Sympathetic Joy is the word that's used. I didn't invent it. It seems to work. Having sympathy means we're feeling with others. To use just the word "joy"? Mmm, it has a lot of connotations, doesn't it? "Joy in Disneyland"; "Joy doing this"; "Joy doing that." Sympathetic Joy has a totally different connotation, so it seems to make sense. We're feeling sympathy, we're sharing with others, we're feeling with something they're doing that's very good, and we're having joy from it. It seems to be a nice word to fit in here.
Cultivating Sympathetic Joy? Rosemary gives a meditation in the regular retreat, I plan to give one later in this retreat. Cultivating by thinking of other people's good qualities. It only works for reflecting on good qualities. We can't use it for just any old thing. Compassionate/Lovingkindness goes across the board. That's the one looking at everybody and any sort of aspect at all, but Sympathetic Joy only works in looking at good human qualities.
Not just that a person is a great swimmer, or gets straight A's in school, or becomes a millionaire, or this or that. Those are not reasons to do the Sympathetic Joy that we're talking about. But a person who's very generous, a person who's very kind, a person who's very patient. Those are qualities we want to think. We want to think about people who we know who have these qualities.
And we want to think, "Ooh, isn't that great? Isn't it good that person's so peaceful? Isn't is good that person's so generous?" Like the story I told the other day about the fella in New York city they named "Gloves". It should bring a bit of Sympathetic Joy. A guy who walked the streets every winter handing out gloves to beggars. Thousands of gloves, not just a few gloves, but thousands.
Do we feel this for ourselves and others? Yes, we can feel it for ourselves and others. Have Sympathetic Joy with yourself, with your practice. We've talked about that before.