Appreciation

PART TWO: Boot Camp (cont’d). Read Chapter 1 here.

The Next Quality of the Heart is Appreciative or Sympathetic Joy

So much of our mental suffering is caused by the comparing and judging aspect of our minds—that part of us which feels jealousy. When someone else is happy or successful, we tend to feel angry or threatened due to our self-centeredness. Someone once said, “There is something not altogether displeasing about someone else’s failure,” and it is true. We often think, “Better him than me.” That is the opposite of the feeling that the Buddha is talking about when he encourages us to be appreciative of other people’s success, to have the physical experience of taking pleasure in the happiness of others. Underneath our feelings of envy and jealousy lies a pure appreciation of the happiness in life. Cultivating that appreciation, bringing it out from its hiddenness, is a difficult but necessary aspect of the spiritual path of rebellion.

Appreciation balances compassion: we must acknowledge both the joys and sorrows in life

If we get too focused on the sorrows in the world, we will drown in the depths of suffering. The practice of appreciation allows us to acknowledge the goodness and pleasure that exist side by side with the sorrows.

There is a Chinese Buddhist saying that affirms, “Life is made up of ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows.” Compassion and appreciation are the only wise responses to those joys and sorrows.

Noah Levine Dharma Talk: Appreciation | Muditā

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