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Guided Meditation: Compassion for Someone Dear

Hello friends. Hello, greetings from Mountain View, California, unceded Ohlone land where I am, where it's been a little rainy overnight and cold, chilly. Hope you're well wherever in the world you are joining from. Lovely to join you this week and explore practices of compassion together.

The cultivation of compassion is done in this practice systematically, in this tradition systematically, in concentric circles. We start with ourselves, then we go to a category that's called benefactor, then after that dear friend. And today we'll explore the category of benefactor and dear friend; we'll join them together. We will still practice with ourselves as well, because you can never have enough self-compassion. You cannot have enough self-compassion ever for yourself, especially in the West when we tend to have a lot more judgment than kindness, compassion, and understanding for this person who is us anyway. So let's continue, let's practice together.

So arriving. Arriving in this body. Arriving in this moment in time. And allowing our body to release any tightness, any holding. And connecting with the breath. Allowing the breath to be breathed in the entirety of the in-breath and the entirety of the out-breath. Connecting with three deep diaphragmatic breaths in order to arrive and settle. Let the breath be breathed in, holding for a few seconds, and breathing out. Let's do it together. One more. Breathing out. Third one in your own time.

Letting the breath be natural. Comforting, soothing. Connecting to this moment here and now, to this body, however it is showing up in this moment.

Let your body soften, release. If thoughts are arising, they're not needed right now. Giving our heart completely to this practice in this moment. So the ruminating, thinking, planning, connecting to stories—let them go. Not needed right now. They are all concepts, not needed. Stay with the simplicity of breathing right now.

And turning your attention to the breath within the body. Anything that might be arising in the body that's challenging in this moment in time, can we meet it with kindness? Can we meet it with compassion? Not wanting or forcing it to be any other way, but softening around it, breathing around it.

Or if something is heavy in our heart, similarly, breathing with it with kindness, with compassion. Letting go of the stories, but staying with the feeling, the sensations, and soothing with the breath here, here now. Filling our own cup with kindness. If there are any challenges in this moment in time, kindness becomes compassion when it meets pain and suffering.

And let go of stories and thoughts, just staying with the simplicity of breathing in and breathing out kindness.

And now let's invite to our heart space someone who's been a benefactor, who's been really kind to us in our life. It's helpful if that person is still alive for this part of the practice if you're not very experienced with cultivating compassion practice, karuṇā^[1]. Someone who's been really kind. Maybe a teacher, coach, a parent, a relative, a friend, or a very good friend who's been there for us.

If it's hard to come up with someone, it could also be a person who's easy for us to have kindness or compassion for. It could be a child—maybe a teenager now, but when they were a child—or even a pet. Pets are often benefactors in some way.

Bringing this being close to your heart. And one aspect of their life, one thing that might be challenging or has been challenging. It doesn't have to be everything, but just one aspect. It could simply be that, oh yeah, they too have a body which ages and aches and needs care. Or some other aspect that has been challenging for them.

Connecting with this being in your heart, your mind's eye. Connecting with this difficulty and meeting it with goodwill. Wishing them ease and peace as they meet this challenge. As they face this difficulty, this pain. As if in your heart you're there for them. You are there for them. Your heart can feel expansive with its care. Not turning away from difficulty, but meeting difficulty and pain with gentle kindness.

It helps to really connect with the felt sense or the image of this being to really bring this practice alive. You can say some phrases silently:

May you have ease. May you have peace. With this difficulty, with this challenge, pain, sorrow, disappointment, whatever it might be. May you have peace and ease as you meet this challenge. May you be free from sorrow. May you have all the goodness, all the resources you need to meet this difficulty. I wish you well.

Keeping this dear being in mind, in your heart, their felt sense right there. Connecting with it, connecting with them. And connecting with their challenge, and holding the challenge with goodwill, with kindness, with wishes for its alleviation, for their strength. Wishing them well.

And making sure you feel stable. You're not falling into grief or overwhelm, but in your heart inviting them to a place of stability with love and care.

I wish you ease and peace. I wish you well. I wish you strength as you meet this challenge. May you be free from sorrow. May you have ease.

And for the last minutes of our practice, holding both ourselves and this dear being together in our heart space. May both of us have ease and peace in the midst of our challenges. May we meet our difficulties with kindness. May we be free from sorrow. I wish us well. May we hold this with goodwill, with kindness, with compassion as we meet our difficulties.

And appreciating ourselves having showed up and cultivated, planted seeds of kindness and compassion for ourselves, for another being. And trusting that these seeds will germinate in their own time, without attachment to outcome in this moment. And releasing this goodness, offering this goodness of heart cultivation together to all beings everywhere.

May my practice, may the turning of my heart towards goodness, kindness, and compassion serve, be of service not just to myself in my own life and those I know whose lives I touch, but everyone, everywhere. May I live a life of compassion and of wisdom. May I be of service to all beings everywhere. May all beings be well. May all beings be free.

Thank you for your practice, friends. And as we transition to the dharmette, take a moment to transition the recordings. If you feel like putting a word in the chat about what's arising for you, a word or short phrase, bringing it into the space if you like.

Dharmette: Compassion (2/5) Empathic Distress vs. Compassion

Greetings everyone. Thank you for your practice. I just invited you if you wanted to put a word in chat about what's coming up after having done this practice of cultivating compassion for ourselves and then turning to a benefactor or a friend. Really appreciating your offerings.

"Grateful for mind settling." "Gratitude." "Love." "I love surprises," I love that. "Compassion." "Love." "Intimacy." And a bit for "more compassion towards my mother, once a benefactor, now in a lot of pain and need." Ah, that's... I'll bring that in, thank you for that. I'll bring that into the teaching, how these categories of friend, challenging being, and neutral, they're all shifting and changing all the time. In fact, at a given time we can be ourself, we can be our benefactor, we can be our own challenging person, the person we're having challenges with. So these categories, they're not fixed. So I appreciate that coming in. And "without attachment to outcome," yes. "Present." "Awareness of the breath, of interaction, noticing the distraction," yes. "Reassurance," etc. So many beautiful offerings. Yeah, "timeliness."

So as we continue our exploration, just briefly to review that compassion is the love child of kindness, of mettā^[2], plus suffering. So when mettā—kindness, loving-kindness, love, goodwill, so many nuances of mettā—meets challenges, meets pain, it becomes compassion. That's what compassion is: meeting suffering with kindness. Not meeting suffering with ignoring it, or "Oh, I wish it was otherwise," or pushing it away, or anger, like "Why is it happening now? Why is this person suffering? Why am I?" No, with kindness. "Oh sweetheart, yeah, this is hard."

Acknowledging that it's hard. Yesterday we also talked about this cognitive aspect because we need to appreciate, we need to understand, we need to really grok that yes, this is hard. Anyone in this situation, myself or others, they would be having a hard time. This is hard, this is hard. And that "ouch," that "this is hard" acknowledgment is really the first and most important step. And then of course, it is important to be moved by the emotional suffering and have a desire and intention to see the relief of it, to see it ease, so that kindness is really coming and holding it.

So a few more reflections today. We first brought in ourselves and then moved to bring in a dear friend or benefactor, someone who's been kind to us. Sometimes these categories are put together as we did. In traditional teachings they're separate—benefactor and dear friend are separate—but here we have five days and we usually bring them together.

A lot of times for people practicing with the dear being, with these categories, we can fall into what's called empathic distress. Compassion can become what's called its "near enemy" in the teachings. In the classical language, there is a near enemy and there is a far enemy of all these practices. The near enemy is something that feels like compassion, it masquerades as compassion, but is not compassion. It's actually its enemy, but it's such a near enemy.

One near enemy of compassion, or one masquerader, is empathic distress. Empathic distress is when you acknowledge the suffering of someone who's dear to you (and this could happen for yourself as well, of course). You meet their suffering, but you become so engaged with the suffering, and the kindness and goodwill are not strong enough to hold it, so it falls into just suffering. You're just suffering. You're not holding it with enough goodwill; it's out of balance. When the goodwill and kindness are out of balance with meeting suffering, it tips into empathic distress.

Empathic distress could feel like grief. It can feel like, "Oh, this is so hard. I can't do this. Compassion burnout." In fact, there is no compassion burnout, because compassion is always balanced with kindness. It is empathic burnout. When we're just empathizing, when we're just feeling someone's pain, and if you keep feeling someone's pain without the kindness as that salve to support the feeling, then of course it's just too painful.

Empathic distress also feels like if somebody is in the waves and they're suffering, you jump into the waves with them and now you're both drowning. That is not helpful to anyone. With compassion, there's a sense of stability, and you're inviting them, you're extending a loving hand and holding their hand. You're extending a branch in your heart to wish them well. You are observing, you are with their suffering, but there's so much kindness and goodwill and stability of equanimity that you're not falling into the suffering with them.

This is a very important distinction I'm trying to make, because many people think, "Oh, I can't do compassion, it's too hard, it's too painful." Actually, it's empathic distress that's painful. You might have been practicing empathic distress, not compassion. Practicing compassion actually feels good. It feels lovely. It's uplifting to your heart, to your body, your mind. It is nourishing. It feels good.

Bringing in some research results, when people are practicing empathic distress, when they're just feeling the suffering, not full compassion but just empathizing, networks of the brain light up in fMRI. This has been studied by Tania Singer and others, Klimecki and others; there are lots of papers. The areas of the brain, the networks that light up are just the networks of pain. If you watch a video of someone being poked, the same area of your brain that has to do with pain for your hand will light up. Similarly, the empathy part—if you're feeling someone else's pain, if you're just empathizing—areas of your brain that only have to do with pain light up. So of course that will just be painful. Pain, pain! You don't want to do that.

However, studies show that if someone in the fMRI actually is instructed and they know the practice of compassion—and this has been studied with Matthieu Ricard, the long-term monk and person who really knows compassion practice, and others too—with the practice of compassion, the areas of the brain that light up when you feel someone else's pain light up, but also other networks light up that have to do with kindness, with filial attachment, with warmth, with love. These two together make up compassion. It's not just feeling someone else's pain—ooh, that's just pain and it's not sustainable. But compassion holds this. So both of these networks, when they all light up, oh yeah, it's actually a beautiful practice. We're cultivating our heart to meet pain with love, with kindness, and it feels good. There's bittersweetness. There's a tenderness. So explore that for yourself please.

And the last quick thing I want to bring up is non-attachment to outcomes. We do this practice, we do this cultivation, not attached to outcome. We're not going to call the person: "Okay, so I've been doing compassion for you, is all your pain gone now?" That is attachment to outcome externally. There is also attachment to outcome internally. This could be a little confusing because yes, we are doing this practice to cultivate compassion, but without attachment to results right now. "Okay, I didn't feel anything in this practice. I didn't feel this universal compassion that I've heard about. I didn't feel it right now. Why not? Why not?" You're planting seeds. Trust that they will flower in their own time. So have patience. You are doing your part, you are doing your own cultivation, you're doing your piece, and let go of the rest. Do your best, let go of the rest.

There is so much more to say about the practice of compassion. There are more near enemies; maybe I'll discuss them tomorrow. Pity being one of them, I'll discuss that. May you practice compassion today, and tune into both feeling the suffering but holding it with love, with care, both for yourself and for others. And tune into how differently that feels than just feeling the pain. You can explore that for yourself and see that yeah, it's very different. One is nourishing, the other is not. The other one is just pain.

Wishing you well the rest of the day with your practice. Opportunities for practice, there are plenty of them. Life on Earth is challenging for all of us. Being human is hard work, and actually being on Earth is difficult, so thank you.