Hello and welcome to another episode of There's a Word for That.
Where in just a few minutes each episode we'll uncover a word from somewhere in the world for a feeling you've likely had many times but never knew had a name.
And so without further ado.
Let's get right into it.
Have you ever heard a friend's or loved one's good news,
Like a promotion,
An engagement,
A win they weren't expecting,
And felt a genuine rush of joy for them,
With nothing else mixed in?
Emphasis here on the word genuine,
So no comparison,
No envy,
No Well,
I'm happy for them,
But what about me?
Just pure happiness on their behalf.
Well,
There's a word for that.
And it's called mudita.
M u d i t a Mudita It comes from Sanskrit.
And is genuinely ancient.
The concept appears in Hindu texts like the Vedas and the Upanishads.
And it was later integrated into Buddhist teachings too.
Sometimes other people's wins come with a little bit of conflict,
If we're being honest.
A flicker of comparison.
A tendency to measure their life against ours.
And mudita is the moment that conflict disappears and their joy simply becomes joy full stop.
With nothing of ours attached to it.
And what's interesting is how deliberately it's treated in the tradition that it comes from.
Mudita isn't just a nice feeling that happens to you.
Is considered something that can be practiced,
A discipline almost,
The same way patience or gratitude is.
Some Buddhist teachings place it alongside compassion and loving-kindness as one of the four qualities worth actively cultivating in ourselves.
And that's what makes a word like mudita so valuable.
It names something we don't always notice we're capable of.
Until someone we love succeeds,
And for once nothing in us flinches.
Perhaps someone has felt mudita looking at you,
Delighted by something good that happened in your life.
Or maybe you felt it yourself,
And now you finally have a word for it.
Mudita Thank you very much for listening,
And until next time,
Take care.
