Question

Should the Sympathetic Joy meditation also be done with the difficult and so-called bad people, where it is hard to see their potential? If yes, then how?

Answer

No. We only encourage you to do Sympathetic Joy meditation with good people or good inspiring things that people have done. It's not considered beneficial to do it for people who have done many things that are unskillful, that are unkind, and so on. You can have Compassion/Lovingkindness for those these people. But the Sympathetic Joy meditation is intended to make you joyful, to make you feel happier, to make you feel that there are people around the world who are doing good things and to help you get inspired by them. The Sympathetic Joy meditation is not intended to focus on difficult people and to try and invent some good things that they have done. It's much too difficult, there's a struggle there. But you use it to get more joy within yourself and your good qualities, and to share in the joy that you can easily see within other people and in their good qualities.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.