Celebrating Presence: the Heart Practice of Mudita

The light of a candle is not diminished by the light of another candle. On our first daylong retreat of 2025, we will allow our candles to be lit by the light of another. Mudita is often translated as “sympathetic joy.” It’s known as one of the four brahmavihara or  “divine abodes” (the others are metta, compassion and equanimity). Each of the four contains the other, each weakens suffering, and more importantly each can be its own practice to break the bonds of identification that keep us in suffering. 

With mudita as our direction for the daylong, we will find a true home for the heart as it naturally expands to celebrate others. Expanding the heart outwards may at first appear at odds with a natural, spiritual inclination to withdraw inwards. The expectation that we liberate by withdrawing reinforces a false, solid sense of self. A simple orientation towards celebration helps us shift away from a perceptual filter as the owner and manager of suffering. We open a completely different way of being beyond self. While this process begins by using a self/other mode of perceiving and conceiving, the focus of this heart practice will melt away the self/other boundaries. One goal of this ancient practice is to “break  down the boundaries” between here and there, past and future, self and other. 

Mudita is also akin to the word for softness. It can do more; it liberates the self from a cluster of bindings, such as envy, pride, smallness, comparing mind, negativity bias etc., by highlighting the defensive strategies of the self which survive on habit. In such a way we align our hearts with the noble truths of suffering and its release. 

 In this practice, instead of spiritual bypassing, we expand the tools in our happiness toolbox and open in humility to a way of looking at suffering and clinging that is often too close to us for us to notice. We will practice mudita in line with both authenticity (awareness of suffering) and creativity (exploration of release), both available in this heart practice. During this inaugural weekend, we will bring care, compassion, softness and equanimity to suffering. Most of all we will celebrate each other on our daylong! 

The schedule: We will post schedules in the Vihara for your convenience. We will alternate 30-40 minute periods of silent sitting with walking meditation. The daylong will also include a short blessing chant by resident monks, a short dhamma talk, Q&A, and a late afternoon, dyad practice on our theme. 

What you can bring: Please bring a vegetarian potluck dish to share, for monks and all of us, and to ring in the New Year with sangha. You may also want to bring comfortable clothes, a shawl, extra cushion, water bottle, etc. Please reach out if you have any questions. 
 

A final word on the spirit of dana (generosity): Please be patient with yourself on your understanding of Buddhist dana. It can take years to fully embody this practice. It’s an opportunity (a gift to give), an attunement of mindfulness, not a payment, not a requirement for participation. I recommend attuning to three mental states: joy for the opportunity to give, clear equanimity while giving, and gratitude for having been offered the opportunity to give. If you’re experiencing  anything outside of joy, clarity and gratitude, it’s okay and normal. It’s common at first to give from guilt, excessive thinking, dissatisfaction at not giving more, please take a moment to pause, reflect and engage with joy, clarity and gratitude. You can go far with the cultivation of the mental practice of giving. Please read up on it and ask me a question!