Cultivating Sympathetic Joy - Meditation & Writing

As a way to cultivate Sympathetic Joy (Mudita, in Sanskrit) you will first spend some time to reflect/meditate upon the various ways in you feel grateful in any given situation, even a difficult situation. Our task is to cultivate positive mind states by stopping throughout the day to consciously identify what we can appreciate in this moment. That might be sensory (warm, dry, at ease), people oriented (kind clerks, loving friends), conceptual (spiritual teachings, happy mind state) or 10,000 other possibilities.

We want to engage in Mudita practice as an investigation of what we can or are appreciating in this moment rather than as a way of suppressing or ignoring negative mind states. We want to broaden our awareness to consciously include and embrace what we appreciate and notice what effect that has. Do negative mind states drop away by themselves when we focus on what we appreciate? Does our habit or conditioning to notice and become obsessed with the negative change with Mudita practice?

For example if we find ourselves fuming in traffic and then add appreciation for all the drivers who are following traffic guidelines and all the people who built and paid for the road and who maintain it for our driving pleasure how does that change our experience of the drive home? How does that affect our interactions with people we encounter when we get out of our vehicle?

At the beginning of the swap start you will spend a week practicing cultivating Mudita, as described above. You will then have a few days to write a letter or notecard (perhaps with a joy theme) describing your experience with cultivating Mudita and mail it to your partner.

Since this is one letter to one partner postage should be inexpensive, so this is an international swap. Newbies are welcome, but please have a profile that has been filled out. I hope no one flakes, but I will angel if that happens.