So we're going to do a meditation on mudita,
On empathetic joy,
One of the four brahma viharas,
The heavenly dwellings.
So go ahead and settle into your stable meditation posture,
Really sensing the weight of the body meeting your seat.
And from that grounded base,
Just as best you can,
Allowing the spine to line up and come into an upright position.
Seeing the area around the chest to just soften and widen for this open-hearted practice we're going to do.
And now bringing to mind some kind of image of someone's joy or some being experiencing happiness or ideally something simple,
You know,
Like the dog wagging its tail or a baby laughing,
Just bringing to mind some image of joy,
Wholesome joy.
And then beginning to observe whether you feel that joy.
Somewhere in the body,
Maybe it's a smile or a little twinkle in your eye or some kind of warmth in the belly,
Just observing whether you have some kind of sensation when thinking about someone else's joy.
And if you don't find it,
That's okay,
You can just stay with the image,
Just continue to contemplate the joy that you've seen.
But if you do find it in the body,
Then you can begin to gather that energy,
That beautiful energy of joy toward your heart center.
Sometimes you might even put your hand there right in the center of your chest.
And you can begin to use the breath,
The inhalation to brighten that energy so that it becomes like a light,
A light of joy.
Allowing each inhalation to brighten the light and then allowing that light to just naturally flow in all directions.
That's what it does.
It just goes in all directions.
So we're gonna brighten that light on the in-breath and we're gonna let it flow outward on the out-breath.
That light of empathetic joy.
Just getting a little brighter with each breath and flowing a little further with each breath.
Imagining that light getting brighter with the inhalation and flowing outward with each inhalation,
Exhalation.
And just returning to the image if you lose the thread.
And again finding the energy of it and allowing it to become bright.
Starting with the inhalation and flowing with the exhalation.
No need to strain or push in any way.
That light of joy just naturally immeasurable.
Imagining that light flowing in and flowing outward.
Light flowing in front of you.
Going boundlessly to the left of you.
Flowing behind you.
And flowing to the right of you.
And flowing up through your body and above you.
And down through your body and beneath you.
Unabstructed.
And that brings us to a close.
That was your practice of mudita,
Empathetic joy.
