Mudita Journal

On the Definition of Mudita

December 31, 2002 · Filed under: Buddhism, Intellectual
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Diana Hsieh posts a link to Mudita Journal, with a question about my definition of mudita (as “sympathetic joy” or “happiness at another’s good fortune”). Her question is a good one, and prompts me to modify the definition slightly in my original explanation of the word “mudita.”

Diana writes:

…I must admit to philosophical quibbles with the term “fortune” in the definition, given its intimate connection to chance and luck rather than planning and effort. So a question for Josh: Does mudita primarily refer to success by chance or to success in general?”

The concept of mudita doesn’t have any formal link to success-by-chance. Nor, however, does it have any formal link to success-through-effort. Rather, it is neutral. As I understand it, Mudita can refer even to the feelings of joy that arise from gazing upon a thriving plant, for which the notion of volitional effort is inapplicable. So, it is sympathetic joy in the general sense: a shared appreciation for another’s success in life.

I’ve done some research around the net to investigate the accepted usage of the word by practicing Buddhists. The philosophical quality of the writings on this subject (as with most Buddhist writings, in my experience) is inconsistent. But below are the excerpts that I found most helpful in clarifying the accepted meaning of the word.

Eileen Siriwardhana, in an essay that has been reproduced in a number of places around the net, writes the following:

Mudita means appreciative joy at the success and good fortune of others. Evaluation of achievement is a precursor to mudita, and appreciation a component of mudita. Seeing the good in others and learning to recognize and admire what good there is, is what mudita tacitly implies. Laughter and exhilaration are not characteristics of mudita. Mudita is joy and appreciation flowing quietly out of the core of one’s heart towards others like the waters from a spring flowing outwards from the bowels of the earth. Spontaneous and sincere participation in another’s glorious hour is possible only when the quality of mudita is developed to its fullest.

Genuine joy in the prosperity of others is indeed a rare quality. The virtue of mudita may be best noticed at work in the joy of parents over the success of their offspring, and in the genuine ecstasy of teachers over the success of their pupils, particularly in the latter situation when the threat of the younger eclipsing the older is always imminent. While it is easy to practice mudita within the narrow circle of one’s family and friends, to identify oneself with the joys and triumphs of outsiders requires deliberate effort. Yet the capacity for doing so is rooted in man’s nature. Smiling faces of adults make children respond readily with their own smiles. This potential in the child should be nurtured and activated by parents and educationists. For the seed of mudita planted early in a child will grow and blossom and bear fruit in his adolescence and in his adult life. To some extent, man is a product of his environment — with this in mind, adults, parents, teachers and wardens who handle children should be of a cheerful disposition and an appreciative nature.

In the balance of her essay, she give considerable space to the importance of cultivating such positive qualities in children. Oddly, she also exhorts: “Let the fertile woman not look down upon her less fortunate sister who is denied the great joy of motherhood. Let not the one endowed with beauty scorn her plain-looking sister. Let not the wealthy insult the poor.” I say “oddly” because this is actually the converse of mudita; the true spirit of mudita says, “Let not the poor insult the wealthy”—which is perhaps a more radical and useful thing to be telling people today. (But, to be fair, she makes her statement in the context of discussing “enemies of mudita,” among which scorn for the less fortunate certainly belongs.)

Another site defines mudita as follows:

Mudita means appreciation of, or congratulation upon or delight in the success of others.

And a Burmese book titled Abhidhamma in Daily Life provides the following definition of mudita:

MUDITA (SYMPATHETIC JOY)

The feeling of sympathetic joy at the success, welfare and prosperity of others is called mudita. In life, evil-minded people experience envy, jealousy, greed, etc. when someone gains popularity, promotion, wealthy, education, status, position, etc. but noble-minded people, when seeing or hearing of such events, feel glad; they applaud the success of other people with sincerity. They reason life this: “Oh, they gain wealth, power and success and popularity because they have sown the seeds of kusala-kamma, good and noble actions in the past, and now they are reaping their due harvest.” This is true mudita.

False Mudita

False mudita means excessive joy and gladness at the well-being of one’s own relatives and friends. This gladness resembles mudita but actually it is a false one. Such extreme joy even to the point of tears, is known as piti somanassa which is associated with tanha and lobha. But all such gladness and joy must not be taken as false, because there can be genuine muditas too.

The above passage suggests, among other things, that mudita results from an understanding of kharmic (or “kamma,” above) laws. Based on what I’ve seen, “kharma” can mean anything from (something close to) the law of causality, to a kind of mysterious “invisible hand” in nature. Make what you like of kharma, but the word “mudita” hardly suffers when removed from the context of Eastern metaphysics. Mudita is clearly intended to describe a state of mind, not a type of causality.

Another site with a hodge-podge of information from the Theravadan school of Buddhism provides the following quote, summarizing the similarities and differences among the four Brahma Viharas, or “highest emotions” in the Buddha’s teachings:

Metta ["lovingkindness"] embraces all beings
Karuna ["compassion"] embraces all those who suffer
Mudita ["sympathetic joy"] embraces the prosperous
Upekkha ["equanimity"] embraces the good, bad, loved and unloved, pleasant and unpleasant. [Vism. 318]

Just to clarify, I’m not here to commend (or condemn) the other three Brahma Viharas; I have not studied them in any particular depth, although I intend to at some point. But the concept of mudita certainly deserves wider appreciation and practice than it currently receives, and that is one reason why I chose it as the title of my journal.

Soon, I will write a brief essay explaining my own understanding of what it means to practice mudita, and how mudita is similar to and different from other healthy states of consciousness.

In any case, Diana makes a good point—that “fortune” generally implies the hand of fate or destiny, in contrast to the results of effort—and so I’ve updated my official definition of the word to reflect a more neutral notion of success: Mudita is “sympathetic joy” or “happiness at another’s success in life.” I thank Diana for pointing out this problem in the original definition.

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  • http://faustin.livejournal.com Kirez

    You already know how thrilled I am by your introducing me to this term. Perhaps I haven’t expressed how glad I am that mudita resonates so strongly for both of us. The concept — before I had a name for it — has come to mean a lot to me in the past few years. It’s something I’m glad we share.

    Regarding consternation over the term “fortune” — I initially thought this was hypersensitive:

    The relevant term which actually appeared in your original definition, if we adhere to communicated, vernacular meaning and suspend our philosophically-contentious prejudices, is “good fortune” — an idiom. What is relevant is not a theory about the sources and causes of goodness in life, but merely the recognition of auspiciousness, that the outcomes in someone’s life serve his well-being.

    Indeed, even if we admit our philosophical sophistication and engage in a conceptual analysis of the term, I think we’ll still arrive at this conclusion. The referents of good fortune are the life-serving, auspicious outcomes or conditions. You can leave your beliefs about their cause or source, at the door.

    If you are fortunate enough to encounter the man on the street who knows this emotion, mudita, he’ll know perfectly well what you mean by it when you describe it as happiness at another’s good fortune.

    But I see that ‘success in life’ is simple, concise, with the added value that it is more neutral regarding the source or cause of one’s well-being. I think it’s wonderful that this useful term can be explained so simply.

  • http://www.saint-andre.com/blog/ Peter Saint-Andre

    I like how mudita is the exact opposite of schadenfreude (“happiness at another’s misfortune”).

    BTW, have you ever read http://folk.uio.no/thomas/po/buddhists-and-objectivists.html? It’s an essay by a Theravada Buddhist about how Objectivism could complement Buddhist insights. I haven’t read much Buddhism myself (I’ve focused more on Taoism), although I did read “The Miracle of Mindfulness” a few years back.

    Looking forward to reading more in your weblog. :)

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