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Guided Meditation: Just Like Me

Greetings friends. Greetings to you from wherever in the world we are joining each other in this moment in time. I hope you are well and delighted to be exploring practices in compassion cultivation this week together.

As I mentioned on the first day, and as many of you know, cultivating compassion happens—the practice is offered—in growing concentric circles. We start with ourselves. Then the next category where we expand our heart is benefactors and dear friends, which we did yesterday; we put those two categories together. And then the next category, which is a very important category in this exploration, in this growing and expanding our heart, is the category of the neutral being.

Basically, this category is someone we don't know very well, and when we cultivate compassion for them, we tune into a sense of compassion for someone we don't have a lot of history with. The significance of this is that this person can and will become the standard for all of humanity. Actually, some people find this category easier sometimes than the other categories, even, because we don't have any history with this person. So it might actually turn out to be easier. You'll see for yourself. Let's practice together. Let's begin together.

Ah, landing in this body. Notice if you need to shift or move to be more comfortable, to sit upright. What does your body need in this moment to be comfortable? Do you feel grounded, to feel here?

Feeling your feet on the earth, your legs on the earth. If you're sitting on a cushion, feeling your sit bones, your bottom on the cushion. The magnet to the earth.

And connecting, receiving the breath. Receiving the breath in the abdomen. Let us receive three deep, diaphragmatic breaths to help us arrive, arrive fully and settle. Maybe breathing in for five counts, holding for three counts, and letting go for five counts, if available. Here we go together.

And this time, breathing in: one, two, three, four, five. Holding: one, two, three. Releasing the breath: one, two, three, four, five. And one more time in your own timing.

Now letting the breath be natural, but continuing to connect with the entirety of the in-breath, the pause, and the out-breath. Getting embodied.

And now bringing to mind, bringing to heart, someone you've seen, you've met. Perhaps you have even interacted with them, but you don't know them very well. This person could be maybe someone who works at a grocery store, a barista who has made your coffee, or maybe even a neighbor you've seen walk around. You've seen them, but you haven't interacted, perhaps passed seeing them or saying hello.

Bring this person to your mind and see them as clearly as possible, or feel them as much as possible, as if we had this interaction. Maybe they're the receptionist at the doctor's office. If you're still going through the list to find someone, it's okay to have a little bit of liking or a tiny bit of disliking. It's fine, it doesn't have to be a completely neutral person, but someone we don't have a lot of history with. A relatively neutral person. Bring them to mind.

Now this person, just like me, their life is dear to them. Just like me, they have a very compelling internal life: the life of the mind, likes, dislikes, thoughts. Just like me, they have hopes and dreams, aspirations. Just like me, they suffer, they have suffered. Their body aches because they have a body. Their body ages, gets sick, has gotten sick. They've had pain. They've had loss in their life, just like me. They might have lost people they love, had disappointments, defeats. They've felt lonely, sad, depressed.

They've also felt joy, happiness, just like me. There are people they love and hold dear. And this being is an object of affection to someone else, so someone really loves and cares about this person. They might even like something we like. If we like a particular vegetable or flavor of ice cream, let's imagine the two of us liking the same thing, just for the sake of imagination, or frozen yogurt or whatever your food might be.

They are not so different, this person and I. We're not so different. And just as I wish to be happy, this person just wants to be happy as well. They don't want to suffer. Just like me, they don't want to suffer; they want to be happy.

For the purpose of this particular practice, it's okay to use our imagination for a moment. Perhaps imagine them suffering in the same way we have, if we've had an illness or disappointment or loss. Maybe you've lost a loved one, and they too have lost their loved one. We both grieve together in the same ways.

And just as we want to be free, we want to have ease and peace and not suffer, we wish them well. Just as I don't want to suffer and want to have ease, I wish you freedom from suffering. I wish you ease. Just as I wish to have peace and strength and resources to ease my challenges, I wish the same for you.

Keeping them in mind, connecting to their image, to their felt sense, their humanity. Their life is just as compelling, just as dear to them and to other people, just as yours is. They are a dear person. And knowing that they too suffer. From that place of goodwill and acknowledging difficulties and pain, wishing them well:

May you be free from suffering. May you have ease, and ease in the midst of your challenges, your difficulties. I wish you well.

Continuing to engage goodwill for this person, compassion for this being. Using your creativity and imagination to create a sense of acknowledgment and connection. Without getting lost in stories, stay with the feeling:

I wish you well. I wish you ease and peace to face the challenges of your life, difficulties, and pain. I wish you freedom from sorrow and suffering. I wish you well.

Engaging with compassion feels good, it feels wholesome. A gladdening of the mind and heart to hold someone else with care, acknowledging their challenges. See if you can tune into it, like tuning a radio^[1]. And notice if your mind gets lost or distracted. Stay with the image of the person, and stay connected to the phrases. Stay connected to the feeling of kindness and goodwill.

May you be well. May you be free from suffering. I wish you peace.

And let the heart feel expansive, sharing its goodness, its good wishes, its care with someone it doesn't even know. Can the heart feel expansive? Its own expansiveness is available. Bearing our goodwill with a fellow human being. Care for their challenges.

And as we bring this sit to a close, appreciating this being who is me, ourselves, for showing up, for practicing, for cultivating kindness and compassion. For inviting our hearts to feel expansive, feeling its own goodness, its own capacity of goodwill. And sharing that goodwill, that care and kindness with ourselves, others in the Sangha^[2], sharing the goodness with all beings everywhere.

May all beings everywhere have ease. May they be free from sorrow and suffering. May all beings, including myself, be free.

Compassion (3/5) The Goodness of Goodwill for Someone We Don't Know

Greetings everyone, greetings.

Thank you for your practice. I just asked if you would put a word in chat about what's arising for you, and I'll bring a few of these words in. So many beautiful offerings: warmth and tenderness, "neutrality is ephemeral"—yes, I'll talk about that in a moment. Just like me, yeah. Open-hearted, heart opening, warmth, love for neighbors, a smile, both of us, all of us, deep goodwill. Indeed. Thank you. Thank you all for these beautiful reflections as they keep coming in.

As we continue to explore the practice of cultivating compassion this week, and the systematic way that it has been taught, we start with categories that we're more connected to, better connected to: ourselves, our benefactors, dear beings. And then we move to this category that we just explored in the meditation, which is the neutral person. We cultivate our care for someone we don't really know, someone we don't have a lot of experience, background, or history with.

This category is a very, very important category because up to now, the categories as we expand the heart are people we know. We know ourselves—kind of, we keep discovering ourselves, but we kind of know ourselves, we spend more time with ourselves than anyone else. Our benefactors, our good friends, etc. So far we've been in known territory, and now the neutral person is the cusp. It is a very important transition to the next few categories. It's really the building block, the most important step to the next expansions of the heart. So it is important to step to this neutral category.

As we engage with the neutral person, you might have noticed after a while practicing with the neutral person, they don't stay neutral anymore. Our hearts start to care, hearts start to expand. I have lots of stories, which I have shared before, of practicing with a neutral category for a while, and the person becomes so dear. They become so dear, like a sister. My heart wouldn't know the difference between who used to be the neutral person—who I didn't even know, I hadn't spoken a word to—and my best friend, my sister. There's no difference in my heart.

It's not just me; this is the classical teaching. Actually, since I shared this with you, I'll tell you there is a test. You know when we have these midterms and final tests? The final exam of these practices of the heart, let's say compassion, when you practice it intensely for a long time—say on a retreat or you really dedicate your heart to it for a period of time. We haven't got to the people we have challenges with yet, but the test is when you imagine that you're on a trip, you're in a carriage. You're in the carriage with your dear person, with your neutral person, and the person you're having challenges with, the person who's really pushing your buttons.

The four of you are in a carriage, you're going somewhere, and bandits stop you. They get you out and they say, "Okay, you have to give up one of you. Whom are you going to give up?" And then in your heart you try to figure out, whom are you going to give up? Are you going to give up yourself? Well, you're dear to yourself; your life is dear. Your dear person? Of course, they're dear to you. Your neutral person? You realize, oh yes, you practiced with them, they're dear. And then the person you've had challenges with—also not condoning the challenges, we'll talk more about that tomorrow—but you know there is an affinity, there is care, there is love. So you're not able to choose anyone at that point. That's the real blossoming of this practice.

But the point really is that these categories, as you might have just explored and realized even today with the short time that we've done this, are ephemeral. They keep changing, they're transient, they're anicca^[3], they're impermanent. We don't see people as they are; we see people as we are. So when we have kindness, compassion, ease, and gentleness, we tend to like people. We can cultivate it. It's not just that this is the way you are, and you can't shift and change, and this is the way you're going to be for the rest of your life. This is a cultivation. This is an absolute cultivation of our attitude and stance towards other people: neutral people, people we have challenges with. Again, I'll talk a lot more about that tomorrow, so we'll save that because that's a very juicy category. And yet this category of the neutral person is really the necessary step to expand our hearts and have equanimity, peace, and care for the people we have challenges with.

But staying with this category today, there are a few other things I want to say. Our hearts shift and expand, and the person who was once relatively neutral is not neutral anymore. We start to care for them. I know for me, and many, many practitioners who I've interacted with, this is true. This is what happens. I remember once I practiced with someone who worked at the cleaners, and every time I walked by the cleaners, I was curious if she was there. My heart would leap. This neutral person had become a dear friend; I was so happy to take my clothes there. The heart is so expansive. Who we decide to care for or not is so elastic.

And another thing, of course, is we realize that we're all the same. We all want to be happy. As human beings, we want to be happy, we don't want to suffer. All of our internal lives are just as compelling to us. My life, this richness of thinking, thoughts, intentions, and aspirations. Other people have them too! If we stop to realize, we realize how similar we are. And through that common humanity, we can have love and care for one another.

Again, as I mentioned briefly earlier, another importance of this category is that that neutral person becomes the stand-in for all of humanity. So when we expand to all beings at the end, our hearts connect with being with this person as, "Oh yeah, and this person too, and this person too, and I'm not so separate from that person." This is a profound practice. When I discovered this—I was not born a Buddhist—and I discovered these practices, my mind has been blown, but my heart has been blown. So powerful.

Another thing I want to bring in today is what I had mentioned yesterday about the near enemies^[4] of compassion. Yesterday I talked about empathic distress or falling into grief as a near enemy, or as a masquerader of compassion—something that feels like compassion but actually it's not compassion; it's very different from it. Today I want to talk about another near enemy, another masquerader. Something that masquerades as compassion but is not compassion, and that is pity. Pity is not compassion at all.

The simplest way to understand the difference here is pity is where we have a "less than" view, like, "Oh, poor you. Oh, you're going through this hard time. Oh, poor you." So we have this, "I'm up here, I'm not going through this, I'm okay, and poor you." So there is a comparison, like, "I'm not going through that" or "I would never go through that." Basically, there's a separation. You're separating yourself from the other person from up here, like, "Oh, poor you. I feel compassionate, but poor you." This actually is pity.

Compassion says, "Yes, we're equal. I feel your pain. This could be me, this was me, this can be me in the future. I feel your pain. We're not so different, this can happen to me." There's no separation. There is a kinship in this feeling of kindness, of compassion and warmth, whereas pity has a sense of putting them down in our minds, perhaps without even realizing it. Look for that. Look for that when you're having compassion for someone, whether someone you care about or someone you don't know. Notice if there is that kinship, that lack of separation.

Tomorrow we will explore the next category, which is a very important category: people we have challenges with. In preparation for tomorrow, I want to invite you, if you can, for the rest of the day to engage a little more with the neutral person. As you're walking, as you're sitting, as you're going around, maybe imagine you're sitting making yourself a cup of tea. Imagine this neutral person making themselves a cup of tea. And as you're enjoying your cup of tea, imagine this neutral person enjoying their cup of tea. You're not so different. Or maybe you both like green tea. "I wish you well. Sister, brother, my kin, I wish you well."

Let's practice with that for the rest of the day as a preparation. Really, this is the stepping stone to work with people we have challenges with, and that's a very juicy and very important category. So important for us. Let's try to engage our hearts in their expansion today.

Thank you so much, Sangha. Thank you for your practice, for your engagement, for an expansion of your heart. May you be well, may you be happy, may you have ease, and may your hearts know their capacity for brilliant expansion. All right, looking forward to being with you tomorrow. Take care.