In Buddhism there is a concept called "empathetic joy." Empathy is the ability to experience what someone else experiences, to "put yourself in someone else's shoes," so to speak. I've been thinking a lot about this lately and was inspired by a chapter about it in Sharon Salzburg's book Lovingkindness. She describes empathetic joy as essentially the antidote to feelings of envy, inadequacy, and low self-worth, all products of the human tendency is to compare ourselves to others. Am I better than this or that? A lot of energy goes into keeping up a certain level of status in our own minds.
Envy is not a pretty emotion, so we either try to hide it away and it eats at us, or we become negative, resentful, unpleasant human beings. People envy all kinds of things~ other peoples' homes, their looks, their good relationships, their jobs, their happiness. It can lead people to feel badly when others are doing well, and feel good when things go poorly for others, as if this changes our situation at all.
Empathetic joy is a practice of being open to these feelings when they come up, and beginning to allow true joy for others into our hearts. There are a couple reasons this would be beneficial. For one, it can counter the powerful negative emotions of envy and resentment. It can create a genuine gladness for friends, strangers, even enemies. I think of it like this, there is so much suffering in the world, if there is anyone experiencing joy, success, peace or happiness, we have reason to rejoice. (Why don't non-profits ever send out pictures of people laughing along with those pictures of poor children?)
I have been practicing cultivating empathetic joy for a few months, and I do see a difference in the way I feel toward others and myself. Sometimes what used to arise as resentment and self-loathing now has a quality of deep yearning. (Yearning is a much easier feeling than resentment and self-loathing, so it's a start.) I can be informed by this yearning: What is it about another person's life that has triggered yearning? Is there something I can learn about what I need? If yes, mental note, if no, I can release the need to chase something that is not genuinely what I need.
Sometimes, I just feel happy to be in the presence of someone who is feeling good. I can be happy that someone laughs, has a loving moment, has nice posessions, without feeling as though this means they're better than me, or thinking, "Why can't I?" This is not always easy... I still find it almost impossible to have empathetic joy if I'm feeling just miserable, or if something touches on a very deep and out-of-reach yearning. But I do like a good challenge.
We all have our own challenges and pleasures to encounter in this life. It seems we can only do our best to genuinely stand with each other through both the suffering and the joy.
