Join the joy
please.
take a bite
a sip of tea.

Celebrating
at a distance
a friends…
achievement.

Join the joy
YES!
open heart
soft mind.

Ah but what of envy and jealousy? Of cold heavy bitterness when others achieve. Disappointment. Diminished. Loss of confidence. Recognition from ones community, hopes dashed. The list goes on does it not. All emotions and thoughts non of us escape at some time or another yet not emotions and thoughts that can easily be shared. What to do? Well join the joy, the others joy.

There is a teaching in Buddhism. Mudita – sympathetic joy, happiness at the achievements of others with no self-interest. One can have sympathy, join in, with another’s happiness just as much as with sadness and suffering.

So, go on, take a bite of that lovely fruit scone with lots of butter and sweet jam which I enjoyed with my distant friend the other day. Take a sip of tea, Earl Grey. Enjoy.

Hum. I wonder if I’d have written this had I been suffering at the news of my friends achievement. Well, some years ago I cried wet tears into my keyboard as I wrote to a fellow monk telling of my utter grief at being overlooked, overtaken. passed by. We say that the ‘sweet dew covers the whole earth’. And so it does. Open Heart, soft mind.