It is not just ‘the opposite of jealousy’: a Buddhist perspective on the emotion of compersion in consensually non-monogamous relationships

Abstract

Compersion is an affective state commonly discussed in the context of consensually non-monogamous relationships. It is typically described as a positive emotional reaction to one’s partner’s enjoying time and/or intimacy with another person, sort of ‘the opposite of jealousy’. Recent years have seen an increased interest in this seemingly startling emotion. Part of what makes understanding compersion so difficult is the mononormative expectations of our culture. We suggest that a non-Western, in particular Buddhist, perspective might be more helpful to understand that love and/or intimacy need not be an affair between two people only. We approach compersion through a Buddhist lens based on the ‘four immeasurables’, i.e. non-egocentric states that Buddhists take to promote well-being, and their ‘near enemies’, i.e. states which are easily conflated with them, but egocentric and harmful. Our goal is not to formulate a definition of compersion, nor to raise a normative bar for anyone who feels compersion, but to describe important facets of it that stand out more clearly against a Buddhist background than they might otherwise do. Such an approach not only enriches our understanding of compersion but contributes to people’s flourishing in all kinds of relationships and shows that non-monogamous relationships might be compatible with some forms of Buddhist practice.

1 Introduction

In recent years, not only the inevitable self-help aficionados but also social and health scientists, psychologists, biologists, and philosophers have increasingly discovered their interest in ‘non-normative relationships’—relationships that go against widely accepted social norms, including, in particular, traditional expectations regarding sexual preferences, gender-constellations or the number of parties involved (e.g. Balzarini & Muise, 2020; Barker & Langdride, 2010). This surge of interest is undoubtedly justified: Our society is ever more diverse and ever more rapidly changing. If we want it to remain (or, rather: become) a community of tolerance and respect in which individuals can openly live their relationships without fear of being stigmatized, it might help if we do our best to understand all forms of life and love—dazzling as they might seem.

While the majority of Western people still endorses a hetero- and mononormative perspective, a considerable number of people from quite diverse backgrounds has come to reject the constraints this puts upon them (e.g. Balzarini et al., 2018a; Levine et al., 2018). Some of them instead opt for consensually non-monogamous constellations (monogamish, open, polyamorous or anarchical relationships, swinging, etc.) in which all ‘partners agree to have extradyadic sexual or romantic relationships’ (Conley et al., 2013, p. 2).¹ We can only benefit from understanding their motives, emotions, and concerns, the practical and psychological implications of their way of leading an authentic life true to their relationship ideals, and the difficulties and challenges that go along with it (e.g. Balzarini et al., 2019; Moors et al., 2021b; Rubel & Bogaert, 2015). Among other things, a better understanding of their perspective can help us see when and why people (in all kinds of relationships; see Sect. 5) might face potentially detrimental relationship dynamics. More importantly, only such understanding will resolve, or at least ameliorate, the tensions caused by self-proclaimed social norm keepers who denigrate the consensually non-monogamous to ‘second class citizen[s]’ (Johnston, 2022), pathologizing them as ‘sick’ (Grunt-Mejer & Łyś, 2022) and ‘less human’ (Rodrigues et al., 2018, p. 510).

Many pertinent topics and concepts have already received attention, both theoretically and empirically, for instance regarding the notions of mononormativity (e.g. Ferrer, 2018) and attachment (e.g. Moors et al., 2015, 2019), or issues of family and parenting (e.g. Klesse, 2019; Pallotta-Chiarolli et al., 2020), relationship quality (e.g. Balzarini et al., 2019; Moors et al., 2021b), and stigmatization (e.g. Rodríguez‑Castro et al., 2022). Others, however, are only getting slowly uncovered. One important case in point is the affective state commonly referred to as ‘compersion’. Coined by the Kerista Commune (1984), the term ‘compersion’ describes a decidedly positive emotional reaction to a loved one’s enjoying time and/or intimacy with another person. For lack of better descriptions (see Ritchie & Barker, 2006), compersion is often characterized as ‘the opposite of jealousy’ (e.g. Anapol, 2010, p. 121; Sheff, 2014, p. 20). This is, however, at best part of the picture (see Sect. 2). But what, then, is compersion?

Important insights into the nature of compersion have recently been made (e.g. Thouin-Savard, 2021). But a lot of research still needs to be done regarding its basis, the factors that facilitate or inhibit it (Flicker et al., 2022), or how (if at all) an initially aversive jealousy can be converted into a positive emotion of compersion (Ben-Ze’ev, 2022; de Sousa, 2017). One problem with putting the notion of compersion on more sturdy ground is that pretty much everyone is still, willingly or not, in the grip of our ‘culture of compulsory monogamy’ (Ritchie & Barker, 2006) and its ineradicable expectations, assumptions, and prejudices. In such a climate, the attempt to make a complex and nuanced emotion like compersion intelligible is like trying to convey the idea that parallel lines can intersect in a world in which everyone’s geometrical intuitions are Euclidian through and through: Incredulity is inevitable—unless there is a radical shift in perspective that allows people to see that compersion is not an infernal fantasy of some non-monogamous renegades, of people who are ‘perverts, libertines, vicious, or crazy’ (Rodríguez‑Castro et al., 2022, p. 1673), but (can be) driven by considerations that can, quite generally, positively impact interpersonal relationships and human flourishing.

We suggest that a non-Western perspective might be more helpful than the typical individualistic Western discourse to grasp the idea that love and intimacy need not be seen as individualistic pursuits. Buddhism, in particular, tends to bring into focus not so much individuals and their dyadic relationships, but wider networks of sentient and non-sentient beings, emphasizing their interdependent causality—our nature of existence as ‘interbeing’ (Nhất Hạnh, 1987). Unfortunately, Western discussions of consensual non-monogamy still largely ignore non-Western perspectives. Only Ferrer (2019, 2022) at least paved the way for a dialogue by characterizing compersion in terms of the Buddhist notion of muditā (sometimes described as ‘the feeling of happiness for someone else’s happiness’) which is one of the four brahmavihāras, the four immeasurables, i.e. non-egocentric states that Buddhists take to promote personal and general well-being (see Sect. 3). We will argue that Ferrer’s Buddhist lens is too narrow but that it can readily be adjusted: We approach compersion by paying tribute, first, to all four brahmavihāras, and, second, also to their ‘near enemies’, i.e. states which are easily conflated with the brahmavihāras, but actually kleshas, egocentric and harmful mental states or afflictions. Our claim is not that one has to live one’s life according to the standards of Buddhist ethics to understand compersion, but that some ill- or misunderstood aspects of compersion that might seem incomprehensible or eccentric can be characterized and motivated more clearly and be seen to be far less bizarre when viewed through a Buddhist lens. Adopting a Buddhist perspective, we argue, not only enriches our understanding of compersion in philosophical psychology and emotion research, but can also contribute to people’s flourishing in all kinds of relationships, while at the same time showing how Buddhism might eventually be reconcilable with non-monogamy.

Sections 2 and 3 set the stage. They introduce compersion, point to some difficulties that have arisen when trying to capture all its iridescent facets and provide the Buddhist background. Based on this, Sect. 4 sketches a multi-facetted, holistic approach to compersion, based on Buddhist ethics. The key claim is a twofold one: (1) Compersion can plausibly be understood as a complex affective orientation rooted in the same—broadly speaking: ethical—considerations that also underpin (at least one prominent version of) Buddhist accounts of what it means to lead a flourishing life, and (2) compersion is in fact understood along such lines by at least some people in consensually non-monogamous, specifically polyamorous, relationships. Section 5 wraps up the main ideas, responds to some objections, and points to potential practical implications in order to invite further scholarship.

2 Compersion: not just ‘the opposite of jealousy’, but not just ‘big love’ either

In a sense, the ‘feeling of taking joy in the joy that others you love share among themselves’ (Ritchie & Barker, 2006, p. 595) is pretty mundane. We all know what it feels like to be happy with and for someone we care about, even when we are not the source of or reason for their happiness, for instance when they get married, when their long-cherished wish for a child is fulfilled, or when they receive a much-deserved promotion. Some, however, experience a comparable joy also in situations that are typically experienced as negative, viz., when their romantic partner has a crush on another person, is out on a date, or (physically) intimate with someone outside their dyadic relationship. For many consensually non-monogamous folks, experiencing a positively valanced emotion in such romantic or sexual contexts is just as ordinary as feeling happy for the newlyweds. They have changed their perspective—away from a mononormative mindset of scarcity, exclusivity, and entitlement, towards valuing an abundance of intimacy and love. This allows them to respond to their partner’s extradyadic ‘flourishing’ (Brunning, 2020) with a positively valenced emotion of compersion.

Lamentably, not only is the term ‘compersion’ still absent from virtually all standard dictionaries, even those who study the emotion disagree about what precisely it is. Specifically, while compersion is often characterized in the negative in terms of its alleged affective antagonist, viz., jealousy, others have recently sought characterizations that go beyond such simplifying binary distinctions.

Compersion challenges the idea that extradyadic romantic or sexual involvement must inevitably incite a negative emotional response (e.g. Ritchie & Barker, 2006). As a consequence, compersion is often contrasted with jealousy. Yet, to call compersion ‘the opposite of jealousy’ suggests that if someone experiences compersion vis-à-vis some extradyadic involvement of their partner, they cannot, at the same time, also be jealous. After all, the jealousy is supposed to have been transformed into its opposite (Ferrer, 2019), say by changing the normative framing of the situation (de Sousa, 2017). However, albeit opposite ends of a spectrum, compersion, and jealousy are by no means mutually exclusive. People do in fact report to feel both, maybe even at the same time (e.g. Deri, 2015; Thouin-Savard, 2021). Some experience an ambivalent emotion that includes both positive and negative reactions (Balzarini et al., 2021), a feeling of compersion that co-occurs with pangs of jealousy (Ben-Ze’ev, 2022; Thouin-Savard, 2021). Moreover, jealousy is not ‘the’ opposite of compersion for the simple reason that both are part of an intricate web of related responses to certain situations, neither of which is ‘the’ only option possible, so that ‘compersion will have a different opposite when we focus on its affective, evaluative, motivational or overall moral valence’ (Brunning, 2020, p. 233). A more nuanced characterization of compersion thus seems prudent.²

In one of the most thorough investigations to date, Thouin-Savard (2021) has recently identified three major aspects of compersion: empathic joy, gratitude for the benefits derived from one’s partner’s relationships, and fluidity and dynamics (p. 71).

First, what Thouin-Savard calls ‘empathic joy’ is reminiscent of what Ferrer (2019, 2022) calls ‘sympathetic joy’. Both terms pick up on the fact that compersion comprises a feeling of happiness for one’s partner. That this ‘shared happiness’ seems incomprehensible, even alienating, to many might be a result of the tacit (Western) assumption that every individual has or is a stable self or identity whose emotional needs are isolated and separated from those of their partner by ‘impervious personal boundaries’ (Thouin-Savard, 2021, p. 76). The consensually non-monogamous, Thouin-Savard suggests, shed this individualism.³ They expand their boundaries from a self that is a stable and independent ‘I’ into an interdependent ‘we’ that includes their partner and their metamours,⁴ allowing them to incorporate the others’ extradyadic joy and excitement into their own experiential life. As one of Thouin-Savard’s interviewees put it: ‘I felt that expansiveness, that big love around, I’m not the center. Like, her joy became my joy’ (p. 554).

Thouin-Savard’s second component is gratitude. While it may be tempting to regard compersion as a completely selfless concession to one’s partner, born from sheer necessity, sort of a ‘pathological tolerance’ (Pines, 1998, p. 13), virtually all of Thouin-Savard’s (2021) interviewees express a ‘gratitude for an enhanced life as a result of […] their partner(s)’ other relationship […] for allowing them to experience more love, freedom, and other sources of abundance in their lives’ (p. 92). This ranges from shedding interrelationship expectations of having to fulfil every single of their partner’s needs alone, over including the erotic excitement resulting from their partner’s extradyadic involvements into their own experiential life and relationship, to something so seemingly profane as having more time for themselves and their hobbies.

Third, since the particular quality and intensity with which the first two components of compersion are experienced might vary, compersion is ‘fluid, dynamic, and on a spectrum’ (p. 90) and not an all-or-nothing-affair. There is a whole spectrum that includes higher or lower co-occurrent levels of compersion and jealousy in different situations and over time (e.g. Balzarini et al., 2021; Duma, 2009). The intensity of compersion might increase gradually over time, and external and internal factors may dynamically influence how much jealousy is mixed in with it. As one interviewee reported: ‘It was never like a hard switch. It’s just at a certain point in time, like the feeling slowly shifted. And at each point in time, there was less jealousy and slightly more compersion. […] And oftentimes […] both at once’ (Thouin-Savard, 2021, pp. 401–402). Moreover, expanding one’s boundaries into a ‘we’ not only makes it possible to share one’s partner’s happiness, but also to develop an affiliative motivation to help and empathize with them when they experience disappointments or frustrations in their extradyadic relationships (p. 112). As one interviewee reported: ‘I just broke up with somebody I had a lot of emotional investment in, and I feel awful and your partner says gee, that’s too bad, and is gentle and loving with you. So I think that’s so there’s a compersion for the negative things that happen as well’ (p. 351).

This cursory summary cannot do justice to the full richness of Thouin-Savard’s deeply enlightening account which is a huge leap forward towards a better understanding of compersion. A key virtue of her approach is that it avoids the typical one-sided analysis. Not only is compersion not characterized merely in the negative as ‘the’ antagonist of jealousy, her positive account is also not single-dimensioned. Unlike Ferrer (2019), Thouin-Savard (2021) stresses that empathic joy is far from the only component of compersion. And yet, it seems somewhat apodictic to claim that her three components ‘paint a comprehensive picture of the main ways in which […] participants described their experiences of compersion’ (p. 117; italics added). It might be that ‘[n]o significant theme besides these three emerged from the participants’ interview data’ (p. 118). But that only shows that some of the things some people deem to be important were not given much prominence, given the methodological commitments of Thouin-Savard’s grounded theory approach. In Sect. 4, we argue that compersion can have important affective, evaluative, and conative aspects⁵ that she has overlooked but that can be easily gotten into the picture when one focusses not solely on muditā, but considers all of the four immeasurables and their near enemies. This requires some background.

3 The brahmavihāras: cultivating sublime and wholesome attitudes

Since there are a variety of Buddhist school traditions, any talk of something like ‘the’ Buddhist ethics would be presumptuous (e.g. Goodman, 2021). Nevertheless, in order to grasp the potential of the Buddhist perspective on compersion we will outline in Sect. 4, it can be helpful to first realize why, from the perspective of at least one Buddhist ethics, the cultivation of the sublime and wholesome attitudes of mind known as ‘brahmavihāras’ is the key to leading a flourishing life. Therefore, without delving deeper into fundamental questions of interpretation, we will focus on the brahmavihāras in the following, drawing in particular on Visuddhimagga, one of the authoritative treatises on what is taught in the Pāli canon, which is accepted in virtually all Buddhist schools.

Let us begin with two of the central teachings of the Visuddhimagga which are widely shared in Buddhism.

The first—ontological—doctrine is the principle of ‘dependent co-arising’ (paticca-samuppāda). It holds that every phenomenon (dhamma) is contingent upon innumerable causes and conditions. For Buddhists, this is not an abstract piece of knowledge, but an experiential truth: It can be observed partially in daily life, and it can be fully penetrated through a continuous process of mental cultivation (bhāvanā).⁶ This process gradually leads to the experiential wisdom (pañña) of non-self (anatta), i.e. the embodied knowledge that our thoughts, feelings, and actions do not have an underlying ‘true self’ as their source. We are morally responsible for our thoughts, feelings, and actions, but it is a mistake to think that this is so because they reflect or are owned by an unchanging ‘core I’ that we truly and deeply are—just as anything else, they are conditioned by environmental, bodily, and mental factors. The experiential wisdom of no-self is fundamental because it is the only way to avoid dukkha, which leads us to the second central doctrine of Buddhist teaching.

The second—ethical—doctrine is that dukkha is bad. While the term dukkha is commonly translated as ‘suffering’, it actually has no clear counterpart in Western languages and can, depending on the context, include aspects of ‘imperfection, impermanence, emptiness’ or ‘insubstantiality’ (Rāhula, 1974, p. 17). Effectively, dukkha is a multi-dimensional form of ‘unsatisfactoriness’. The Pāli Canon distinguishes three forms of dukkha (SN 45.165). (1) Dukkha-dukkhatā is the ordinary unsatisfactoriness resulting from the body or the mind, such as the suffering that arises from hunger, pain, or sorrow. (2) Vipariṇāma-dukkhatā refers to pleasant feelings one is attached to. These feelings are dukkha because they are unsustainable, due to the perpetual coming into being and passing away of all phenomena demanded by the principle of dependent co-arising. (3) Saṅkhāra-dukkhatā is an unsatisfactoriness due to one identifying any phenomenon—be it rūpa (matter), vedanā (feeling), saññā (thought), saṅkhāra (intention and action), or viññāṇa (consciousness)—as ‘I’, ‘me’, or ‘mine’. Given their fundamentally unsteady conditionality, any kind of grasping or craving will lead to suffering, unsatisfactoriness, in the end.⁷

Since dukkha is bad, Buddhists should work towards its cessation. As the principle of dependent co-arising dictates that everything is conditioned, dukkha can be avoided by avoiding further causes of it. Through continuously practicing that, one can escape from saṃsāra, i.e. from the cyclicality of life and rebirth, ⁸ and all the dukkha that results from it. One thereby reaches the state of nibbāna, most commonly described in the Pāli Canon as that which is unconditioned, i.e. not due to any further causes and conditions. As such, nibbāna is the extinguishment of the sources of all dukkha, viz., the ‘three fires’: raga (greed), dosa (hatred), and moha (ignorance) (SN 43.12). Hence, happiness is attained by avoiding dukkha, and dukkha is avoided by refraining from following thoughts, feelings, and actions conditioned by the three fires. Eventually, the only way to extinguish the fires is to realize the truth of no-self: Without a self, there is no self that can be greedy, hateful, or ignorant. Ordinary unsatisfactoriness (see note 7) might then still be there, but it will no longer be perceived as ‘I’, ‘me’, or ‘mine’. This experience is captured by Buddhaghosa (2003) by saying that ‘there is suffering, but none who suffers’ (Vism. XVI.90). One way to achieve the Buddhist ideal is by cultivating the brahmavihāras.

Alongside the core teaching of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path, the Buddha encourages maintaining the four brahmavihāras, the four noble virtues. They are perceptual, affective, and conative skills the cultivation of which positively impacts oneself and others, noble and sublime attitudes towards a gradually expanding sphere of sentient beings that are decidedly non-egocentric, i.e. do not presuppose the existence of an underlying self. Ultimately, one can experience the brahmavihāras in an immeasurable extent just as Brahma, which is why they are also known as the ‘four immeasurables’ (appamaññā). They are ‘ways of seeing’ (Garfield, 2022, p. 72) and can become ways ‘how one lives (viharati)’ (Heim, 2017, p. 174), allowing one to avoid unduly self-centeredness and instead feel one’s interconnected no-self reality.⁹ Each of the brahmavihāras has a ‘near’ and a ‘far’ enemy (see Table 1). Both types of enemies are kleshas, mental states or afflictions that cloud the mind and perpetuate suffering by being egocentric. The far enemies are harmful egocentric states that are easily recognized. One must be warier of the near enemies—they are superficially very similar to the brahmavihāras, so that the inattentive or inexperienced can easily conflate them with the true ones. But unlike the brahmavihāras, their near enemies are egocentric and therefore a source of self-deception that is eventually an obstacle on one’s path to true happiness.

The first of the brahmavihāras is mettā. Mettā is most often described as ‘loving kindness’ or ‘love’. In the classical text,¹⁰ Buddhaghosa (2003) characterizes it

as promoting the aspect of welfare. Its function is to prefer welfare. It is manifested as the removal of annoyance. Its proximate cause is seeing loveableness in beings. It succeeds when it makes ill will subside, and it fails when it produces [sineha/egocentric affection]. (Vism. IX.93)

Mettā is the motivation and ability to create happiness for oneself and other beings. Through seeing oneself and others as deserving love, one predisposes one’s mind to promote happiness in oneself and others. The far enemy of mettā is ill will. Its near enemy is raga, i.e. greed (Vism. IX.98), which manifests itself as sineha (Vism. IX.93). Sineha is a narrowminded, self-centred affection driven by the idea that the other is one’s beloved, one’s cherished, one’s dear, etc. By fixating one’s attention invariably on one person, sineha blinds us from seeing others as needing our love and care as well.

The second brahmavihāra is karuṇā, often described as ‘compassion’, but better captured by the term ‘care’ (Garfield, 2022). Buddhaghosa (2003) characterizes karuṇā

as promoting the aspect of allaying suffering. Its function resides in not bearing others’ suffering. It is manifested as noncruelty. Its proximate cause is to see helplessness in those overwhelmed by suffering. It succeeds when it makes cruelty subside and it fails when it produces sorrow. (Vism. IX.94)

Karuṇā is a matter of discerning the natural saṃsāric tendency of oneself and others and taking actions to alleviate dukkha, not only the dukkha-dukkhatā, but also the vipariṇāma-dukkhatā, exemplified for instance in addictions, in which individuals compulsively engage in supposedly pleasure-inducing activities which lead to suffering in the long run. The far enemy of karuṇā is cruelty. Its near enemy is gehasitaṃ domanassa, literally ‘grief based on the home life’ (Vism. IX. 99). Given that Buddhaghosa intended his readers to be Buddhist monastics, gehasita (based on the home life) originally referred to the lifestyle of a householder, but modern interpretations for non-monastic readers allow to read it as a synonym of saṃsāric (e.g. Garfield, 2022). Gehasitaṃ domanassa can thus be understood as the passive sorrow the layperson habitually experiences when desires remain unfulfilled: painful sympathy, or pity, without constructive action.

Unlike their near enemies, mettā and karuṇā are not passive affective states. They are active exercises of perceptual and conative capabilities—mettā requires seeing lovable aspects (perception) and taking means to promote happiness (conation); karuṇā requires noticing suffering (perception) and trying to alleviate it (conation). In contrast, the third brahmavihāra, muditā, need not have any active motivational or behavioural conative component. It is primarily perceptual and affective. The term muditā is usually translated as ‘sympathetic joy’. Buddhaghosa (2003) characterizes it

as gladdening (produced by others’ success). Its function resides in being unenvious. It is manifested as the elimination of aversion (boredom). Its proximate cause is seeing beings[’] success. It succeeds when it makes aversion (boredom) subside, and it fails when it produces merriment. (Vism. IX.95)

Muditā is a state of pure joy one experiences because of the success or happiness of others. The far enemy of muditā is aversion or boredom (or, since the function of muditā ‘resides in being unenvious’, envy; see Table 1). Its near enemy is gehasitaṃ somanassa, literally ‘joy based on the home life’ (Vism. IX. 100). Similar to gehasitaṃ domanassa, gehasitaṃ somanassa is the saṃsāric emotional reaction of joy the layperson habitually experiences when desires are fulfilled. This sort of joy is saṃsāric in the sense that it is vipariṇāma-dukkhatā and thus harbours a latent unsatisfactoriness—someone who experiences gehasitaṃ domanassa is ignorant of the impermanent nature of pleasure and lifted into a false exhilaration or merriment in which they crave for pleasurable feelings, mistakenly taking them to be more long-lasting than they are. The key to avoiding the near enemy and cultivating true muditā is, again, the Buddhist ideal to understand that there is no-self, for then there is no self that can crave.

The last brahmavihāra is upekkhā, typically described as ‘equanimity.’ Buddhaghosa (2003) characterizes it

as promoting the aspect of neutrality towards beings. Its function is to see equality in beings. It is manifested as the quieting of resentment and approval. Its proximate cause is seeing ownership of deeds (kamma) thus: “Beings are owners of their deeds. Whose [if not theirs] is the choice by which they will become happy, or will get free from suffering, or will not fall away from the success they have reached?” It succeeds when it makes resentment and approval subside, and it fails when it produces the equanimity of unknowing, which is that [worldly-minded indifference of ignorance] based on the house life. (Vism. IX.96)

Upekkhā is a non-attached attitude towards all beings. Since one’s differential treatment of beings stems from one’s different feelings towards them, upekkhā also requires mindfulness and a non-attached attitude towards one’s own feelings—being attentive to pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings, without reacting habitually with craving, aversion, and indifference. Being aware of these feelings enables one to see the coloured glasses one wears, and therefore, someone who practices upekkhā strives to see all beings equally as they really are, neither blindly flattering nor reproaching them, but discerning their true needs. The far enemy of upekkhā is greed and resentment. Its near enemy is ‘the [neutral feeling] of unknowing based on the home life’ (Vism. IX. 101). The key difference between upekkhā and unknowing indifference, which is its near enemy, is whether one is mindful or attentive to the feelings and needs of oneself and others. Instead of being inconsistent with muditā and conatively inconsistent with mettā and karuṇā, upekkhā is actually an essential practice complementary to the other three brahmavihāras. On the one hand, upekkhā enables one to discern with clarity the feelings and needs of oneself and others and therefore provides the perceptual prerequisites for mettā, karuṇā, and muditā. On the other hand, it saves the brahmavihāras from becoming partial, and thus their near enemies.

Upekkhā is one of the most misunderstood Buddhist concepts. One misunderstanding, prevalent especially among people with no exposure to the deeper principles of Buddhism beyond some superficial hearsay about kamma and saṃsāra, is that it presupposes determinism, which leads to the erroneous fatalist idea that we need not react to pleasant and unpleasant feelings with craving and aversion because they are predetermined anyhow. Buddhism is more sophisticated than that. The law of dependent co-arising is not a law of determinism but of conditionality. As such, it can acknowledge the saṃsāric characteristic of human beings, while also trusting in their potential to become liberated from saṃsāra. To cultivate upekkhā is to try to discern the phenomena as they really are, viz., as interdependently conditioned. This allows one to experience that one is not the centre of the moral universe but simply one of the constantly changing nodes within an extensive network of uncountable other nodes. Deep insight of non-self therefore enables one to think, feel, and act non-egocentrically.¹¹ A second misunderstanding is that practicing upekkhā leads to an attitude of detachment. Upekkhā is not an attitude of detachment, but of non-attachment, going beyond both attachment and detachment. It is based upon the wisdom of dependent co-arising and enables liberation from the bondage of craving and aversion, freeing resources for one to act with mettā, karuṇā, and muditā. Knowing that one and one’s loved ones are interdependently conditioned, one neither controls nor spoils one’s loved ones, but gives wise advice and assistance in situations in which such help would be mutually beneficial.

Table 1 The brahmavihāras (four immeasurables) and their far and near enemies; traditional Visuddhimagga descriptions are indicated with a ‘v’

In light of our brief discussion of compersion in Sect. 2, some of what we have described in this section will arguably have already rung a bell. Section 4 details how all this can be combined into a multi-facetted approach to compersion.

4 Compersion: from the feeling of ‘big love’ to existential orientation

In what follows, we do not offer an account of what compersion is, but an approach to what compersion might be or, rather, comprise, when viewed through a Buddhist lens. Our goal is not to offer a definition of compersion, or to raise a normative bar for anyone who feels compersion, but to describe important facets of it that stand out more clearly against a Buddhist background than they might otherwise do. Some of the consequences of adopting such an approach are discussed in Sect. 5.

Specifically, we first show that what persons in consensually non-monogamous relationships report by no means only manifests muditā, as Ferrer (2019, 2022) suggested, but all four brahmavihāras. We then argue that an awareness of the four ‘near enemies’ can serve two goals: It can (1) eliminate prejudice against people in polyamorous relationships and (2) avoid misconceptions that may harm them in their relationships. Finally, we situate compersion in the contemporary philosophy of emotions and show how some established views on compersion are inconsistent with this debate and need to be corrected.

4.1 Compersion and the four brahmavihāras

Two of the brahmavihāras are clearly recognizable in Thouin-Savard’s (2021) description of compersion sketched in Sect. 2: muditā and karuṇā.

First, what Thouin-Savard calls ‘empathic joy’ is obviously reminiscent of the feeling of muditā:

• (1) Muditā (sympathetic joy)—being happy for the other’s happiness, described by interviewees in such passages as:

[T]heir joy is my joy. (Thouin-Savard, 2021, p. 553)

I love this person, and seeing them be happy is happy making. Like that is like the most basic part of being in love is delighting in the person’s, like wanting the person to be happy. And so seeing them be happy in a relationship with someone else is happy making. (p. 306)

[W]hat I feel is that when you love somebody so much and you want their happiness, that you’re happy when they’re happy. (p. 342)

Well, to me, it’s like, when you feel Big Love, okay, when you feel … how do I put that …? […] I feel big love when my kid opens a present. And I see the look on their face, and I get so excited watching them open that present, right. And it’s the same thing, sort of, in that I would like, watch him be happy. You know, like, I would watch him be happy and say, Oh, that’s, that’s wonderful. […] This is amazing. It feels great! (pp. 552–553)

However, there is an important facet of compersion that can easily be overlooked when empathic joy is restricted to mere joy about the other’s joy, but that is obvious given the original meaning of the term muditā. In his recent analysis of compersion, Brunning (2020) has argued that compersion is not so much about one’s partner’s happiness as rather about them doing fine, generally, their thriving, burgeoning:

Fundamentally, compersion is sensitive to how people fare; in particular, to their flourishing with other people. (Flourishing rather than happiness or taking pleasure in a relationship because a partner can be thriving even if the partner’s own feelings are more neutral.) (p. 228)

For Buddhists, happiness is closely related to (spiritual) success. The original Pāli word for ‘success’ is sampatti. Sampatti is a kind of happiness and also intimately related to muditā: Beholding the success or good fortune (sampatti) that have come to the other is the proximate cause of muditā. Thus understood, it is clear that muditā is expressively not just about being happy for the other’s happiness, but also for their flourishing (see also Brunning, 2022a,b). Therefore, the corresponding facet of compersion can be understood as a ‘kind of romantic generosity’ (Ben-Ze’ev, 2022, p. 139) towards one’s partner as they prosper in their intimate relationships with others. And as Brunning points out, someone can flourish even at times when they feel anything but happy, for instance when they go through hard times in their extradyadic relationship, but eventually grow from it—an insight that leads us immediately to karuṇā.

Thouin-Savard (2021) rightly stresses the role of empathy for compersion. But while the idea of empathic joy picks only on the spilling effect of positive feelings, one can also resonate with one’s partner when they experience ‘less glorious moments in their outside relationships, such as disappointments, frustrations, even breakups’ (p. 112). This is evocative of karuṇā, the virtue of caring:

• (2) karuṇā (care)—providing loving support in moments of need, expressed in descriptions such as:

And James was so, like, at the end of it when it all fell apart, he was there for me and everything. (p. 335)

I just broke up with somebody I had a lot of emotional investment in, and I feel awful and your partner says gee, that’s too bad, and is gentle and loving with you. So I think that’s so there’s a compersion for the negative things that happen as well. (p. 351)

For me, it wasn’t so much a question of like deciding when or why to be non monogamous, but figuring out with my long term partner at the time, what kind of relationship we wanted. And the non monogamy was not the question we were asking ourselves. It was more like, how do we want to support each other? How do we want to care for each other? (p. 410)

Approaching this facet of compersion through the lens of karuṇā allows one to see its decidedly non-individualist nature more clearly than if one frames it in terms of Western notions like ‘care’, ‘support’, etc. Karuṇā draws attention to the fact that a relationship is not a zero-sum game in which what one partner ‘gains’ the other ‘loses’, so that, say, in order for one to ‘receive’ support, the other has to ‘invest’ care. As is the case with all brahmavihāras, cultivating karuṇā positively impacts everyone involved: One’s partner benefits through having their distress eased, and oneself benefits through being able to value the situation as an affordance for action and growth (Garfield, 2022, p. 139).

Apart from these two facets of compersion that are straightforwardly recognizable in Thouin-Savard’s account, her interviewees also described two facets that stand out less prominently but are equally crucial.

First, some interviewees reported that their compersion had to do with their interest in others. They not just passively felt joy for their partner’s joy, but actively wanted their partner to feel joy. This more conative aspect of compersion is often intermingled with the more affective aspect, as in the following two passages already quoted above:

Like that is like the most basic part of being in love is delighting in the person’s, like wanting the person to be happy. And so seeing them be happy in a relationship with someone else is happy making. (p. 306; italics added)

[W]hat I feel is that when you love somebody so much and you want their happiness, that you’re happy when they’re happy. (p. 342; italics added)

More importantly, some interviewees also reported that for them, compersion was neither about sympathetic joy nor about compassionate support for their partner, but about them learning, often through active practice, to love and cultivate benevolence and good will vis-à-vis their metamour. This evokes the virtue of mettā:

• (3) Mettā (loving kindness)—actively working towards showing kindness unto yourself and others, described in passages like:

[M]y first love left me for another woman. My immediate reaction was complete jealousy […] the only way I was able to get over my jealousy was to convert my hate into love for this other woman. […] I found that it not only alleviated my jealousy but it actually became my first experience of compersion. (Deri, 2015, p. 62)

I realized that I needed to change my mindset so that I was treating these people like family members. (Thouin-Savard, 2021, p. 412)

I think that valuing Martin’s relationships and my relationships with other people and valuing my metamours and shared partners, like it is so important. And so compersion is one way to do that. (p. 419)

As in the case of muditā, paying attention to the original Buddhist concept helps avoiding too shallow an understanding of what is at issue. In order to feel compersion, one need not literally come to ‘love’ one’s metamour. The Pāli term mettā shares its etymological root with the term mitta, meaning ‘friend’, and can thus also be regarded as referring to a Platonic, non-romantic sort of kindness or friendliness (Garfield, 2022, p. 132).

Second, several of Thouin-Savard’s (2021) interviewees described a positive indifference—not an indifference in the sense of cool aloofness or unconcernedness with their partner’s involvements or metamours, but an indifference in the sense that they were unwilling to let themselves be ruled by likes and dislikes and rather tried to radiate serenity and composure, recognizing that all shared partners are equally valuable. This is reminiscent of upekkhā, the virtue of equanimity:

• (4) Upekkhā (equanimity)—remaining at ease in the middle of whatever is happening, preserving a balanced stance without being caught up in drama, described as in statements like:

I am a lot more loving, forgiving and non judgmental than I used to be. (p. 533)

[A]ll my relationships live and die by their own right, you know, and I will not like, sacrifice one to please another. (p. 400)

[B]oth of us places a high value on treating everybody like a complex human being, whose feelings are just as valuable as mine, or as are Martin’s. (p. 413)

Cultivating upekkhā means being able to see the true needs of one’s loved ones, e.g. their need to love another person, while neither judging them negatively for it nor letting oneself be overwhelmed by one’s own emotions concerning the situation, be they joyous or sorrowful. Practicing this calm and non-reactive stance towards one’s own emotions and the needs of one’s partner can result in a feeling of compersion not in the sense of just a momentary state, but as a trait, attitude, or general orientation (see Sect. 4.3).

First-person accounts of people in non-monogamous relationships thus suggest, if not demand, adjusting Ferrer’s Buddhist lens to incorporate all four brahmavihāras. Such a more holistic Buddhist approach can paint a richer picture of compersion than Ferrer’s (2019) one-sided reduction to muditā. While certainly not everyone experiences compersion in all the ways described, a Buddhist perspective illustrates why it might be beneficial to cultivate all its facets: If the brahmavihāras are not all cultivated together, they are easily conflated with their near enemies that hinder rather than promote happiness. The facets of compersion described above also have something like their near enemies. Realizing this and taking means to avoid them has a twofold potential: It can (1) help dispel some popular prejudices and (2) serve as a warning sign that the way one views some aspect of one’s relationship may be self-deceptive and have detrimental, even unhealthy, consequences.

4.2 Compersion and its ‘near enemies’

(1) The potential of a Buddhist attention to the near enemies to serve as a corrective to existing prejudices can be illustrated by the following two examples.

(1a) One of the most common stereotypes about consensual non-monogamy is that ‘it is sexaholism or having high sexual needs that are the main motivators for seeking new partners’ (Grunt‑Mejer & Chańska, 2020, p. 2837). The consensually non-monogamous, the ineradicable lore goes, are in for it only because they want recreational sex with many different people and take pleasure in the erotic arousal of sharing their partner (e.g. Anapol, 2010, pp. 26–28; Balzarini et al., 2018b; Hutzler et al., 2016; Rodrigues et al., 2022). They are pictured as radical hedonists who put their own pleasure and thrill above all else, succumbing to ‘a form of self-centeredness, a desire to satisfy one’s needs more than the other’s’ (Grunt‑Mejer & Chańska, 2020, p. 2833). The Buddhist lens allows to understand why although sex certainly does play a role for some people in non-monogamous relationships, indulging in sexual pleasures need by no means be the only thing that matters: Muditā is precisely not about the momentary pleasure of one’s own self, but about the happiness or flourishing of others, such as one’s partner, and the interindividual relational whole. When one does not mistake muditā for its near enemy, exhilaration, or self-centred joy, one can see why it is a mistake when the skewed caricatures above per se accuse all consensually non-monogamous of chasing momentary feelings of pleasure and nothing else.

(1b) Another—equally widespread and unsettling—stereotype is that the consensually non-monogamous cannot ‘truly’ love their partner. If they are so detached and non-committal that they ‘allow’ their partner to have other relationships, the thought goes, they ‘must be sick’ (Grunt-Mejer & Łyś, 2022), suffer from a ‘lack of love’ (e.g. Cardoso et al., 2021, p. 1249), and therefore be ‘perceived as experiencing less uniquely human emotions’ (Rodrigues et al., 2018, p. 510), as ‘less human’ (ibid.) in fact. Once again, the Buddhist lens allows one to see why this is unjustified and distorting: Upekkhā is not about being unconcerned, aloof, or callous, but about being attentive and mindful, albeit in a calm and impartial manner that enables one to remain unwavering in the face of the vicissitudes of one’s relationships and life. Upekkhā in intimate relationships requires taking interest in the feelings and needs of oneself and one’s beloved, but in a non-attached way. Again, when one does not conflate upekkhā its near enemy, viz., unknowing indifference, one can see why it is a mistake to regard the consensually non-monogamous per se as icy angels.

The foregoing considerations illustrate how distinguishing the brahmavihāras from their near enemies can shed light on the roots of some of the aversion many mononormative people still show towards consensual non-monogamy as a valid and worthwhile form of relationship.

(2) The potential of a Buddhist attention to the near enemies to help those involved in such relationships, by, for instance, preventing them from unintentionally fooling themselves or their partner, can be illustrated by the following two examples.

(2a) Mettā is the motivation and ability to create happiness for oneself and others. Its near enemy is a self-centred amiability, attachment, or clinginess. While mettā aims to connect and benefit everyone, conflating it with sticky affection (sineha) separates one from others and benefits no one. If someone shares their partner with a sense of ‘pride’ for what they consider to be ‘their property’, they fail to practice loving kindness, just as someone does who lets their friend take their expensive car for a ride and are happy because they have a chance to show off. Equally problematic are cases in which kindness is sticky in the sense that it is restricted to one’s partner and withheld from the metamour, or when it leads to hierarchical relationship structures in which some sort of involvement is preferred over others in unduly ways (see Sect. 5.2). There lurks the danger that what superficially looks like a good thing, viz., loving kindness, is in fact self-centred and can, if unnoticed, have harmful consequences for oneself, one’s partner or one’s relationship. The line between the brahmavihāra and its near enemy is a matter not of what one does, but of the intention behind it. Consider the following description of a spouse’s relationship to their metamour:

I do care for her too. In large part, that is because my husband loves her, and my opinion is ‘how could I NOT love someone he loves?’ […] I have developed my own fondness for her […]. (Cascais & Cardoso, 2013, p. 26)

What superficially sounds like an expression of benevolent loving kindness might actually be its near enemy if the spouse was acting for the wrong reasons: When they care about their metamour just because their husband loves her, their love is partial. True mettā must be based on the intention to cultivate a non-egocentric interest in a person, not on their accidental relationship to oneself.¹²

(2b) Karuṇā is about providing loving support. Its near enemy is a painful grief not accompanied by caring action. Again, while the goal of practicing karuṇā is to connect and benefit everyone, its near enemy separates one from others and benefits no one. If someone showers their suffering partner with mere pity, they fail to practice care, just as someone who feels miserable for the intolerable rearing conditions in the meat industry but continues to buy cheap meat from discount stores. Equally problematic is a sort of overly ‘care’ for one’s partner that makes one patronize or spoil them like a parent of their child. As in the case of mettā, the line between the brahmavihāra and its near enemy is easily missed. On the one hand, agreements that allow one to veto one’s partner’s involvements, say when they negatively impact them, can easily lead to a superficial kind of ‘caring’ that is actually patronizing, rather than non-egocentric. On the other hand, care might exactly require to not wait until the damage has been done in order to then dutifully console one’s partner, but to actually prevent them from becoming entangled in unhealthy constellations in the first place. Consider the following description by one of Thouin-Savard’s (2021) interviewees:

There have been a few people that I dated that I shouldn’t have been dating, like, they were not a good situation for me, and Sam never told me to stop dating them […] And if I was getting any kind of happiness out of it at all, he encouraged me to work it out. […] so even when I was having a really hard time, he was still really supportive. (p. 291)

Sam’s partner experienced him as ‘really supportive’ when they were ‘having a really hard time’—superficially, he seemed to provide care. But did he, truly? For as long as Sam’s partner ‘was getting any kind of happiness out of it at all’, Sam never told them to stop. It seems as if Sam wanted to provide care, but became a victim of vipariṇāma-dukkhatā and failed to prevent his partner from suffering when he should have done so solely because they were still receiving temporary moments of pleasure. Neither Sam nor his partner was able to see through the volatility of the saṃsāric character of that joy.

Although cursory, the foregoing considerations illustrate that distinguishing the different facets of compersion from their near enemies can also be vital for those in consensually non-monogamous relationships by helping them to avoid self-deception and the misconceptions, and perhaps even injuries, arising therefrom.

This leaves us, lastly, with the question what compersion, that strange emotion that can be so marvellous, but at the same time bears so many pitfalls and sources of misunderstanding, actually is. Compersion is often described as a feeling. Adjusting the Buddhist lens allows one to see that this is true, but undercomplex. Compersion is not just a feeling, but an emotion. As such, it comprises affective, evaluative, and conative aspects alike (see also Brunning, 2020), and seeing it through a Buddhist lens emphasizes this. As seen in Sect. 3, the brahmavihāras are not merely passive affective states but comprise, to different degrees, evaluative and conative aspects as well, some of which are more tantamount to the active exercise of acquired skills or relatively stable long-term attitudes or traits rather than volatile short-term experiential episodes.

4.3 Compersion in the context of the philosophy of emotions

The conative or motivational aspects of compersion such as those we have highlighted above in the context of mettā and karuṇā have hitherto received strikingly little attention in discussions of compersion (but see Brunning, 2020). In contrast, the distinction between an affective and an evaluative aspect of compersion is being discussed. Duma (2009), for instance, distinguished between compersion as a state and a trait, and Thouin-Savard (2021) distinguished between compersion as an embodied experience and an attitude. For both Duma and Thouin-Savard, the first kind of compersion (state/embodied experience) is its affective aspect, expressed in statements like:

I feel alive. I feel bubbly. (p. 493)

[I]t feels kind of like, tickly and sparkly, like in your chest and up into your face … almost intoxicating. (p. 431)

I recall the feeling of excitement, bubbliness, joy, titillation. (p. 494)

[I]t’s just happiness. It’s that feeling of, I’d probably feel it in my chest and it’s just a feeling of like yay! (p. 307)

[I]t’s an actual endorphin rush, kind of thing, I’m really excited. I’m really feeling joyful. (p. 560)

The second kind of compersion (trait/attitude) is its evaluative aspect, expressed in statements like:

I sort of, I don’t know, intellectually think like, Oh, it’s, it’s like a good thing that this happened to Laura-Lee. (pp. 443–444)

I experience compersion more as an awareness that … Martin’s partners make his life better and make my life better. (p. 416)

I think compersion is probably […] like, let’s flex that muscle. […] I have a lot of the tools in my tool chest around how to, you know, a lot of them are thinking tools, like how do I identify my story and deconstruct it and do the work […]. (p. 315)

Such distinctions alone, however, do not tell us how to interpret this apparent duality. Are affective and evaluative compersion distinct phenomena? Are they interdependent? Does one have to precede the other? Is one merely ‘added onto’ the other, or are they somehow ‘fused’? While we cannot provide a comprehensive answer to these questions, we will close this section with some remarks intended to trigger further discussion.

To begin with, note that contrasting ‘embodied experiences of compersion’ with their ‘cognitive, attitudinal counterparts’ (Thouin-Savard, 2021, pp. 86–87; italics added) invites the image of some sort of more or less strict division and that might be problematic. At one point, for instance, Thouin-Savard seems to toy with the idea that attitudinal compersion is a transition phase on one’s way from jealousy to embodied compersion, but no longer necessary once one has reached the latter (p. 105). And yet, many of her interviewees reported that although they had in principle accomplished the transition, they sometimes just could not make it, for example: ‘Sometimes it’s like, I’m happy for you logically but my body is saying something else’ (p. 324). Others stressed that attitudinal compersion could not possibly have gotten them to embodied compersion had they not come to feel it, for example: ‘I had to experience a lot of things to really fully feel them and understand how I feel about these things. It wasn’t something that I could just sort of intellectually, intellectually cope with’ (p. 376).

Another, more serious, problem is that the image of some sort of strict division invites the question of what makes attitudinal compersion attitudinal and embodied compersion embodied. Thouin-Savard characterizes the former as a cognitive phenomenon, and the latter as some sort of physiological, bodily, state of arousal (pp. 85–86). But recent developments in the philosophy of emotions have thrown considerable doubt upon the viability of such an opposition between ‘the’ cognitive and ‘the’ bodily (e.g. Stephan et al., 2014). In particular, many have argued that an emotion’s felt bodily quality is not something that is simply ‘added-on’ (Goldie, 2000, ch. 3) to the ‘cognitive’ evaluation of something. Rather, such appraisals seem to be intricately intertwined with the feeling—they are, as Helm (2002) aptly put it, ‘felt evaluations’. They represent the world in the light of the specific concerns of the individual, but they do so with a distinctive kind of sui generis ‘affective intentionality’ (e.g. Slaby, 2008). Such evaluations—which for Helm (2002) also include the conative or motivational aspect that is entirely ignored by the attitudinal/embodied distinction (see above)—are what Roberts (1988) has called ‘serious concern-based construals’ in which affectivity and appraisal are inextricably linked: They are states in which one grasps, with a kind of perceptual immediacy that has its roots in broader patterns in one’s overarching mind-set, that something has a certain meaning, say, that one’s partner’s extradyadic involvement is valenced as pleasant, joyful, etc. Again, this is easier to appreciate once compersion is seen through a Buddhist lens: It is not only built into the idea of the brahmavihāras that they are not merely affective, merely conative, or merely evaluative, but also that these facets are inextricably intertwined (see Sect. 3).

This, lastly, is not to say that there is never any variance in the mixture of these aspects. As first-person descriptions show, compersion is experienced differently by different people and sometimes by the same person at different times. Sometimes the ‘bubbly’ aspect dominates, perhaps accompanied by immediate action tendencies, sometimes the evaluative aspect dominates, sometimes compersion is experienced as something that one can simply choose in a concrete situation whereas sometimes it is experienced as something like a general existential orientation that is definitive of the kind of person one is, etc. All of these can be valid experiences of compersion. Someone who cultivates or practices compersion as an ‘affective orientation’ (Saarinen, 2014) disposes themselves, in different degrees, to experientially react to their partner’s extradyadic involvement in some or other of these ways.

5 Conclusion: compersion and beyond

It is to Ferrer’s (2019) immense credit that he was the first to connect the Western discourse of compersion with Buddhist ethics. If one regards compersion as the opposite of jealousy (see Sect. 2) and thinks of the far enemy of muditā as envy,¹³ his equation of compersion with muditā might be understandable. But such a one-sided lens fails to do justice to both the Buddhist background (see Sect. 3) and the richness of first-person descriptions (see Sect. 4). It ignores that the brahmavihāras cannot be cultivated in isolation from each other and that one can fully understand them only if one carefully reflects also on their near enemies. And it ignores that while people often report to feel happy for their partner’s happiness, they also describe quite a variety of other facets, some, but not all, of which have received an insightful discussion in Thouin-Savard’s (2021) ground-breaking work. To remedy these two points, we have stressed that compersion is not simply a feeling in the context of an ego-centred pursuit of happiness. First, while it does have affective qualities, as in the context of muditā, it also has conative qualities, as in the context of mettā and karuṇā, and evaluative qualities that contribute to the cultivation of all brahmavihāras. Second, compersion is a decidedly non-egocentric feeling or attitude that requires valuing a wide network of different intimate relationships and aims at equally fostering the well-being of everyone involved, not at pursuing self-centred goals.

There are (at least) two consequences of such an approach to compersion, one concerning Buddhism’s perspective on non-monogamy, the other the role of compersion in general, that we finally would like to draw attention to in order to invite further scholarship.

5.1 Mononormativity and Buddhism

On June 23, 2019, the 26-year-old Kyaw Zin Win, a librarian at Imperial University in Yangon, Myanmar, took his own life after having long suffered from homophobic bullying. When shortly afterwards, Ashin Asayar, a senior Buddhist monk, performed a sermon wherein he not only mocked Kyaw Zin Win but also called for all homosexuals to be lynched, he instigated a nationwide discussion about the (non-existing) rights of people who fall out of the heteronormative standard. In light of such developments, one might expect a discourse also on the question whether a Buddhist practice is compatible with consensual non-monogamy. In vain, alas.

As a doctrine that encourages the elimination of craving, Buddhism generally prefers celibacy over marriage (Keown, 2005, ch. 4). But when sex is involved, there are so many opinions in Buddhism(s) that ‘any generalization in this domain would be improper’ (Faure, 1998, p. 9). It is thus hardly surprising that in the predominantly Buddhist regions of Tibet, Thailand, Myanmar, and in countries under strong Buddhist influences such as China and Japan, polygamy (and in Tibet specifically also polyandry) is sometimes tolerated and sometimes not (see Harvey, 2000, pp. 101–103; Stevens, 1990, ch. 5).¹⁴ Notably, the mononormativity endorsed by modern Buddhist leaders such as the Dalai Lama and Thích Nhất Hạnh seems at odds with the fact that the Buddha himself implicitly advises a Brahmin to give all his daughters to one virtuous man. Strikingly, though, except for Ferrer (2019), there is virtually no pertinent academic discussion of consensual non-monogamy and Buddhism. There are academics who are increasingly raising their voices for queer rights in Buddhism, but they focus on the LGBTQ + community (e.g. Corless, 2004; Fuller, 2022, ch. 7; Jacoby, 2019; Langenberg, 2017) and non-normative sexual practices such as BDSM (e.g. Fennell, 2018). Non-academic discussions are equally scarce. Apart from a short self-help booklet by an American Zen practitioner (Hoogstra, 2006) and an interview by Zen monk Brad Warner with porn star Nina Hartley (Warner, 2010, ch. 16), there seems to be, again, nothing. Quite generally (and in stark contrast to the Western world), there are not even online communities in which consensually non-monogamous Asian people can exchange with their peers.

Although we can, of course, not resolve or remedy this singlehandedly, our discussion can be read as containing the seeds for a reconciliation between Buddhism and consensual non-monogamy. Targeting heteronormativity, Taiwanese Buddhist nun and scholar Shih Chao-hwei, laureate of the Niwano Peace Prize 2021, whose efforts contributed to the legalization of same-sex marriages in Taiwan in 2019, opened one of her speeches with a fundamental Buddhist reflection:

Every life has a different starting point. There is a great variety [of forms of life]. From the perspective of Buddha-Dharma, [we] hope each being to be free from suffering and achieve happiness. If they can be happier than how they are now, we should bless them. If they are now homosexual, [and] if marrying [their same-sex partner] will enable them to live a better life, then we have to bless them and fulfil their wish. The is an inspiration that Buddha-Dharma gave me. This is Buddha-Dharma. (CTV NEWS, 2016)

The same, we venture, holds for mononormativity. The modern leaders who oppose the ideals of the non-monogamous would probably deny that it can ‘enable them to live a better life’. One argument is that the brahmavihāras can be cultivated only in a monogamous relationship (Nhất Hạnh, 2016) because non-monogamous practice is necessarily motivated by craving and thus precisely not conducive to true happiness. But if people can indeed love non-egocentrically in non-monogamous relationships, without harmful craving, as we have argued above they can, this worry can be dispelled, and there seems to be no reason why choosing to live in non-monogamy must be incompatible with a Buddhist practice.

Similar considerations apply to another, related, objection.¹⁵ Even if, it might be said, one partner in a non-monogamous relationship feels compersion and thereby comes closer to the Buddhist ideal, if the other partner is engaging in sexual activity with someone else their behaviour is at odds with ideal Buddhist behaviour—either because sexual activity outside of their (primary) relationship is considered sexual misconduct and as such prohibited by Buddhism or because sexual activity in pursuit of ‘mere’ sensual pleasure is connected to craving, thus ultimately leading to dukkha.

The charge that experiencing compersion when one’s partner engages in sexual activity with someone else can be considered encouraging sexual misconduct is based on the mononormative assumption that sexual activity outside of a dyadic relationship must necessarily amount to adultery or extramarital sex, both of which are considered sexual misconduct in Buddhism.¹⁶ Without this mononormative assumption, sexual activity within a consensually non-monogamous relationship does not amount to sexual misconduct. But if mononormativity is needed to justify the assumption that the consensually non-monogamous commit sexual misconduct, one cannot defend the mononormative ideal by arguing that experiencing compersion in consensually non-monogamous relationships is tantamount to encouraging sexual misconduct without begging the question.

The charge that indulging excessively in sensual pleasures—even if it is not a case of sexual misconduct—involves craving and thus latently unsatisfactoriness is prima vista plausible, but ultimately does not go to the heart of what we have been arguing for. Firstly, while consensually non-monogamous relationships can include engaging in extradyadic sexual activities, that is neither their only manifestation (see Sect. 5.2) nor always the focal point of a compersive attitude: As we have argued in Sect. 4, an all-too-sex-focussed perspective on compersion distorts what many have described as relevant: Even when compersion occurs at moments where one’s partner is having sex with someone else, the object of one’s joy need not be the sexual act, but one’s partner’s making experiences, having positive feelings, their thriving, flourishing. Second, even when the objection at issue is not directed at our discussion of compersion per se, but at the (potential) compatibility of Buddhism and non-monogamy in general (see above), it does not provide a compelling justification for Buddhists’ insistence on monogamy. Sexual activity between committed partners—be it for procreation, resolving one’s sexual frustration, relaxation, connecting emotionally with another person, or mutual pleasure—is not inherently unethical or morally wrong in Buddhism. Of course, to the extent that it causes craving, it will lead to dukkha, and avoiding dukkha is recommended. But if the only reason why sex in consensually non-monogamous relationships is deemed problematic in Buddhism is that it makes one prone to suffering and unsatifactoriness, then non-monogamy as such cannot be the issue: Seeking pleasure is not a phenomenon unique to non-monogamous people. Anyone can indulge in sex.

5.2 Compersion and human relationships in general

Once viewed through a holistic Buddhist lens, compersion turns out to be a more general orientation towards what matters in human relationships than the classic narrowing to romantic love and its commitment to both the inseparability and indispensability of sexual and emotional intercourse (see also Brunning, 2022b). As we have tried to show, a Buddhist perspective can help to understand how people in consensually non-monogamous relationships emotionally react to their partner’s extradyadic involvements. Importantly, we did not mean to claim that one has to fully grasp all the subtleties regarding the Buddhist ideal of no-self and the extinction of all self-centred desires or even master the experiential wisdom of anatta in order to feel or understand compersion. That would arguably make compersion more rather than less elusive. Even if they are not fully understood or internalized, the ideals of Buddhist ethics, we argued, provide a ‘lens’ through which some aspects of compersion become better visible than they would otherwise be.¹⁷ In particular, they allow us to see that the central motivations behind a ‘compersive orientation’ (see Sect. 4.3) are by no means restricted to or relevant only for consensually non-monogamous relationships, but contribute to a flourishing in all kinds of intimate relationships.

Once the mono- and amatonormative¹⁸ wall shows its first cracks, a Buddhist perspective also makes it clear that fostering and cultivating healthy compersion can be valuable in any kind of relationship. Our discussion so far focused on compersion in consensually non-monogamous relationships, and—given its inclination towards committed (and mostly) romantically and sexually intimate connections—specifically polyamory. While this is only natural, given that this is the context in which the concept of compersion originally arose, it is important to also realize that neither does polyamory need to include both romantic and sexual feelings nor are those feelings necessary for compersion. When viewed through a holistic Buddhist perspective, compersion emerges as a rather general characterization of what is important for basically every human relationship. As Erich Fromm put it, if ‘one loves one’s family but is without feeling for the “stranger”’, one in fact manifests ‘a basic inability to love’ (1956, p. 59):

[I]f love is a character trait, it must necessarily exist in one’s relationship not only with one’s family and friends, but towards those with whom one is in contact through one’s work, business, profession. There is no ‘division of labor’ between love for one’s own and love for strangers. On the contrary, the condition for the existence of the former is the existence of the latter. (p. 129)¹⁹

As Fromm realized, taking ‘this insight seriously means indeed a rather drastic change in one’s social relations from the customary ones’ (ibid.). Understanding compersion along Buddhist lines leads to the same conclusion. As a result, the above considerations are not only relevant for people engaging in extra-dyadic romantic or sexual relationships but can also shed light on how, for instance, aromantic or asexual partners experience their relationships. Realizing that compersion can arise in all kinds of intimate or close relationships reminds us that positive feelings towards others in our lives are not tied to romantic feelings or sexual acts. If the only difference between being happy for a friend having their long wished-for baby and being happy for one’s partner having a wonderful date with someone else that supposedly makes the former, but not the latter, ‘normal’, ‘healthy’, or ‘human’ is that the former is part of a friendship whereas the latter is part of a romantic relationship, and we happen to have different words for these two, we might as well wonder why we make such a difference between different kinds of relationships in the first place. This is not to say that when viewed through a Buddhist lens, all relationships are strictly speaking on a par tout court. But they are all equally valuable, even if they are designed individually, without having to be outlawed by norms of what it means to be in a ‘romantic’ relationship versus, say, leading a ‘friendship’. From this perspective, one can therefore understand why relationship anarchists refuse to classify intimate relationships into hierarchies that give, say, those with romantic and/or sexual elements more status than ‘mere’ friendships (e.g. Nordgren, 2006). Once one realizes that other intimate contacts might enrich one’s own and one’s partner(s)’s lives, once one genuinely sees everyone involved in one’s relationship network—be they friends, family, romantic, sexual, or other relations—as complex beings with needs and desires and treats them equally with loving kindness, it is only a tiny step to also realize that none of them will take anything away from the ‘abundance of resources, intimacy, love, touch, sex’ (Thouin-Savard, 2021, p. 282) in one’s own individual connection with others. This can trigger the ‘change in perspective’ we said in Sect. 1 is needed to avert the incredulity vis-à-vis the idea that love and intimacy need not be seen as an affair between two people only and to make one see that patriarchal structures and mononormative ideals are not the only form of, let alone the non plus ultra, of relationshipping. Thereby, one might break free from the idea that exchanging physical intimacy is only possible, permissible, or healthy within romantic relationships and understand that co-habiting with valued friends is just as valid and happy-making as living with a romantic partner. When approached in such a way, therefore, compersion has the potential to be a part of the way towards disrupting toxic relationship-myths.