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Guided Meditation: Awareness for Compassion

Welcome, and welcome to the start of a new week and a new series. This week's topic will be compassion. Following last week's topic on love, and in preparation for talking about that, in this guided meditation I would like to make the point that the best forms of compassion arise out of being well-settled in awareness, well-settled in being mindful.

It's important not to have compassion in the lead, but rather awareness is the lead, or awareness is the boat that compassion rides. If compassion is in the lead by swimming, it's a lot of work to keep swimming. There's not much ability to do much else. But if compassion is supported by awareness, then compassion can come to a kind of fullness. So awareness first, and then compassion.

So here we are to meditate before this topic of compassion. We have mindfulness first, awareness first, and perhaps to interest you in your meditation, your awareness for this meditation. You're curious, like, what is this? And maybe even have a little bit of awe of this capacity you have to be aware.

The question is, how is awareness? What is it about the nature of awareness? What's the quality, the properties of awareness? What are the benefits of awareness that make it a good support for compassion? Don't think about this too much, but enter into the world of mindfulness, the world of awareness. Really stay close to it, and in the process of it, you might discover some of the answers to this. Maybe you'll discover it after the meditation.

So, assuming a meditative posture. As I like to say lately, it's a posture that is unobstructed. Nothing within us is crunched up, blocked, or held in check. It's a posture that allows a feeling of openness in the body, and it's a posture that allows for a deep relaxation. The combination of unobstructed flow of life within us and a deep relaxation go hand in hand.

That which flows unobstructedly, the way we are animated, is what brings wakefulness and alertness. Relaxation keeps everything calm, non-reactive, and quiet. Together, they make a wonderful partnership.

Gently closing your eyes, feeling, sensing this posture of yours, this body of yours. As if all you need to do is to discover how it is right now. No need to judge it, or be disappointed, or try to fix it. Just become aware of this body, and awareness in all its borders. Not being permissive, just allowing it to be there, and you discovering.

And then to take some gentle, deep breaths. Maybe three-quarters as deep as you can breathe, and exhaling longer than you normally would. Maybe a quarter longer than usual. As you exhale the longer exhale, let there be a quieting of the thinking mind, especially as you get to the end of the exhale.

And then letting your breathing return to normal, and continuing to relax the body, maybe with each exhale.

And then letting yourself breathe normally. Settling yourself into breathing, almost as if your whole body can settle into the sensations of your body breathing them: the movements of the body, the expansions and contractions. Maybe even settling into the belly, the soft belly, where the softness of the belly varies as you breathe in and breathe out.

And then sitting here quietly, aware of your present-moment experience. Aware in a kind of silent way, without discursive thought, without conversations in your head, or story images with your eyes. Where you're aware of it all, including the thinking. An awareness that's independent of everything. It knows, it's mindful, without being for or against, without being identified or defined by what it's aware of.

Mindful, not thoughtful.

After meditating these minutes, still, quiet, with the eyes closed, what has happened to you in the course of the meditation? Are you a little calmer? Do you feel more aware or sensitive to your experience here and now? Might you be a bit softer, predisposed to be kinder? Might you be more aware than usual of how involved you are in thinking and reacting to things?

Whatever way you are, it's okay. But is there a way that how you are now can be a support for compassion? Compassion for yourself, compassion for others. Is there any way that you can build on how you are at the end of the meditation to have more compassion for yourself, for the world? How does meditation support compassion, both on its own, and in some way that we consciously use the meditative experience to support compassion?

And then coming to the end of the sitting, opening your hearts, your minds to the world around you. And considering how you can live this day with greater kindness and greater compassion, greater care for others. May it be that this meditation we've done today serves for the welfare and happiness of others. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Aspects of Compassion (1 of 5) Awareness.

So with this talk, I begin a five-part series on compassion. Compassion is one of the wonderful capacities that human beings have, and probably it's a capacity which is underutilized, maybe even underappreciated. It can make the central, or be the central organizing principle for a human life. It gives a life purpose, meaning, direction, support, and inspiration. And that's certainly been true for me. I think for a good part of my adult life, compassion was a central organizing principle. I set the direction of my life based on compassion for the suffering of the world. Whether that's still the case is maybe a matter of subtlety. I don't know if it's still compassion, or something that's almost the same as compassion. Things change and morph over time, and now maybe the central principle is what I call care. That somehow is a little different than compassion.

But the simplest definition of compassion is being sensitive to the suffering of usually others, in such a way that we have the aspiration, the wish, the desire to alleviate that suffering. So those two things: sensitive to suffering, and the desire to alleviate it. When it's compassion—the Buddhist focus on compassion—it's not an obligation. It's not something we should be doing. We might want to do it, but it's meant to be something that wells up within. We talk about being compassionate, but when some people hear the idea that we should be compassionate, they interpret the "be" part as we should do compassion. It is very profound, this idea that we be compassion rather than we do compassion. Because with the idea of being compassionate, that's something that wells up. That's something that just oozes out of us, or is kind of there for us. It's not something that we have to make happen, or act in a certain way.

This way of being is a profound possibility that has different characteristics and qualities. In this week, I'm going to talk about five different characteristics or aspects of compassion. Only the fifth is action. This means that for being compassionate, there's a whole slew of ways of being in ourselves that set the stage for compassionate action. Without that preparation, without that foundation, then a compassionate action might not be compassionate. It might be actively involved with alleviating suffering, but it could be done with anger. It could be done with distress. It could be done with a sense of strain, stress, and tension. And it can be done in a way that can be exhausting, stressful, or worse for people.

How is it that compassion can be enacted and acted on without it being exhausting, without it diminishing us, so that the compassion is sweet? There's a beauty, and a kind of profound, beautiful pleasure that comes along in us in the compassionate action. For that to happen, four other things would be good to gather together and have as part of it. The five things I'll be talking about today all start with 'A', so maybe that's helpful for remembering.

Today, I want to talk about Awareness. Tomorrow, Attunement—a little different than empathy, but attunement to others. And then Appreciation, Aspiration, and Action. Awareness, Attunement, Appreciation, Aspiration, and Action. Those first four support the action. To be grounded in those, or have those developed or practiced in us, then the compassionate action is well-supported. It has a chance to be a beautiful thing, a profound thing that we're just glad to have, to feel. There's not necessarily any distress with it.

So it begins with awareness. Mindfulness, attention. Here, there's a very important point I want to make about awareness practice, or having a strong presence of attention, awareness, and mindfulness. And that is that we're not leaning into things, we're not sinking into things, but there's an autonomy. Maybe not in ourselves in all ways, but there's an autonomy in being aware. There's a capacity to be attentive without being entangled, caught, or reactive to what is happening.

It might be a little bit like being at a gathering of people who are having an angry shouting match between each other. Maybe they're really afraid and running around, kind of not knowing what to do. And you stand in the middle of them, and you care for them. You're supporting them, a friend of them. But it's clear that you're not in the quicksand with them. You're not involved with the anger and caught up in the fear. Your presence is a little bit like you've been standing on a stool, above the fray, looking down at it all amazed: "What's going on here? This is quite something."

My first experience of this possibility, an inkling or glimpse that made a big difference for me, was my second year in college. I guess I was 19 or so. Four other guys and I were living in a three-bedroom apartment with a balcony sliding door to the living room. I was out on the balcony with the sliding door closed, and two of my roommates were on the couch in the living room having an animated conversation. All I could see was their gestures and animation; I couldn't hear the words. And not knowing what they were talking about, but just watching how animated they were, I could feel that I was present and attentive, but there was no entanglement. I wasn't caught in what they were saying. It was like I was autonomous. I was free. I was available. I was there. That experience of being aware of people actively having an animated conversation, and my being free of it, was the first glimpse I had of that possibility.

This is not the same thing as aloof. This is not the same thing as being removed or indifferent. It's just that we might have all kinds of feelings and connections to them, attunements, aspirations, and interest in them, but there's a way in which the awareness is calm. It is peaceful. It's not ruffled or agitated. It's not leaning into it.

One way that awareness gets mixed up and identified with what's happening is when awareness is pulled into the thoughts we're having, the discursive thoughts. It's almost as if we identify, we become the discursive thoughts, and the awareness then is happening through the filter of those discursive thoughts. Or we get caught up in the emotions and feelings we have, and the awareness gets channeled through those in order to be aware of the world.

With a clear awareness, awareness is its own thing. When it's really strong, there's a clarity that it's above the fray, or stepped back from being entangled. Or it's just there, very present there. It is upright, autonomous, clear, open, available. Not identified by anything. Not caught by likes and dislikes. It knows likes and dislikes, it knows discursive thinking, but it's not those things. To cultivate this kind of sense of autonomy in the awareness itself is very, very important for compassion.

Because then compassion has a channel from which to be clean. A channel with which not to be entangled, not to be reactive, not to be mixed up with the whole range of emotions that might be coming. Not mixed up with all the story-making of the mind, discursive thinking, beliefs, and judgments that we might have. It creates a context and a foundation for being compassionate.

Without that, if there's a headlong rush into being compassionate, then awareness gets pulled along. We're not so present and attentive to what we're doing. Whatever little awareness is present is being hijacked, or being mixed up with our reactivity. Our sense of duty, our sense of alarm, our sense of being in a hurry, our sense of requirement, obligation, our sense of distress. All kinds of things come along if awareness is not autonomous. If awareness has this upright autonomy, where it's standing on its own two feet and is not being pushed around by the winds of life^[1], then there's lots of room for some of the deeper wellsprings of the best qualities we have to flow into that space. But if awareness has been hijacked and is caught up and not quite there, then these deeper qualities are not as easily available.

So, awareness, mindfulness, attention. Really learn it, develop it, be grounded in it, have faith in it. If you hear the idea that you should be more compassionate, I would propose that the best way to interpret that or take that on is: don't be compassionate. Begin by slowing down, standing straight and tall metaphorically, and just being aware. See if you can find that place where awareness is autonomous, or free. Kind of like a lotus blossoming above the muddy waters.

The healthy foundation for compassion begins with awareness. With that kind of autonomous awareness, then we're ready for the attunement with someone else. That attunement to their suffering, and what that means I'll talk about tomorrow.

So what I'd like to recommend, if you're interested in an exercise for the next 24 hours: when you're in some situation where nothing is really required for you to do anything, but you're aware of someone else's suffering, see what you can discover about an autonomous awareness. Being really present for the person, for the situation. Not removed, not aloof. But to really open to the situation with clear awareness, where the awareness is autonomous. Where the awareness is not entangled or caught up in the situation.

The best situations for doing this are situations where you're not going to be acting to help someone. It's some situation in public where you see someone suffering, but there are other people helping, and you're not going to help. Or you read about someone in the news or something.

Thank you.