Sympathetic Joy

This transformational practice begins with a comforting breathing practice. Lou invites you to focus on the present and appreciate the here and now. This practice will help you to stop comparing yourself with others and let go of feelings of jealousy and envy. By feeling a shared sense of joy for others good fortune, you will release emotional blockages that may be holding you back from your own success and happiness.

Transcript

And let's begin by finding our comfortable and clear meditation posture,

Whether you're sitting on a chair or a cushion,

Feeling the connection of your tailbone rooted down.

And from your tailbone finding a lengthening up through the sides of your waist,

And then a similar lengthening through the sides of your neck,

Allowing the ears to move back in space.

The jaws parallel to the floor,

And shoulders relax,

Belly relax.

Chest is broad,

Hands resting gently by your sides or on your thighs,

Allowing the weight of your body to sink in.

And starting to find your rhythm of your breath.

And we'll be watching the rise and fall of each inhale and exhale.

A lot of the meditations that I do on here,

I like to start us off with just a little bit of grounding and attention focus.

Because so much of the meditation,

The goal,

If there is not really a goal but more of a revealing to us,

Is that we increase our ability to pay attention,

To be less reactive.

And it's in the simple grounding,

The simple watching the rise and the fall of a breath that we practice this attention.

Take a few more moments to notice the feeling of the cool air from the room entering through the body,

Down the body.

And allowing all the warm air from your body to move out into the world.

With each inhale,

Feeling an expansive nature.

And with each exhale,

Allowing the body to ground down and further connect you with the ground and further connect you to be able to give this meditation your fullest.

And today we're going to be practicing sympathetic joy.

In the Buddhist tradition this practice is called Murita.

And the reason that this can be so powerful for us is that especially now with all the social media that we consume,

We can constantly be in a sense of comparing ourselves to others.

Or we can start to become jealous or envious of others success,

Thinking that their life is so much better than ours.

And this jealousy and envy is really a negative feeling that we're cultivating within ourselves.

And what it also does is it blocks the flow of energy of our own joy,

Of our own peace.

So this meditation is a way to reverse that,

To celebrate others rather than envy them.

And in that reversal we allow more of that into our own life.

So I'd like you to bring to mind someone that you know,

Maybe a friend,

Who is enjoying success in their work,

Happiness in their life,

Some sort of good fortune that you see.

And see if you can rest yourself in this feeling of being happy that they are happy.

Realizing what that success is and feeling that joy.

And what we're going to practice is giving them some words to increase this.

May your happiness and joy continue.

May it never leave you.

May it continue to grow and become more.

May you appreciate it.

I'm happy for you.

Just allow yourselves to maybe take one of those and really reaffirm to yourself and to this person celebrating in their joy and their success.

May it continue.

May it never leave you.

May you appreciate it.

A few more moments acknowledging this friend.

And then let's take a good conscious breath in and let it out.

And let's move now to a neutral person.

This might be someone that's neither a friend,

Maybe you don't really know this person that well,

Maybe it's someone that you follow on Instagram or Facebook or some sort of social media.

It can be a colleague that you've heard of but you don't really know.

Imagine someone that you see seems like they're having success and they're finding happiness,

They're finding peace,

They're joy.

And again,

Working on celebrating that with them.

Being happy that they're happy.

And continuing the mantra,

The affirmation.

May your happiness and joy continue.

May it never leave you.

May you continue to grow and to become more.

May you appreciate it.

I'm happy for you.

Let your heart open and repeat.

May your happiness and joy continue.

May you grow and may it become more.

May you appreciate it.

I'm happy for you.

And let's take a nice breath in and let all of that energy out.

Now I'm bringing to mind a difficult person whom you see that is having success or wealth.

If it's tough to think of someone that might be in a state of good fortune,

Then you can always use a more classical approach of simply wishing a difficult person their happiness.

I'm trying to find someone that brings up these feelings of jealousy or envy,

Knowing that we don't want to keep those feelings within us.

They don't serve us because they block us from seeing the unity of all of creation.

Think of this difficult person and again,

May your happiness and joy continue.

May it never leave you.

May it continue to grow and to become more.

May you appreciate it.

I'm happy for you.

Again going through maybe one of those and really feeling that feeling of joy and success that they might be feeling,

Sharing it with them.

And taking a breath in and out.

Giving it finally to all people,

All beings everywhere that are finding success and joy and celebrating the fact that that is happening to other people and wishing it for all people.

May your happiness and your joy continue.

May it never leave you.

May it continue to grow and to become more.

May you appreciate it.

I'm happy for you.

I am happy for you and take a few breaths to really breathe in what this feeling of joy is.

Breathing it in and then sending it out.

Cultivating all of the good energy that you've cultivated here in your chair,

On your cushion.

Sending that out for the benefit of all beings.

And taking a conscious breath in and letting it out.

And begin to come back into your body,

Back into the connection of your tailbone and your hands.

Maybe rolling out your shoulders if that feels okay.

And then whenever you feel complete,

You're always welcome to stay in that feeling of joy.

Slowly begin to open your eyes and come back into your room.

As always,

Namaste.

Reviews

Excellent!!!

A difficult meditation, so much to learn ! 🙏

Lovely meditation. Your words really resonated with me.

A gentle, helpful practice

Thank you, Lou! Great practice. I appreciated the grounding portion as a way to connect more deeply into the practice. The only thing I was subtly missing was wishing yourself the same joy and happiness that you wish others (similarly to the other four immeasurables). I added it for myself at the end of the practice at your suggestion to sit a little longer. I hope you can find the ability to wish that joy and happiness to yourself as well!

You’re exactly right, the initial grounding of awareness in the body allows for some remarkable revelations...

This is a profound practice that helped me to unpack everything that my subconscious mind is envious of, and then to not only see my own suffering in that, but also to see that that which I envy often is not even indicative of true happiness but rather a product of their own suffering.

Doing this now two days in a row, I’m already getting a taste of what sympathetic joy means to me. It’s my own desires and cravings I project onto others who I compare myself to that feeds the story that they have something I don’t. In fact, I came to remember I have everything I need. It is futile chasing and craving. And without judgment I am able to see how others are playing out the same cycle of chasing and then seeing the futility .... and then there’s a strong sense of connection rather than separation.

From this point, I see a strong link between mudita and Metta practices.

Thank you for this beautiful and humble meditation .

PS.. As a fellow instructor, I noticed that I compare myself to you and other teachers on insight app and that there resides some envy and strong judgment. It was excellent to catch that and incorporate it into my practice.

May you continue to enjoy the success and happiness and good fortune, brother. You’re a kind soul.

Outstanding! Great for our modern social media driven times. Very authentic and easygoing, very diffusing. I like what the instructor says about how envy/jealousy do not serve us and instead block our own joy. Good reminder on abundance without being preachy. Thank you!

Flowing through joy for people was so good. Nice soothing voice

Very much like a metta practice.

Thank you ao much for this gentle and powerful meditation!

Profound and simple, beautiful. I will return again and again to this meditation 🙏🏻

Forgive, and be grateful..