(Given on Asalha Puja, commemorating the occasion when the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths.) A lot of our practice is about squaring up to the first noble truth of suffering rather than wriggling away from it. Mindfulness of body provides a channel to open up to suffering, where it can be experienced in terms of energies rather than thoughts and emotions.
This is a guided meditation on the quality of appreciative joy, or mudita. There is also a short introduction on the role of appreciative joy in the four divine abidings (brahma vihares).
The practice of Mudita or Appreciative Joy cultivates an open and joyful heart that naturally inclines towards connecting with what is uplifting and beautiful in others and in our own lives. It works to counteract the subtle or not-so-subtle tendency towards envy, which tells us that we are deficient in some way.
