Rejoice: Flower Garlands of Merit (Subhuti)

Ven. Subhuti (Jeremy Glick), americanmonk.org, 3/10/24; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Making Garlands of Merit

Let's make merit with this bud. - Not smoke it?

(March 10, 2024) Recently, American Theravada Buddhist monk Venerable Subhuti has been making more videos rather than written posts. This enables him to put more into each presentation.

Here he shares personal stories along with the Dhamma, the Buddha's precious Teachings.

What can be done with flowers other than giving?

While most may be more interested in hearing about what the monastic life is like over learning the Dhamma, we will still hear about both.

Readers love personal information. This Dhamma talk explores Verse 53 of the Dhammapada and the different aspects of making merit (profitable karma) he thinks most will like.

Why would this make anyone smile? What human thing in us is moved?

Rejoice (anumodana)

Wisdom Library (wisdomlib.org) edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Dana is sharing, letting go, giving, charity, caring, developing generosity, benefitting others.

It is very good karma (meritorious deeds known as punya) made even better by sharing word of it so that others may rejoice (anumodana) and make the rare good karma of rejoicing in good deeds others have done.

We are misguided in the West, always "hiding our light under a bushel," which is good advice as far as it goes. But it goes too far. We as a culture are not taught to be happy for others, to derive happiness from them being happy. Instead, we're taught to be competitive and selfish and actually to take delight in their lack of success, loss, ruin, and misery.

It's called schadenfreude. a German term imported into English, not because we're all genetically German but because our American culture is. We're very much painted by Germanic and Ashkenazi influences on our religions and ways to interpret and practice them.

In the East, we rejoice! Asians customarily help neighbors do good things. They delight that good things are being done for the whole community, even joining in to grow the good and partake of the merit. Such people spread word of others' good deeds, praising and rejoicing, rejoicing and praising.

DEFINITION

Anumodana (अनुमोदन) means “joy in the joy of others, in sympathy with others' joys.” It represents one of the “seven types of devotional practice” (pūjā), according to Buddhist teachings followed by the Buddhist Newah people in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, whose roots can be traced to the Licchavi period, 300-879 CE.

The connection that Vajrayāna (Himalayan Buddhism of Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, and parts of Kalmykia, Siberia, Mongolia, and Russia) has to the larger Mahāyāna ("Greater Vehicle") is expressed through the saptavidhānottara-pūjā, "the sevenfold supreme offering," a seven-step procedure for setting the intention to become a Buddha (samma-sam-buddha, pacceka-buddha, or personal-buddha called an arhat).

Anumodana (happiness derived from others' giving or other good deeds) refers to cultivating joy because others are joyful or, by having done good, in store for wished for and pleasant results. Big causes of joy are reflecting on the virtues of the buddhas (awakened ones), bodhisattvas (those intent on becoming buddhas), and arhats (fully enlightened ones).

An example of “anumodanā”

Feeding others is giving health and strength.

Someone is practicing to develop good qualities (generosity, virtue, skillfulness in meditation). A spectator rejoices in seeing those acts and congratulates that person, saying: “Good, good, good! Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu! In this impermanent world enveloped with shadows of ignorance, you are strengthening great mind [of bodhi or enlightenment] and are planting merit (puṇya)!’’

Imagine a devoted donor (dāyaka) and a beneficiary (pratigrāhaka) and a third person standing beside them. The third person is joyful at the sight of the good action. One rejoices with them. The other two lose nothing. Such is the characteristic of experiencing joy in others' joy (anumodanā).

Thus, just by having a mind of such joy, happy just because others are happy or doing deeds that will come to fruit as more happiness in the future, a Bodhisattva or practitioner surpasses the ordinary practitioners of the two Vehicles (Mahayana and Theravada).

How much more could be said if one actually practices the qualities over which one is rejoicing? Now there is not just happiness that they are doing good and that future good is coming to them. Now I am happy at the goodness I see and practicing for future happiness that is coming my way, which if I'm lucky others will be happy for. and we will all make more good for being happy.

It's a positive feedback loop by way of which one stores up a great deal of merit. More