When we think of Sympathetic Joy, it's a very unusual quality which most human beings have a lot of difficulty with. It's far easier to have Compassion or Lovingkindness for others than it is to have Sympathetic Joy. This is largely due to the way that we have grown up with a lot of competition, we should be better, we should get the job, that other person should not get the job, we should get the money, the other person should not and so we grow up with a conditioning that makes Sympathetic Joy very difficult. As we develop Compassion/Lovingkindness the way that we teach here, one of the main aspects of it is that opening of Compassionate understanding that everyone has Dukkha in some way. Everyone has their problems, everyone has their headaches, their stomach aches, they have relationship problems, somebody in their family dies, someone gets sick, injured, everybody has these problems.
As we open this Compassion and then we have a sincere wish that we would like others to have a deeper happiness, it becomes easier to have Sympathetic Joy. Especially when other people do good things, because we realize that most of the people on the planet aren't very interested. Remember I mentioned before about social workers, two hours a week, the other day? Most people on the planet are not very interested in actually growing spiritually, at least most of the people I know. So when you actually see somebody who is growing in such a nice way, in any of the Ten Paramis for example, then we can go, "Oh wow, this is great" because so many people won't do it.
As we develop the Compassion/Lovingkindness side of the practice, we are opening to the Dukkha of the world. We are opening to understand other human beings and understand how few people actually do grow. Then when we see somebody grow, Sympathetic Joy can come easier.
Think about this for a minute. On the island today, Westerners, on all the beach bungalows, the mountain bungalows, here at the Wat, all the Westerners today on the island, how many? Anywhere between five and ten thousand Westerners. How many are in the retreat? Isn't that neat, there are forty people here, eight working assistants, 32 people in the retreat but there are maybe ten thousand Westerners on the island, they don't care at all about this.
That's how rare it is to find people who actually want to grow. Granted some people at the beach have done this maybe, some people might only be on the island for one or two days, that's their excuse. However, quite frankly most people that come to this island, have no interest in Wat Kow Tahm, they only have interest in the full moon party and so on. Isn't it wonderful that these other people are here, that you are here, brand new people are up here, brand new people like all of you once were. They have never done a retreat before, some of them had never meditated before. Some of them are here because somebody said this was a neat thing to do. Some of them are here because their life is a headache and they looked on the internet hoping to find some way out. They are all very similar to what you were the first time you walked up the hill.
Can you remember who you were when you walked up the hill the first time or did your first retreat somewhere else? Can you remember that "goofy" person? That person who didn't know that much, who thought "what am I getting into?" Isn't it wonderful there are these brand new people up there every month that do a retreat here, brand new people show up, old students come back, wanting more?
Is this getting any Sympathetic Joy going for you? Sympathetic Joy comes stronger, comes easier when we have a deeper Compassion/Lovingkindness understanding of the world.