Mudita (Sympathetic Joy)

The feeling of sympathetic joy at the success, welfare and prosperity of others is called mudita. In life, evil-minded people experience envy, jealousy, greed, etc., when someone gains popularity, promotion, wealth, education, status, position, etc. But noble-minded people, when seeing of hearing of such events, feel glad; they applaud the success of other people with sincerity. They reason like this: “Oh, they gain wealth, power, success and popularity because they have sown the seeds of good and noble actions (Kusala-kamma) in the past, and they are now reaping their due harvest”. This is true mudita.

False Mudita

False mudita means excessive joy and gladness at the well-being of one’s own relatives and friends. This gladness resembles mudita but actually it is a false one. Such extreme joy even to the point of tears, is known as piti-somanassa which is associated with tanha and lobha. But all such gladness and joy must not be taken as false, because they can be genuine mudita too.

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