Compassion and Appreciative Joy

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Compassion is the wish for all sentient beings to be free from suffering. It is the intention and capacity to relieve and transform suffering and lighten sorrows while countering cruelty. When a mother, for example, sees her son seriously ill, she will naturally moved by compassion and earnestly wish and act such that he may be free from suffering and sickness.

In the same way, most people have experienced the feeling of compassion upon seeing the suffering of a relative, a schoolmate or even a pet. To become a sublime state of mind, compassion has to reach beyond the limited group of individuals or beings whom one loves or cares for.

Compassion has to be extended to all sentient beings in all the realms of existence before it becomes an immeasurable.

Appreciative Joy is the wholesome attitude of rejoicing in the happiness and virtues of all sentient beings. It counters jealousy and makes people less self-centred.

Appreciative Joy may be experienced by a mother's joy at her son's success and happiness in life, in the same way, almost everyone will have at one time or another, experienced the feeling of joy at the good fortune of a friend. These are commonly experienced forms of Appreciative Joy.

When one meditates on Appreciative Joy and extends it to all sentient beings and not just to loved ones. Only then does one experiences Appreciative Joy as a sublime state of mind and as an immeasurable.

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