This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Introduction

Greetings, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to all of you from all the places in the world that you're joining from. My name is Nikki Mirghafori. I'm joining you from Mountain View, California, on unceded Ohlone land, and I'm delighted to be with you this week supporting Gil as he's away traveling.

For the theme this week, I'd like to continue with compassion. I know that Gil spoke about the seven factors of compassion last week, and there was so much to explore. We're not done in one week, or one month, or even one year exploring this practice of compassion. I continue to learn and explore it; it's a lifetime, or maybe multiple lifetimes' practice. So we'll explore it this week in different ways, from different dimensions, to look at it and perhaps slice the pie or cut the cake from different layers. We'll be looking at compassion for ourselves, for others, what supports it, and what blocks it in a very practical, useful way—news you can use. Of course, all of Dharma^[1] is applicable to our daily lives. Without further ado, let's sit together. Let's practice together.

Guided Meditation: To Meet Pain with Kindness

I'd like to invite you to come to your seat, come to your body. If it's comfortable for you, maybe take a couple of deep, diaphragmatic breaths into the belly, or rather, let the belly breathe in the air. Hold for a few seconds, and release with a sound if you like, ah.

It's a way to arrive, to become centered. Maybe a couple more in your own time.

Holding only for a few seconds, letting go with a sigh. And now letting the breath be natural, however it is, shallow or deep.

A few deep breaths can help us physiologically to reorient, as a bridge from activity and perhaps a sense of hyperdrive, to a more sense of calm. Returning, reorienting.

If the mind is particularly busy right now, connecting with the entirety of the breath, the pause, and the out-breath.

Let us turn, through the breath, to the sensations of the breath within the body, within the framework of the body. Not breath as a concept, but a felt sense within this body that senses, feels, and aches.

Turning our awareness, or knowing, intertwined with kindness towards this body. Not so much in the way of whipping it into shape to sit and concentrate on this practice, but making kindness and compassion the object of our practice towards this body. The parts of this body softening, relaxing.

If there is any discomfort or a challenge in the body, areas of tightness or achiness, turning to these areas. Holding this area of the body with our awareness, with our spacious knowing, intertwined with kindness. The same way that a loving mother holds a newborn tenderly, especially if the newborn is crying in some discomfort. Patiently, patiently holding, loving, and rocking this tender, precious life.

With the same attitude, can we hold this body, especially if there are areas of challenge, discomfort, or unease?

Can we tune into compassion for this body in this moment in time, in general? This body that aches, sometimes gets sick, and ages.

If there's any challenge right now, tuning into the patience and compassion, and the delight. There is delight, a quiet joy, in being patiently loving. There is a source of strength and uprightness, courage, in turning towards what hurts with love.

Practicing to patiently, lovingly hold physical discomfort is training for being able to hold and be kind with mental and emotional challenges. It's the same process.

With the same relaxed, spacious body, if there is any emotional challenge, disappointment, judgment, or pain in this moment in time, can we too breathe with it? Patiently be with it, with the same stance of a loving mother holding a tender newborn. The same gesture of the heart. Not trying to rush through it, but patient, loving, stable.

It's okay, sweetheart. It's okay.

Taking time to hold disappointments and challenges. Not to ruminate—let go of the story. Let go of the story, it's not helpful at all. But simply holding kindness and patience with the tenderness, whether physical or emotional. And notice the wholesomeness, the goodness of turning towards instead of pushing away. Breathing with it.

It's okay, sweetheart. It's okay. Holding yourself kindly.

May I have ease with this disappointment, sorrow, or pain. May I have ease, peace, and freedom of heart with this challenge. May I meet this difficulty with kindness, as much as possible.

As we begin to close this meditation, can we note the sense of uprightness, goodness, and wholesomeness there is in meeting what's difficult with kindness? Turning towards it with patience and kindness instead of pushing it away, judging it, berating ourselves, or ruminating. There is a wholesomeness in just meeting what's difficult with kindness. An uprightness, a quiet strength.

As we bring this meditation to a close, appreciating that we showed up. If there are any judgments arising for how it was or wasn't, can we meet that dagger of self-judgment with kindness? Appreciating ourselves and our beautiful Sangha^[2] for showing up and planting seeds of kindness and compassion towards ourselves and the world. Compassion starts with ourselves.

May we be of service. May we serve compassionately. May we be kind to this being who is us, to all those whose lives we touch directly and indirectly. May all beings everywhere be free, have ease with their challenges, with their suffering. May all beings be well. May all beings be free, including ourselves.

Thank you, friends. Thank you for your practice. And if you like, if you feel moved, you are welcome to put a word about what is coming up for you in this moment as I take a moment to transition the recordings.

Reflections on Compassion

Greetings, everyone. Lovely to be with you this week practicing together around the theme of compassion, continuing the theme. We just did a meditation together, and I asked you if you wanted to put a word or a phrase in the chat about what's coming up for you. The theme of our practice, of course, was compassion for the body, for our own hearts, starting with the self. A few words: tears, beautiful and helpful, gratitude, peace, compassion for my form, for myself, to myself, for restlessness. Yes. Tranquil, appreciation, courageous, vulnerability. Just reading a few words, thank you for bringing those into the space. I needed that compassion this morning. Yeah. Steadfast kindness. Beautiful. So many beautiful nuggets we're bringing back in to support each other. Some compassion for this tired body. Yeah. Disappointment. Beautiful. Thank you all. Thank you for being in there and really engaging with this practice. Just so beautiful. I am so touched by this beautiful international Sangha engaging and supporting each other in this way.

I feel nourished in this moment by our practice. As I'm in there leading you from these states myself, it is nourishing. It's really a beautiful strength of the heart to be with challenges instead of rushing through them, and it takes time. It takes patience. Now, compassion—so much we can say about this, and so much we can explore. What I'd like to turn to today is compassion for self. Self-compassion as the basis for compassion to others, compassion to the world.

Maybe I'd like to take a step back first and offer a definition, maybe a couple of definitions of compassion, just so that we're on the same page and have a sense of what compassion is. Many of you have been practicing for a long time, and yet it helps to reconnect with what we are talking about, so it's not a fuzzy [unintelligible] word.

In the Theravada^[3] tradition, kindness or Mettā^[4] is the primary, the first practice of the heart. Kindness, loving-kindness, goodwill. Basically, what kindness or goodwill is, is just the kindness of the heart. Say, when you are walking around and you smile to a neighbor, or just a very simple sense of goodwill. Just simple kindness. It's not complicated. We all have it, readily access it many, many times a day. When you see someone you care about, oh, there's just a sense of simple care, goodwill. We translate it as kindness, loving-kindness, love, goodwill—so many nuances. It's basically kindness of the heart that meets a being who is in a neutral state, neither suffering nor happy.

Now, if you take the same kindness, the same Mettā, and it meets suffering—either your own suffering or the suffering of someone else, some other being—that Mettā, when it meets suffering, when it holds suffering, becomes compassion. So compassion is love, Mettā, plus suffering. In other words, it's also been said that compassion is the love child of love and suffering. There needs to be a challenge, some kind of pain, suffering, or difficulty, and it is met with kindness. So that is one way to consider compassion, in Pali, Karuṇā^[5].

And of course, just to give you context if you have not heard this before, if the same kindness, Mettā, meets joy in the world—someone who's very happy, or your own joy—then it gets expressed as Muditā^[6], vicarious joy, joy for the joy of others. Or if it's for ourselves, it gets expressed as gratitude, which is the third Brahmavihārā^[7], the third practice of the heart. Mettā being the first one, Karuṇā being the second, Muditā being the third, and the fourth one being equanimity, Upekkhā^[8]. Brahmavihārās being the practices of the heart, the heavenly abodes practices. Many of you have practiced this already, and if you've been coming to the happy hour in the evening, you've practiced with various dimensions of these practices. So compassion is meeting suffering with kindness.

For the preconditions that are required for compassion, we need to have an awareness of suffering. We need to turn and know that this is hard, this is painful. Really, that first cognitive knowing that suffering is happening is the most important aspect, because often we don't grok^[9] that. Oh, this is suffering. This is pain. This is disappointment. This hurts. That first "ouch," that ouch is really the most important step. How many times have you yourself been suffering, having a challenge, and just bulldozed through it?

I know for me, many of you know that I've had a chronic illness for many years. At the beginning, when I was just trying to get my head around it, I would be tired and aching, and I wouldn't grok it. I wouldn't grasp that actually, I'm not feeling well. I'd be like, "Okay, come on, let's get going. You've got work to do, you've got emails. Come on." There would be judgment. It took a while to realize, "Oh, sweetheart, wow, you are tired. You are in pain. This is hard. Ouch, this is hard." So that first recognition allowed a wise response, which was kindness, patience, the appropriate response, to come in. Without that acknowledgment, towards others too, like, "Ah, they're just being fussy or they're just being this," or relabeling it sometimes very unkindly, we miss that this person is struggling, this person is having a hard time.

Taking a pause to have that cognitive awareness is very important. Often, if we are rushing through life, if we feel stressed ourselves, internally or externally, and not taking a moment to pause and realize—and as you've been practicing, you realize that that pause becomes more and more available the longer we practice. And yet, it is important to have this in the background of our minds, to take a pause. What is happening? How am I perceiving this situation? Is it really what it is, or am I perceiving it through my eyes of rushing about?

Compassion for self, kindness for self, really is the basis for kindness and compassion for others. It's really the starting point. We can't fill other people's cups if we haven't filled our own cup first. Self-compassion is not selfish. It's not self-aggrandizing, it's not enabling. In fact, there are research studies that suggest that when we are self-compassionate, we take more responsibility for our actions, not less. We don't become enabling, like, "Oh, whatever," but actually, we take more responsibility.

I'll just take one minute to share one of these studies with you. There are many studies, but one of them is the work of Mark Leary and colleagues. They found that when participants were instructed to be self-compassionate when thinking about a past mistake, humiliation, or failure, they were more likely to accept personal responsibility for what happened instead of blaming outside things or events.

And that makes sense, right? When we have a sense of kindness for ourselves, we can accept our own failings. Like, "Oh, sweetheart, yes, that was unskillful. Yeah, you screwed up. It's okay, I still love you. It's okay, we'll do better next time." You see, it's more available. Whereas if we don't have that, if we have self-judgment, then we don't have the capacity to acknowledge that we screwed up. It's like, "Oh no, it wasn't me. No, no, it was their fault." We point fingers everywhere because there's no capacity. Because if we acknowledge that we screwed up—ooh, ouch, there are going to be so many daggers. So self-compassion allows us to actually take more responsibility for our actions in the world, and it's the basis for compassion towards others.

So in this brief time, we talked about a definition of compassion—there is more we could say—and we talked about the importance of knowing, of that ouch. Acknowledging the awareness of suffering, whether it is physical, emotional, internal, or external. And self-compassion really being the basis before compassion for others. There is a lot more to explore, and I'm delighted that we have the rest of this week to practice together. So thank you so much, dear ones. May you be compassionate to yourself the rest of the day. May you take time to pause if there is an ouch—physical, emotional, disappointments—to just acknowledge it, maybe just with a hand on your heart or just saying "ouch," and practice with this for the rest of the day. Thank you so much, be well, and looking forward to being with you tomorrow.