A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard



Mudita

World Religion
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Sympathetic joy in Buddhism—the ability to rejoice in the happiness and success of others.

Detailed Definition
Mudita counters envy and resentment, cultivating genuine delight in others’ good fortune. In poetry, it shines like sunlight shared freely or flowers blooming without rivalry. Poets present mudita as a rare but transformative joy that expands the heart, turning comparison into celebration and scarcity into abundance.
Example
Example in poetry:
A Buddhist poem: “Muditā is rejoicing in your success as if it were my own”; In a modern verse, “Muditā is the antidote to comparison’s poison”; A minimalist haiku: “Friend’s poem published—/ muditā swells my chest / like monsoon clouds”; A student’s reflection: “I thought I was happy for her—muditā taught me to feel it in my bones.”
Additional Notes
Mudita is the Buddhist concept of sympathetic or appreciative joy—the ability to take delight in the happiness and success of others. It is the antidote to envy and resentment (the klesha of jealousy) and is the third of the Four Brahmaviharas. Cultivating Mudita involves rejoicing in the good fortune of others as if it were one's own, breaking down the barriers of selfishness and separation.
Also Known As
Sympathetic Joy Appreciative Joy
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