happy for others, especially when things in one’s own life aren’t sorting themselves out the way that we feel they should be…

my sister once said that, in her experience, folks that can be counted on to “be there for you” when you’re down are not always around for you when things are just swell

I am all too human, and recognize this tendency in myself, and want to own up to it, and change it.

it’s not really jealousy, more of a “gee… that’s great, but why not me too?” feeling… more gentle than true jealousy.

but still… i want to work on this.