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Compassion as a mirror

I would like to talk about compassion today. It is one of the great ideals of Buddhism. Some people associate Buddhism with compassion and wisdom. And I can confidently say that I would not be sitting here today if it wasn't for people who had compassion for me, or if I hadn't experienced their compassion. My experience of it, and struggles with it, have been a very important part of shaping me as an adult, as a practitioner, and even as a teacher.

But having said that, I would also like to say that because it's an ideal, it can be dangerous. Ideals are dangerous. People will often come to Buddhism for answers—answers to life's big questions or answers to their personal challenges. It depends on the perspective; maybe you could say yes, Buddhism has all kinds of answers. But for today, I'd like to say that Buddhism doesn't provide answers. What Buddhism provides is a very clear mirror in which we can see ourselves, so we can find the answers here within ourselves. Not because you thought it out—you know, reasoning out the answers—but there's a deep seeing of ourselves that we do through Buddhist practice.

That is a very significant statement: that the answers are not in Buddhism, but they're in ourselves. Because that's an encouragement to turn the attention away from trying to get a PhD in Buddhist studies (or the equivalent, which some people do), and instead to turn the attention deeply inward and see what we discover there.

In relationship to compassion, then, compassion is not a singular thing or a singular state. But many people will think it's a singular state. It just is what they think it is; it is how they've experienced it for themselves. And then, when they're being compassionate, they just have one option of how to be compassionate. But that one option might not be the best option. It might not reflect the full range of options of what compassion can be.

Many years ago, here in this room on a Monday night, I asked the people, "How do you know you're aware?" It wasn't a rhetorical question; I was just curious what people would say. But I was surprised by the answers, and what surprised me was how wide-ranging the answers were. I realized that I had been naive as a teacher. I was operating under the idea that whatever I thought awareness was—and I teach about awareness—I assumed everyone else had the same idea. When I heard all the different answers, I was so in awe and so appreciative. I thought, "Wow, there are a lot of things. When I say awareness, people are receiving it in different ways." And maybe each of the different ways is good. Their idea is good also; it works fine.

The same thing is true with compassion. I think there are many ways in which people hear the word compassion and have what they have in mind. Sharon Salzberg tells the story of going to Russia and teaching in English with a translator. She would use the word compassion in a talk—the kind of talk she would maybe give in the United States, a talk that usually had people inspired when they heard the word compassion. You could tell by the audience's expression. But when the translator translated it into Russian, everyone got sunk and depressed-looking. [Laughter] Finally, she asked, "What's this word you're translating as compassion?" I don't know what it was exactly—her book that she wrote about it says it—but it was something like "misery." So the reference point for what compassion is, is different.

In fact, the same thing is true in Buddhist languages. The word karuṇā^[1], or the way these words are translated or understood, is very different in some of these Asian languages than the English word compassion. And if it was translated more like how they understand it, I think it wouldn't quite click for us as English speakers.

That's a way of saying that maybe many things are compassion. The emphasis of the talk today is not what compassion is—you're welcome to have compassion as you think it is—but rather, what compassion is accompanied with.

Maybe there's an ecology of our hearts and our minds, and that ecology comes along with all kinds of different species. Maybe compassion is just one of those species, and how that species operates in a particular ecology depends on the other species that are there. There might be a lot of invasive species which are causing a problem, or there might be other species that have gone extinct, and that causes a problem. So there are all kinds of things that might accompany compassion. What accompanies your compassion? What accompanies your care, your love for other people or for yourself?

I think part of opening up "what is this" is asking: what are some of the mental activities, qualities, or states that contribute, that are the foundation for you to be compassionate? As I've taught recently on YouTube at 7:00 a.m., there are different kinds of awareness that people have. Just like I pointed out at the beginning that different people say different things awareness is, we actually have many things that could be awareness, many ways in which we attend, many ways in which we have attention for different things.

So if we only have one idea of what awareness is, then as we are aware of suffering in the world or in ourselves, that one way of being aware might not be the best one for the circumstance. Maybe if you're a feeling person, only feeling compassion and identifying with the compassion of someone else might actually be harmful for you; it might not actually be a good thing. But if you have this idea, "I'm supposed to be compassionate, and this is what I think compassion is," and then you get completely dispirited by it or exhausted by it, the problem might not be with compassion. The problem might not be that other people's suffering is too much; it might be the way in which you receive it, how you're aware of it. So rather than emphasizing the feeling of it, you emphasize the knowing of it, being a little bit more cognitive—that might actually create a more balanced and healthy kind of connection to suffering. So how we're compassionate, what accompanies it, is part of it.

But before I go into that more, I want to play a wonderful etymology game: looking at the root of words. The Indian word for compassion is usually karuṇā, and that comes from the root kṛ, which means to make or to do. Some people will see that karuṇā is sacred action. It's a very special form of acting in the world. What I like about this is that it involves an activity; it's a creative aspect of what we do. It's not about being a victim. It's not what the world does to us, but rather what arises, what emerges from us as we meet the world. So it's a kind of action of sorts—mental action, action of the heart.

To see it as something that emerges rather than something that reacts, something that we contribute rather than something we are the victim of. We're not passively experiencing suffering in some way and having compassion just happen to us. It might arrive intuitively, it might arrive without us making it happen, but it's still something that emerges in response. This might change the kind of orientation we have about what compassion is.

Too often, I think people who are troubled by compassion or get exhausted are allowing themselves a little bit to be the victim of it. It's happening to them, rather than them being centered in the place where we are the agents of our life, or the source of our life. I like "source" better than "agent." And as we sit in meditation, there also, we're not supposed to end up becoming passive people who are just passively aware. It's a whole process of discovery, looking in the mirror here to let go of, to shed all the unhealthy ways in which we're attached, clinging, hateful, or afraid, and letting all that fall away. To discover that we have a capacity, a wonderful source within that animates us. A wonderful source within that is a source of sacred action, a sacred place where our inner life, how we live in the world, can come from. The more free we are in Buddhism, the more that inner source that emerges replaces the controlling mind, the figuring-out mind, the reactive mind. There's something beautiful here for us to come from. So compassion is this action that emerges as a response, but not as a reaction.

One of the meanings of compassion is to be in the presence of suffering. I say it that way carefully, so I'm not saying feeling suffering. Empathy, as wonderful as it might be, also has many meanings. Sometimes people interpret empathy as, "I have to feel what other people are feeling." If we're straight out equally feeling their suffering in the same way they're feeling it, we're in trouble. Are we supposed to feel as bad as they are? No, that's not the point.

So instead of feeling someone else's suffering, how do we be present for it? To be attuned to it, not to ignore it, not to hold it at a distance or hold it at bay, but to be attuned, to be in harmony with it, to be present for it. That is a very different kind of language and experience than to feel other people's suffering.

Now, some of you might find it troubling that I'm saying this, and maybe your way of feeling it works really wonderfully, because again, there are many ways in which people feel the word. You have to feel sorry for Dharma teachers, I hope [Laughter], because we have to use words. That's why you should feel sorry for us, because words have definitions, and different people have different definitions for words. We might miss you, or we might be partial; we can't say it all. So you might have a wonderful way of feeling that works fine and keeps you in balance. But in terms of this mirror that Buddhism is, maybe this is a mirror for you to look into: "The way that I feel other people's suffering, is that really the best way? Is that being attuned to myself and others? What does Gil mean by harmony with suffering?" That's a good mirror to consider. Rather than just feeling, what would it mean to be in harmony with it or attuned to it?

One of the things I'd like it to mean is that you're not a victim of the suffering. You're not taking it on as a burden. You're not caught up in taking responsibility for it, which has been—and maybe still is a little bit—my Achilles heel. To feel responsible: "I have to do something here, and it's up to me." If that's what comes along with the feeling of suffering, in the big picture, it's not so healthy.

So part of the definition I'd like to offer for compassion is to be in the presence of suffering—our own and the suffering of others—and to have the aspiration for it to end. The aspiration for it to come to an end. Keeping it that simple, what's lacking in that definition of compassion is doing anything about it, the action part. I would like to bracket that for now. The word compassion in its simplest form, I would propose, is to be present for suffering in some way and have within us the aspiration for that suffering to come to an end, or to be weakened or lessened in some way.

I use the word aspiration very carefully, because I'm inspired by the word aspiration more than I'm inspired by the word desire, or even the wish that suffering not be there. Aspiration for me is part of this emergent deeper quality, I think because it's related to the word breathing. To aspire, like respire, comes from some place deep inside that is not reactive. It doesn't come from fear, it doesn't come from this heady idea of responsibility, it doesn't come from shoulds that we've learned from society. It comes from something deep inside that can only emerge when our breathing is easy. An easeful breath, a relaxed breath.

There's a word in Pali that's translated as "assurance"—to feel assured. The literal meaning of the word is to breathe easily^[2]. In meditation practice and Buddhist practice, one of the goals is to live a life where you can breathe easily. If someone asks you what meditation is: breathing with ease. Wouldn't that be a nice definition? So the aspiration comes when we breathe with ease.

When you're in the presence of suffering, what happens to your breathing? That's part of the ecology; that's part of what accompanies compassion. How are you breathing? Is your breathing tightening up? Is your breathing getting short and shallow? Are you hyperventilating? What's happening with your breathing? Have you somehow lost touch with an easeful breath?

You might then argue, "Well, I'm not supposed to have an easeful breath now. This is a serious thing, I'm supposed to be tense." Be careful with that assumption. The reason people think they have to be tense is because then the other person can see that they care.

One of the most significant early experiences of compassion I had was when someone I was very close to looked like they were going to die. There was a Zen teacher I was standing with in a courtyard, and I was explaining my situation. This person was so relaxed and at ease hearing all this, in the way I wasn't. They had the deepest level of compassion and understanding of what I was going through of anybody else I've ever talked to about it. That combination—clearly understanding, clearly caring deeply, clearly a kind of love present, and the person was at ease and calm—I had never seen that combination. That was one of those things that changed my life, to be in the presence of that.

To breathe easily. Where does the wish for someone not to suffer come from in you? It can come from fear. It can come more from your own discomfort than the discomfort of the other person. "I can't stand this, this is too much for me. Let's get the aspirin, let's get whatever, let's get this to stop. I have to do something here, we have to fix it." If that's my compassion... I can guarantee that if you're overtly acting that way, you're probably not helping the person you're trying to help, if it's mostly about yourself.

So this breathing easily is the aspiration. Then what else does it come with, this being present for others? What else is there in that presence, that attention, the aspiration?

It's not uncommon that it can come with a lot of conceit. Maybe not the kind of conceit where we say a person is conceited, but a lot of self-concern. How we look to other people, how we appear to them, how they judge us, what they'll think of us. What I'm supposed to do and what kind of person I'm supposed to be. "I'm supposed to be compassionate like so-and-so." There's all this selfing, all the self-identity, all the self-concepts coming into play that are muddying the water, agitating it all. It makes it hard for the easy breathing, making it hard to just flow in some natural way.

I think for many people, this idea of self—of me experiencing it, me doing something—is complicated because it's a magnet for ideas we have about what it means to be a good person, what it's like to be a bad person, how I'm not supposed to be. Can all those things be shed? Can they be let go of? Maybe not easily, but if you keep doing a regular practice of meditation, you'll learn how to drop some of this extra baggage that we carry around so much, often extra baggage around self. If you really want to be compassionate in this world, meditate. Be mindful, so you'll learn how to shed concepts of self that complicate your capacity to breathe easily in the presence of suffering.

Does aversion arise? Some people chronically or consistently have aversion in their life and they don't even know they have it. So their idea of compassion is inseparable from having some aversion. It might be aversion to the suffering, not the person, but it's still there. Some people operate with chronic or perpetual forms of wanting something, needing something. And so when there's compassion, that sense of neediness is also entangled with the compassion. We don't see it because it's invisible to us how much we're operating with desires all the time.

This again is why mindfulness meditation is so helpful. As we get quieter and stiller and more stable in meditation, what we start seeing better and better are the inner drives of aversion, of hostility, of anger; the inner drives of desire and neediness that might be there. When we see it better, that's good news. Most people think it's bad news, but it's good news because if you see it clearly, then you start becoming free of it. It might still be there, but it doesn't have to influence what goes on.

Even just what I've said so far is explaining a different way of being with compassion than maybe you've ever thought about. It's practicing with it, taking a second look, stopping with it. It's not something to just assume is one thing and you have to do that one thing and be that way, but it's actually something to stop and take a good look at. Have the mirror of mindfulness: Really, what is this? What's going on when I'm compassionate? What definitions of self are complicating it? What's happening with my breathing? What are the desires and aversions that are operating? What are the fears that are operating with it, and how do they influence the compassion? Are there confusion and doubts in it?

On the healthier side of it—which is what I talked about this last week at 7:00 a.m.—is there wisdom operating together with the compassion? The wisdom is to really look at how we're aware, look at how we're engaging, to recognize: what direction are we moving? Not "what's happening to me?", but "what direction am I going here?" I think there are a lot of people who overemphasize what's happening to them, as if they have to understand it and be with it and struggle with it. But in Buddhism, we're often looking at: where is this going in the next second and the next minute?

If I really feel an aversion to my confusion around the suffering I'm experiencing, if I get caught up in that aversion—"I have to fix things there, I have to change things immediately"—with wisdom you can immediately sense, "Oh, this is going in a bad direction. This is going to make me more tense. This is feeding aversion." If instead you see, "Yes, I'm full of confusion, but if I bring mindfulness to the confusion, yeah, that's going in a better direction for the next few seconds." So bring wisdom to bear on our compassion. The shorthand of what I've taught for the last five days is to have these questions: Where is this going right now? What is the momentum? How is this leaning?

By seeing clearly, we realize we always have one of two options: we have the option to make the situation worse, or to make the situation better in some way or another. At a minimum, mindfulness makes all situations better, just to be mindful of it. Distractedness, not being mindful, generally makes things worse. Being self-critical makes it worse; being self-accepting, self-loving makes it a little bit better.

Is there joy with the compassion? Or is the compassion sweet? I like the word "sweet". Again, what I mean by sweet and you mean by sweet might be very different. What I mean by joy and you mean by joy will be different. But is there something that feels really right? Something that you value how you feel when you have the compassion? If you don't, something probably needs to be fine-tuned. The attunement is not quite right, the harmony is not found. It's not easy to find the sweetness of compassion, but it is possible.

If you start looking, there's more to compassion than just a singular idea. Compassion has these things accompanying it, and those accompaniments make a big difference. Is there sweetness? Is there some degree of tranquility? Is there some calm? If you're tense, it probably affects your breathing. If you're tense, that compassion probably can't be so attuned and in harmony with the situation you're in.

Is there some equanimity? Equanimity here I define as non-reactivity. It doesn't mean non-responsiveness. In Buddhism, reactivity is not healthy. This emergent responsiveness is a whole different animal that we're looking for, that can only really happen well when the breathing is easy.

Imagine that breathing in an easy way is like one of the great keys to a good life. It's a key to wisdom, it's a key to finding our way in this life. To say it is so simple, but to do it... Breathing is one of those great mirrors. We're always looking for mirrors in Buddhism to really understand, because the answers are here in ourselves, and breathing is one of those mirrors.

All this that I'm saying today is before you act. Someone might say, "That was a big list of things to do, Gil. You're telling me to go spend the next two hours going through a checklist before I help my neighbor who needs groceries?"

The idea is to start doing the practices. Using this compassion mirror to understand yourself better. Over the days, weeks, months, and years you do it, this will become second nature. Some months you'll be focusing more on your breathing, some months more on the sweetness. You begin finding your way with it. This is a practice that will develop and mature your compassion over the years that you do it, and it'll become second nature.

If the person needs to go to the emergency room, don't go through the checklist of all these things. Don't worry about if your compassion is off, just take them to the ER and then deal with it later yourself. But the idea is to become wise, really wise, about what compassion is. So when the aspiration for the suffering to end is in a time and place where you can act, you can act from a really good foundation. And so maybe you become for someone else what that Zen teacher was for me.

It turns out that what you do for the person will change their life less than the fact that you're able to be there in a caring, loving way—really present, understanding, and having a deep, palpable sense of ease. When those all come together in such a way that they think, "Wow, is this possible in this life?", maybe you'll change someone else's life. Maybe you managed to get them their groceries or to the ER, but how you did it was what changed their life, not the fact that they had more food to eat or the doctors helped them.

I think it's sacred work. This work of looking deeply and practicing with our response to, and our presence to, suffering in the world—and our compassion, our care, our kindness, our friendliness. It's sacred work because it has a lot to do with our connectivity with other people, how we live in the presence of others. That bridge, those relationships that we have—if that's not sacred, I'd like to know what you think is. And maybe we're both right.

But it's sacred work to find an attunement, harmony, and aspiration in the world of compassion and suffering. May you find it toward yourself. May you find it toward others. And may all of us be nourished by the sweetness of compassion. Thank you.

Q&A

So we have about five minutes before our scheduled ending, and then I'm going to go set up for a community meeting we have. But if any of you would like to have a comment or a question about any of this, especially if you feel like you'd feel unsettled without asking it. Oh, you have a testimonial about compassion.

Speaker 1: Could you provide the Pali word for assurance and breathing easy again?

Gil: The Pali word—you know, I don't think I have it accurately anymore, but I think it's assāsa^[2:1], I think.

Speaker 2: That actually reminded me of something that just happened in the last year. My father-in-law had a heart attack, and my husband of course was distraught over it. He lives in India, so of course you can't do anything right away. You can't hop in a car and go see your father-in-law to make sure things are taken care of.

But that's of course what my husband wanted to do—find a flight and go as quickly as possible. And I said, "Wait, just take a deep breath. Even if we get a flight right now, it won't leave till tomorrow. So just take a deep breath. Let's assess the situation. Let's just take a moment to figure out: one, do we need to go right now? Maybe if he's stable, we can leave in a week and we'll go see him and it'll be okay."

Anyway, a lot of things ended up happening. We didn't end up going to India, but the point was just being able to take a moment to calm before rushing to do this, that, and the other thing. It really helped ensure that we didn't just react out of compassion. Instead...

Gil: And you had enough calm to offer him a different perspective, so he could kind of relax.

Speaker 2: Yes, yes.

Gil: I wish you'd been around me sometimes in my life! [Laughter] I've had times in my life where I reacted and acted quickly. Recently I was reminded of this: I once called the fire department and they came, because I didn't take a second look. If I had paused long enough to take a second look, I would have realized that nothing was needed.

So, last one, if you can take the mic.

Speaker 3: Pushing this a little bit raises a very important point to me. I wonder if the kind of situation they were facing, was it compassion, or was it a programmed response that you were supposed to do a certain thing a certain way? Because we all face that.

Gil: So the programmed response, as opposed to compassion. A programmed response, I suppose, is acting on habit or on policy that we see from our society: this is what you're supposed to do.

Speaker 3: Exactly.

Gil: I think that if we keep using this mirror of mindfulness to look at ourselves, hopefully we'll recognize what's driving us. And if it's a program, if it's a "should", then I would put that in the category of reactivity, because it's a kind of surface response that comes from the concepts and ideas that we have. I would take the time then to really settle more deeply in, and see if there's a deeper source for the compassion. It could be either, or it could be a combination of the two. Thank you.

Okay, so again, one of the things that I did in this talk is to distinguish or separate out the aspiration—the wish that someone's suffering ends—from our acting on it. It doesn't have to be so separate, but by distinguishing and separating them, it's an encouragement to pause, settle back, wait, and see where the action might come from. And in that looking more deeply, there is a whole ecology of what is accompanying what you call compassion. You might discover there's a lot there that's worth taking into account and practicing with before you act. So thank you very much.