It may be a surprise for people to find out that joy is also a type of meditation or mental development in Buddhism. Many people wrongly conclude that Buddhism just teach people to be tranquil or spaced out. FAKE NEWS.😁

Yup! Joy is also our own emotional state and therefore our own responsibility. Buddhism teaches us how to develop joy.

Just as peace can be cultivated by meditation and chanting. Joy can also be cultivated.

In fact joy is also one of the mental state of a higher spiritual being.

However, it is important to note that in the Buddhist system, the practice must be built upon wisdom.

Foremost, joy should be built upon seeing wholesome happiness in others. That means we feel happy for others when they are in good time and in good condition.

For example feeling happy to learn that your son or daughter just get promoted. BUT WITHOUT ANY SELFISH INTENT!

If your thought is tainted then it doesn’t count, say ‘ oh yes! Promotion. More money. We can look forward to a sponsored family vacation to Europe….’ that is a tainted joy. Not as beneficial. Tainted by self interest.

So basically we learn to appreciate and rejoice the well beings of others.

Over time we learn to participate in the joy of others. Instead of feeling envious or jealous, we participate in their joy by being happy for them too.

On the other hand if someone is happy because they engage in unwholesome actions. Then we should not rejoice for them but have compassion towards them. That is because they are actually ‘suffering’ from ignorance.

Rejoicing in the merit of others also help us generate merits. (GOOD KARMA)

Especially when we rejoice upon seeing others engage in wholesome deeds. When we see people doing kind deeds, we should feel happy. Rejoicing the goodness in this world.

The Buddhist also believe that rejoicing in the spiritual effort of others and rejoicing the spiritual progress of others has positive impact on our own spiritual growth.

There you have it, we can be happy for the mundane and spiritual happiness of others.

We can also be happy when we witness a wholesome and meritorious deeds.

Once we start to train our mind in this manner, we will be more tuned in with the positivities surrounding us. We become happy at these positivities and will be attracted to positivities. We learn how to identify noble and wholesome happiness, then participate.

That’s the power of Buddhist mind training.

Let’s start this experiment. Try rejoicing at least once a day. See if there is any positive development in our mental state after 1 month.