The Purpose of Empathetic Joy (extract)

"There’s a sense of joy in seeing that the teachings on kamma really work: You do skillful things and there will be rewards. That’s a somewhat more impersonal principle, but it lifts the mind to a higher state, because it’s getting “you” out of the way. Think about it: What are the attitudes in your mind that would interfere with empathetic joy? They’re all very childish. One is if you see someone who has something that you want but you don’t have, and you feel resentment, jealousy, envy. But when you’re able to overcome that and take yourself out of the picture, that heightens the concentration.

There are also cases where people have done things that lead to happiness, who acted skillfully in the past, but they’re not skillful anymore. In fact, they’ve taken the results of their past skillful actions and now they’re abusing them — and you don’t like it, you don’t want to see them be happy, you feel they don’t deserve their happiness. But when you think in the terms of the principle of kamma, they did something, someplace in the past that leads to that happiness, and even though they’re spoiling the results, the fact that you’re willing to accept the principle of kamma — that good actions based on good intentions do lead to good results — it lifts the mind.

But it also gives rise to a sense of samvega: You realize that you can do good things many, many times, and then somehow the mind can change. We see so many cases like this. People come into a position of power, people have wealth, people have beauty, people have strength, and they must have done something in the past for those things to come about, but now they let it go to their heads. People with power feel they’re invincible; people with beauty think they can get away with anything; people with strength can force their will on others.

So it makes you realize that if you’re going to be aiming for happiness, you don’t want to content yourself with the happiness of the world — because it’s not safe. The only safe happiness is the safety of the noble attainments. So as you develop empathetic joy in this way, it leads to a more mature attitude, as you accept the impersonality of the principle of kamma and also you come to admit the limitations of kamma.

After all, the Buddha said there are four kinds of kamma: bright, good actions that lead to a good rebirth; dark, bad actions that lead to a bad rebirth: mixed, bright and dark, which will lead to a rebirth where there’s pain mixed with pleasure, like the human realm. But then there’s a fourth level of kamma: kamma that leads to the end if kamma — and that’s the noble eightfold path.

It’s only when you see the limitations of even the best bright kamma that you’re willing to go for the noble path."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Purpose of Empathetic Joy"