Patriotism, or..?

[chansik_park]

Hello Bhikkhu Jayasara!

I was just watching your dhamma talk entitled “Becoming the Embodiment of Metta in your Daily life” and had this topic open on the other half of my screen when your reply popped up!
(This Discourse message bus thing is so nifty)

@Bhikkhu_Jayasara

Patriotism when you get down to it is a pride in your home, this of course can have positive and negative aspects. Pride in the positive sense is showing that you actually care and value something.

Studying the third brahmavihara muditā some weeks ago I came across a topic by bhante Sujato:

@sujato

#muditā

We’ve been told so many times that there’s no word for this in English, and we end up with a clumsy phrase like “altruistic joy”. But how’s this for a definition of muditā:

a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of one’s close associates, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.

Not too bad, right? This is the top meaning in Google for “pride”.

But we can’t use pride, it means arrogance and conceit! Actually, in modern English, that meaning is fading away, and pride has mostly positive connotations. Is this something that we can adopt in Buddhism? For now, I use “rejoicing” for muditā, but I am tempted …

Perhaps there’s something here. AN 3.95 for one connects a ‘muditā cetovimutti’ to being in an harmonious assembly.