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Five Faces of Compassion

So, nice to be with you. For those who might not know me, my name's Kodo. I'm one of the teachers here at IMC, and a couple of the ways I serve the community is through the teaching that I do here and at Insight Retreat Center. And then also serving as the co-managing director down there at the retreat center. It's a lovely and rich Dharma life.

You may have noticed it's Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all who celebrate. I promise that I selected the first story of this Dharma talk before I remembered it was Mother's Day. [Laughter] But it's perfect. It's a story of my birth.

The topic of the talk is the five faces of compassion. And so I was born about 42 years ago into an ice storm in Texas. I was two months premature. So, I was pretty small and not so stable. The first hospital we all went to, we pretty quickly realized that it wasn't well equipped for the kind of emergency that the family was in. And so we needed to get somewhere specialized. And that meant the first form of compassion on that day was my grandfather having a clear understanding that this was the case and saying, "It's time to go."

So, the medical team put my mom in an ambulance, which was a van with a stretcher in the back, and drove her many, many miles away to a place that could accommodate a birth like this. And my mom talks about being in the back of this van, and she's so worried about me. She's not scared for herself, right? The way moms do. She said this nurse put her at ease so much by just telling her stories. Through the ride, she would just tell my mom stories actually about all the kind of wild stuff that she had seen, and that made my mom think, "Oh, I'm okay." [Laughter]

So, after the birth, they spent about 20 days in the NICU, in the little incubator. You can imagine the incubator. I was about four pounds. And I was runty, and I was grunty. Apparently, preemies don't cry, they grunt. And I can imagine the medical staff, the doctors, and nurses just having all of this specific attention to what was going on and responding in kind with just what I needed.

One of the things they realized pretty soon was that after my mom left the hospital finally, I wouldn't eat for anybody but her. She had to be around in order for me to take food. Isn't that interesting? So, my mom again would come back to the hospital and feed me. And then you know, I'd go back to my grunting.

So, it took a while for my family to feel like I was safe. You know, two months early is a lot back then, and being that small. And the last sort of image of this whole thing: my mom and my grandmother are in an elevator in the hospital and apparently are looking quite scared for my well-being. And into the elevator comes this big cowboy. And an expression we might use where I grew up: he was as sturdy as a fence post. So, a big guy, tall guy. And he sees my mom and my grandmother scared and says, "Excuse me, miss." He probably said, "Excuse me, ma'am." "I just want you to know that he's going to be okay." And then he explains that he was also extremely premature and was about my size. [Laughter]

And the contrast was enough for my mom and my grandmother to, you know, relax and have some confidence and hope going into this next stage of caring. But all these different expressions of compassion, wrapped up in the response to this emergency. Caring for my mom, caring for me, caring for my family.

So, I'm very happy to dedicate the talk today to my mom. Happy Mother's Day.

You know, there are so many forms of compassion. And there's this notion in the Buddha Dharma that compassion arises in response to suffering. It's a basic principle of compassion. It arises in response to suffering. Something that Gil^[1] started teaching—he just did a two-week retreat at IRC recently and gave this talk that really inspired me and got me thinking about this. He talked about five levels or five stages of dukkha^[2], of suffering, that unfold over the course of mindfulness practice. We don't have to go looking for these. They just, as the practice progresses, our experience of suffering and how we suffer shifts and changes in these five different ways.

And then what I want to add actually is that that's the condition for the arising of five types of compassion. So, that's the inspiration for today. We want to talk about these five faces of compassion. Let's jump right into the first.

This first stage, this first level, can be characterized by being sort of enmeshed with the suffering that's present. Like, identified with it. Just another short anecdote. I remember during the peak of the pandemic, I went on this online retreat with Bhikkhu Analayo^[3]. And I saw the opportunity to ask of this, you know, very experienced and wise practitioner, letting him know, "I'm really suffering. How do we hold all this? It's just so intense." And I suppose he could see that I was enmeshed and I was kind of taken, and his response was really wise. I'm going to hold that till the end and tell you then.

But the characteristic of this first level of dukkha is that there's really no separation. You're totally in it. It's got you and you are it. Does that make sense? So, the identification and the enmeshment is the important point. It's not the content. The content can be anything. But really it's the relationship to that content that I want to emphasize. It can be anything from waking up in the night and seeing that story arise again in your mind. It can be something as simple as your to-do list that you've been preparing is just really weighing on you. Or maybe there's a conversation you keep replaying or rehearsing to try to either fix it or prepare for it. But you're in it. You're taken. That's the point of this first level.

And it can sound in these times like compassion's not even possible, because you're in it, right? But what I've found over the years is that having these sort of cycles of suffering where I'm not in charge, it gives rise to a certain sort of patience and a certain sort of willingness to hang in there through the process. And I think that's one of these faces of compassion. There's the sort of wisdom that knows this isn't going to be forever. I know it's really hard, but there's going to be a little space at some point. So that's this first face of compassion.

And at this level it's super humble. It's not insight. It's not like wise perspective. We're not trying to talk ourselves out of our suffering. It's just the patience and the willingness to stay and to be mindful. To keep our practice going. Maybe you've practiced through some of these times before. And my sense is that you go through enough of these cycles, somewhere in the back of the mind there's the confidence that the fever is going to break. At some point, you're going to have a little relief, a little space.

So as we hang in there in this way—mindful, compassionate, gentle with our suffering as best we can—a different relationship to dukkha comes to be, and that's one with just a little bit of space. A second form of dukkha. Where we're not quite in it. There's a little bit of breathing room.

There's this old image from the teachings of a traveler on the road who is ill and can't get the food that they need, doesn't have the clothing they need, can't get the medicine that they need. And then there's a second traveler that sees them on the road, and of course, compassion arises that says, "Oh, may this person have what they need. May they hold this with ease. May they be peaceful. May they get the food and the medicine that they need, the shelter that they need."

The way that Gil talked about this transition from the first stage to the second stage of suffering is the difference between "I am suffering" and "there is suffering here." Just that tiny bit of space you can hear in the language. And in the traveler image, the first level, we're totally the sick traveler. We're stuck there. The second one, we're the other one meeting. The suffering is nearby, but we're not identified with it. We're not enmeshed with it.

So, it's not a sort of transition that we force from being enmeshed to having a little bit of space, but the mindfulness practice does it. The mindfulness practice does it for us. Especially if there's compassionate tenderness all the while. And then as this identification sort of fades, the enmeshment eases, we discover a sort of compassion that has greater capacity. That's how I want to characterize the second phase of compassion. If the first one is patience and willingness to hang in there, the second one is a capacity to just hold what we have with a little bit more balance.

This is the sort of compassion that can sit with a friend who's having a hard time and hear what's happening and not be taken over by what's being offered. It's the capacity in us, when it's available, that can read the news and not be overwhelmed. Or the very same one that can stay with our own pain and difficulty and not lose our footing and be swept away.

We keep this up in the natural unfolding and there comes this third level. Another story I want to tell you. With this transition from that little bit of space, that second form of dukkha, to the third, is usually pretty surprising and pretty humbling. And in a phrase, it's the recognition that in some measure, we are contributing to the suffering. Not completely. Like, we're not doing it all. The suffering, whatever the suffering is, arises from conditions. Many of those conditions are outside of us. That is totally true. And there may be some way that either there's a fascination with what's going on, or there's some kind of clinging, or there's a resistance. You know, there's something in there. If there's dukkha there, there's some kind of participation on our part that may be subtle. And that's a humbling thing to see.

So, I want to tell you—it's a little bit of a humbling story to tell you, but I'm going to do it anyway. I was a yogi, I was a meditator on a retreat some years ago. How many folks have been at a retreat at IRC before? That's awesome. It's a lovely place if you haven't been. Just come check it out. Part of the setup is everyone contributes to the running of the retreat. So, we all have yogi jobs. And mine on this particular retreat was involved in some dish drying. I was part of a team. Seems like nothing bad could happen. [Laughter]

Part of the benefit of having a yogi job on retreat like this is that you get to bring your whole mindful presence to activity, not just being on the cushion. And I was doing that. So, I've got my yogi drying hands, right? And I have my entire mind complete with the hindrances. And someone else on the drying team... I keep having this recurring thought: "This yogi is drying these dishes all wrong." That's retreat mind. Anything can happen, right? And it gets magnified. You know, what's very small and innocuous becomes really big sometimes. We call that yogi mind.

The details are kind of fuzzy now. It might have been that I had a different standard of what was sanitary, or like maybe they weren't quite getting dry enough, or maybe there were little lint fuzzy things left on them. I don't know. Doesn't matter. Point was, every time we did this yogi job, I would be working with this aversion. Like, "This isn't the way we do things here." Plenty of time with my obsession. And then also it followed me to the cushion. That's part of the benefit of doing this on retreat, 'cause whatever your mind is doing off of the cushion, it follows you.

So my mind's repeating this story. Now, I'm back on the meditation cushion. First thing to notice: I'm the one who's repeating the story. I'm just rehearsing this over and over again, and I'm totally stressed out, and this person is none the wiser. Like, I'm having the worst time because I'm just doing this again and again, and he doesn't care.

The second thing: I got really curious. Like, really just let the mindfulness hold the story, rather than starting to, you know, turn away, drop it, come back to the breathing. I really wanted to come to understand this because it was so repetitive. And when I started watching closely, a couple of things happened. One was every time the scene would come back into my mind, there's a chain reaction in the body. It's like a contraction of the face, heat in the body, mental space felt like it was closing in. And all of this was conditioned just because of a thought. That was worthwhile on its own.

I keep looking at it. And at this point I'm, you know, being mindful with this scene. I'm not totally enmeshed and identified with it. I'm definitely clear there is dukkha here. But I wanted to get to know it even better. So, I start touching the attention on different parts of the scene as it comes in to try to find, "What's the thing that's holding this all together?"

And so, first thing I look at is in my mind I'm seeing his hands drying dishes, and that's totally neutral. Okay, so that's not it. I check the general form of sensations. I'm like, "Oh, are my sensations holding this dukkha package together?" And that wasn't it. Pretty soon I found what feels like the linchpin. One, there was pressure in my head. And two, there was a simple phrase: "That's not the way we do it here." Those two things. And as soon as I saw, the whole thing cooled. And it didn't disappear immediately, but I could feel that the clinging, or whatever was really holding it in place, let go. Something shifted. And then the story lost its intensity. Started to fade, come less often, and eventually pass. I didn't make this happen. It's just the course of mindfulness.

So, the thing to see here, this third level of dukkha, it was my own unseen subterranean story that was holding this thing together. The suffering as I was experiencing it wouldn't have been there without my contribution. That's the third piece. And just amazing to see that it cooled just in the seeing. I didn't have to get rid of this story. I didn't have to talk to the person. He never knew. I didn't tell him after the retreat. But it's kind of like this simile in the suttas^[4], how the magic trick only works until you see how it's done. And then it can't fool you anymore.

Something to take care with in that story. It's not like we go hunting for our shortcomings, or trying to find faults in our ways of thinking or something. It's not what I'm encouraging. But it is a humbling sort of thing to see. That there may be some sort of subterranean way that we're holding some dukkha together. Approached with wisdom, I think it's really wholesome to be honest about that sort of thing. And to really know it when you see it. But it's not an exercise in finding some way to blame ourselves or be self-critical or something. It might not be easy. I remember the first time I saw something like this, it kind of really knocked the wind out of me. It was hard to see, but the more that it happens, the more kind of light it feels. It's like, "Oh, look at me going again. This story."

So, may that happen for you. May it be useful. And seeing the sort of contribution that I was making, it made sense out of something I heard from a Zen teacher like many, many, many years ago. I asked him why Zen teachers' robes are brown. Novice priests wear black and teachers wear brown. And he said it's because by the time you wear a brown one, you're as humble as dirt. [Laughter] I think it took me maybe 10 years to get that one.

So this whole process assumes some stillness, some patience, some clarity, some willingness to stay, these kinds of compassion that we're talking about at the beginning. And then this third form of dukkha where we see our contribution, I think it generates a form of compassion that's humility. A face of compassion that includes humility. Which is really worthwhile on the Dharma path. For me, I've seen that it's humility that will allow my heart and mind to feel into a new way of being. If I think that I'm totally right, I might not grow into something new. Maybe. Or maybe it's happening all the while. But in my experience that sort of humility is part of what helps us kind of ripen in the Dharma.

So little did we know that that story not only included the third level of dukkha, third level of suffering and compassion, it also included the fourth. So, the fourth, as Gil was talking about it, is a way that we sustain our mindfulness and we come to really get to know the textures and the sensations of the suffering itself. Like in felt experience, like right here and now in my body, suffering is like this, it feels like this. This is the heat, this is the contraction, you know.

So, that was pretty clearly evident when I was going through the dish towel drying story and investigating what's holding this together. I want to suggest that this gives rise to a fourth aspect of compassion, which is a sort of spaciousness that's big enough to hold the whole scene, and big enough to hold the sensations without too much reactivity.

Then the fifth. He called meeting suffering with what's not suffering. That's so rich. Meeting suffering with what's not suffering. As I was reflecting on this, I thought, in some way we're kind of doing that all along. Every level. In the first level even, where we're meeting our enmeshed suffering with patience. Not suffering. In the second level where we have that little bit of space and we're meeting it with capacity. The third, we're seeing our contribution and humility is growing, not suffering. And then the fourth, the sensations, like the specifics. And there's space there to hold it.

There's a twist of wisdom that I want to offer for this fifth level of compassion. And that says as the process grows and kind of goes on in what feels in experience like a totally natural thing. You really don't have to make this happen. There can at some point be a surprising turn that recognizes that the compassion even is not I, me, and mine. It's of course something we cultivate. It's something we care for. But it's not exactly mine. I can't control that exactly. In insight terms, we might say it's something like it's empty of a self. Maybe for now that's just a horizon. But it's something that we touch into when things get really still and mindfulness gets really clear.

I like to say that compassion, it doesn't require a self. But it does heal selves. It doesn't require a self, but it does heal selves. And that can be healing for us. Of course. Can be healing for others. I hope it's healing for others. I like this idea of compassion sort of being freed without being possessed. That it's free to operate and respond and change shape as suffering changes.

This brings me back a little bit to what Bhikkhu Analayo said when I told him, "How do we hold all this? It feels so big. What do we do?" And what he saw, I think, was that I was identified. That I was totally in it. And that I had not only... I was not only attentive to my suffering, but I was taking the suffering of others. And that was interesting to me. It took me a while to kind of metabolize. But he pointed out that compassion in the early Buddhist sense, it witnesses, but it doesn't take the suffering of others. As Sally Armstrong^[5] will say, compassion is not a suffering state.

You know, I hold this in balance with sitting around with my colleagues and sharing challenges and the real feeling of capacity that's there. It's like we're all holding it together. I think that's totally true. But there's something in this form of the early Buddhist compassion where you're wishing for ease like the traveler on the road. You know, you're intending, you're even acting for the benefit of someone else. But not being taken over. It's a bit of a koan how that happens.

So maybe I'm eager to have some discussion with everybody. So I'll close with coming back to where we started. I think of all the different forms of compassion that my family offered and the nurses offered and the fence post cowboy offered to my mom. I think they're illustrative of the main thing that I want to convey today, which is that compassion morphs. It changes shape to meet what is present. Dukkha arises? Yes, totally. And dukkha arises in all these different forms. Suffering arises in all these different forms, and compassion changes shape to meet it. So, I hope that's something we can explore together.

Yeah, perhaps you have some comments, some questions, some thoughts. I'd love to hear. Thank you very much.

Q&A

Questioner: Thank you for the talk. Greatly appreciate it. I could certainly identify with the notion of holding on to the suffering. And I'm wondering when you identified that what that person was doing wrong when he was drying the dishes, and you had a felt sense there was a tightness in your head a little bit and the phrase, "That's not how we do it here." So, I don't think it's important, but you tell me what your thought was. Was there a phrase about how we do it here that came to mind? Wasn't even necessary.

Kodo Conlin: Yeah. That I must have had some kind of reference point. Maybe a memory of how others had done it or, you know, "If I were in control, it would be such and such." Maybe, but I don't remember that being explicit.

Questioner: Yeah, I was thinking as you were saying that, that probably really doesn't matter 'cause it's pretty binary. There's the right way and then every other way is the wrong way. Right. So, to identify what specifically was wrong with what he was doing is sort of inconsequential. It doesn't really matter.

Kodo Conlin: Yeah, it didn't really matter. I think for my own purposes, it was basically, I was experiencing some unpleasant sensations and thoughts. And then I was continuing to bind those. And it was helpful to see what the stickiest conditions actually were. But yeah, in some kind of way, he was just there to help me see that that was happening.

Questioner: Thank you.

Kodo Conlin: Of course.

Questioner: I really resonated with that story. [Laughter] I had something similar with cutting vegetables, and really feeling, "Oh, that's not how we should cut vegetables." Like, you know. And every morning it was also recurring. And it eased with that insight, "Oh, you know, that's not how you would do it, but in this place how I see it's working is with volunteers. And it cannot be one way of doing it. The only way that I see it's working is because everybody is doing it their way, but they're contributing and somehow it works and there isn't a standard." And that idea of the environment really made me understand it. Like, if it was a corporation, there is kind of the standard to do things that way, right?

Kodo Conlin: Sure. Sure.

Questioner: And I had never been in an environment like IRC where there isn't a standard, right? And it's really that realization that, "Oh, wow, it's actually... look at all those carrots. They're all cut differently, but you know, they still taste good." [Laughter]

Kodo Conlin: Yeah. Yeah, different value, right?

Questioner: And it's kind of appreciating the imperfection of it. And yes, it was really humbling to have that discovery. The question that I have is regarding the five phases that you are describing. Would that, you know, it seems like in some cases one thing would pop up or another phase, but it's not necessarily a progression, or all of those are present?

Kodo Conlin: Yeah. It organizes nicely to have a progression. Yeah. I could see them unfolding in a linear way. I could also see it not happening that way. I would imagine the first two stages have to happen first. And then it could be in my mind, you know, that it's then the fifth, the fourth, or the third stage that follows. I think there has to be some little bit of movement from enmeshment to space to a little bit of capacity. Yeah. And then the insight might take different forms or the process might unfold in a different way. But I think those kind of have to happen first.

Questioner: Yeah, I think the first one definitely. You start being enmeshed. That's what you said, right?

Kodo Conlin: Yes. Yes.

Questioner: Yeah, it felt like I was just recounting some dukkha I was having yesterday and waking up thinking, "Oh, you know, this is only because you have the self in this picture. If you take it out, there is no suffering."

Kodo Conlin: Nice. [Laughter] Nice. Yeah, I've heard of Joseph Goldstein^[6] giving the instruction, I don't know when, at one of these IMS^[7] retreats, to imagine that the thoughts in your head are actually from the yogi next to you. [Laughter] "These movies are not mine." [Laughter]

Questioner: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Thank you.

Kodo Conlin: Yeah, you're welcome.

Questioner: I appreciated your story and it reminded me of when I, speaking of compassion, of when I had a pretty devastating miscarriage, and that weekend, the doctor had called me to check on me, which I thought was so lovely. But what I had found out months later was that when he called me, he was at his mother's funeral.

Kodo Conlin: Oh my dear. Wow.

Questioner: Which I didn't know when he called me.

Kodo Conlin: Thank you. Thank you. Wow.

Questioner: I used to think that you went on retreat in order to have great expanses of time where you weren't doing anything else, so you could get really settled and get very, very focused and iron out your defilements that way. And maybe some people can do that. And maybe someday I'll be able to, I don't know. But the best lesson on a retreat I ever had was fairly recently. Where I just ended up embarrassing myself. "Oh, this pattern, it's still in me. And it can come up." And I kind of like to go back and take it all back if I could, if there was such thing as time travel. Yeah. You know, I wish I could, but nevertheless, I wouldn't trade that lesson for anything.

Kodo Conlin: That's when you really see. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. So valuable. Yeah. Yeah. If it's okay to extend that just a little bit, I've often thought about that process you're describing. For me, especially there was this kind of concentrated stage where the practice was really humbling 'cause what I was seeing was all of this, actually things I had done wrong or how I had hurt people or, you know, in ways that I hadn't even seen, right? And I credit that period, similar to what I'm hearing from you, with a shift in my ethical sense. It's a really important part of the development of a sense of how important the precepts are and how important interpersonal relationships are and kindness is. So, so valuable. I'm not sure what lesson you drew from the humbling period, but that was one of the clearest things that came out of mine. You know, my ethical sense has always been pretty highly developed. You know, I have the highest aspirations. [Laughter] That's not the problem for me. The problem is seeing all the patterns that are really... they're kind of deep and they're kind of subtle and very hard to see.

Questioner: Yes. Yes. Quite so. Thank you.

Kodo Conlin: Thank you.

Questioner: Thank you so much for your talk. And so my question is, if you could share the process of the five forms of compassion with for me, the example to maybe you could address is, you know, there are leaders in this world that I revile. Is that the right word? Um, and you know, there's Putin, there's Trump, there's, um, and then some of these billionaires, you know, Musk and Bezos, etc. So, for me, I have played around at times with my judgment of that and anger and all this stuff. And sometimes I've tried to have compassion for them. But if you could address some of this, like with a person like that, how to the process?

Kodo Conlin: Sure. Thank you for the question. I feel like it's relevant, and depending on your political orientation, that list of people you listed may be quite different. But nonetheless, the dynamics are the same. Based on what you described, I think I want to offer another form of compassion. Of course, there's the... it may be kind of obvious to see where the mind is enmeshed. And then those periods of time, and we don't know when they come, when there's that little bit of space to breathe, a little bit of movement. Another form of compassion that can arise aside from "hey, it's my contribution" or "not self" or "I'm holding the sensations," those other three that I talked about, is to turn that compassion around and care for this one. Like, that it's not... maybe it's not the time to pursue insights out of this intense difficulty.

Often the way that we teach it at IRC, there needs to be this space of wholesomeness in which the insights can open and unfold. So we don't... like I said, we don't force it through, but part of the subtext of the whole mindfulness practice is that there's this gentleness and kindness and care for this one. And I have the sense that if there's a particular charge, maybe even around this sort of issue, that we know how hot the stove is, and pull the fingers back, and then put the hands here for a little while, and take care of this one. And then you'll know when it's okay, you know, "when I can turn out and move and operate in this external space."

That's a sort of general dynamic answer that I want to offer, but I just want to acknowledge it's really a challenging thing. Yeah, how does it land for you?

Questioner: What did you just say? The last thing you just said.

Kodo Conlin: Oh, how does it land for you?

Questioner: Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah, so it lands very well for me and um, so maybe just a second related question is that so yes, I really believe in that and need to practice that etc. But then, so once I do that, then I can maybe be more free or whatever to address the compassion for the person. Yes. And perhaps then the five forms can come into play.

Kodo Conlin: Yeah, I would say the first two are already happening. If you're directing kindness this way. And metta^[8] is the food for compassion. So if you're wishing yourself well, then that's setting the ground for compassion to be possible. And then let's see. Those other three things, they'll sort of arise in their turn when it's time. I could see any of those three actually popping up kind of on their own while you're doing the metta practice. The compassion can be ripening in the background and maybe there'll be some insight into not self. Maybe there's also a clearer vision of if there's a contribution you're making. Yeah. So you don't have to wait. The whole practice is feeding the whole practice. You know what I mean?

Questioner: Thank you.

Kodo Conlin: I think we've come to time. So thanks so much for the discussion. Are there any announcements that you're in the mood to make? Just repeat myself. There's a tea and you're all very welcome to join if you'd like.

Host: Thank you, Kodo.

Kodo Conlin: Of course. Thank you all for being here. I hope we can celebrate mothers. And dukkha is often a difficult topic. But I think the depth and the poignancy of compassion, I hope that it can be a nourishment for us and that we can go out into the world doing some good today. May all beings benefit from this time together. Thank you.