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Guided Meditation: Insight into Compassion

Greetings. Looks like it's afternoon in the UK. Folks on the West Coast, it's good morning. Nice to be with you. Appreciating this week of practice together.

So, we have walked through four levels or aspects of dukkha^[1], experiences of suffering or disease. The first one being identified with suffering. Then having unhooked, not enmeshed anymore. The time when we recognize our contribution, and then the experience of the particular sensations. And then four faces of compassion that arise in response: patience, capacity, humility, and wholesome space. And today, the fifth.

With the fifth aspect or level of dukkha, Gil^[2] called this level "meeting suffering with what is not suffering." If you trace the arc of the week, perhaps you have the same observation that I did. In some way, this is what we've been doing all along. That each day, level by level of dukkha, a quality of compassion comes forward to meet it or is nourished. Compassion, not suffering, is arising to meet the difficulty.

Compassion morphs to meet the specific dukkha we've been seeing all week. Patience and willingness come up. Then at the second level, capacity. Then the important compassionate quality of humility. And then spaciousness comes up to meet the fourth level of dukkha.

In a way, none of those aspects of compassion themselves are a state of suffering. And each one met dukkha with something that was needed.

Today, the fifth quality of compassion, the fifth face of compassion, involves a little change in orientation. Instead of looking at the experience of dukkha, like we've been doing all week, we begin to look at the compassion itself. And something kind of gentle can happen where the compassion that's been holding everything turns out to be not mine. Not even my doing exactly. Not graspable. Then, not-self. So, that's the orientation for our meditation. Let's settle in.

Before we do anything, sensing what's here. And settling into our familiar posture. Maybe a roll of the shoulders as we sense into the ground. The physical support. The firmness.

From our stable base, lengthening the spine. All the way up through the crown of the head. Sometimes this means a little lift in the sternum. Balance front to back, left to right. Relaxing into balance. And with a few deep breaths, further settling ourselves here.

Letting the breath be natural. And as it goes, as it goes. Present. Here with this. And this stable presence.

Checking in your experience. Is there any disease or dukkha here? Perhaps any of the four varieties we've been talking about. Something quite close and enmeshed. Something with a little space around it. Perhaps dukkha at the level of sensation. Any disturbance here? Let's bring that into awareness.

As we include dukkha in our awareness, now sense or check or feel as one of these qualities of compassion comes forward. Maybe the simple willingness to be present when it's challenging. Maybe that quality of capacity. Perhaps humility. Or spaciousness. What's arising to meet this dukkha?

As time passes, the experience of dukkha is bound to shift and change, subside, increase, decrease. And compassion, too, may be shifting, responding, changing.

So notice we're not choreographing this change or play or dance. We know it and sense it, track it. But these qualities are operating, moving all on their own.

We play our part with sustained attention. Not in control of the states that arise. This ease comes and goes. Compassion comes. Changes. Flows.

In our silent presence, states and qualities will arise. None of them are ours to keep.

In our silent presence, may we see clearly just what's here, including now this, now that. With space enough for compassion to arise and meet our difficulties. And may that compassion extend beyond ourselves. May all beings benefit from our practice.

Dharmette: Five Faces of Compassion (5 of 5): Compassion is Not Self

Again, welcome. It seems to be Friday, which means we've come to the fifth of our sessions together on the five faces of compassion. We've been tracking along with a teaching by Gil on the five levels of dukkha. And discussing how compassion arises to meet that experience of dukkha and changes its form to do so. It arises in different ways.

Before we dive in, it occurred to me I might finish a couple of minutes early and leave time for some questions or comments if there are any notions coming to you. I don't think I'll be able to read the chat while I'm speaking, but maybe my saying this will prompt you to think of something you wanted to ask, and when we wrap up or toward the end you could put a question in the chat and we can try a little bit of response. It would be nice to connect with you this way.

So, again, five faces of compassion and how compassion morphs and meets the dukkha. With this fifth level of dukkha, of disease, Gil called it "meeting suffering with what is not suffering." And as I was practicing with this and reflecting on it, I thought, we've been doing this all week.

At the first level of dukkha, when we're enmeshed, something that's not suffering arises and that's patience and willingness. At the second level of dukkha, it's that bit of capacity. Capacity is not suffering. At our third level of dukkha, seeing our contribution, this gives rise to humility, and clear seeing and humility are not suffering. And then spaciousness is not suffering that is available as we're knowing the sensations of dukkha.

So, at every level, as I'm proposing it, compassion has been there. And this form of compassion has been the not-dukkha, the not-suffering that's meeting suffering.

So, in the practice this morning, the emphasis switches a little bit, as I mentioned. Instead of looking at the dukkha itself, we turn or we open or broaden and include compassion. Looking at the compassion itself. And something starts to shift.

The compassion that's been holding the dukkha begins to feel less and less like my compassion, less like I'm doing it, less like it's something that I produced. And more like this compassion is something that is moving through. Certainly we play our part. And when mindfulness turns and looks at the compassion, what we find is that even this warm holding, this patience, this humility, it's not "I" and it's not "me" and it's not "mine."

It's right here that we touch into an important principle in the early texts. As it's put, all dharmas are not-self. Sabbe dhammā anattā^[3]. Even the wholesome ones, they're not-self. Even the most refined heart qualities, they're not-self. And in here, the mind has been so thoroughly cared for through mindfulness and compassion that this can be seen.

Not-self is not an idea that we force onto experience. But it's a perception. It's a way of seeing that becomes available. Even this most refined compassion can be seen and understood as conditioned, as inconstant, as flowing, as changing. And as not-self.

When we see this, there's the possibility of an even further opening. I like to say that compassion at this thoroughgoing level, concentrated level, insightful level, the mind unified, can feel boundary-free. It can feel like there's no limit. No limit to the compassion, no edge to it. And seen wisely, seen with wisdom, the self-clinging that knots us up into some of our most subtle or deep forms of suffering starts to loosen. A very wholesome field.

So, compassion being not-self, but benefiting us so beautifully, I like to say that compassion doesn't require a self. But compassion does heal selves. Certainly our own, but not only our own.

To emphasize one point, compassion is not-self. It doesn't mean that compassion is a nothing. It means that compassion is a flow, a flow of causes and conditions, and there's no fixed core at the center of compassion. Compassion doesn't need an owner to flow forth. It's like a river, flowing without someone doing the flowing. And the not-self aspect of compassion means it can be offered without the kind of stickiness that comes from our self-centered activity. In this way, love can be freed.

And so, as all of these faces of compassion mature, compassion is understood to be free of being possessed. And freed compassion has somewhere it naturally wants to flow, and that's outward to others.

Maybe to illustrate this, to go back where we started the series on Monday to the day that I was born and the days that followed to refresh our memory. I was born two months early during an ice storm and there were all these forms of compassion that arose in response to care for the situation. Between the kindness of the nurse that traveled with my mother in the ambulance, to the medical team caring for me in the NICU, to my mom returning to feed me over and over again, to that kind cowboy in the elevator. I think of all of these expressions of compassion that arose in response to the challenges of the moment, and the compassion took so many forms.

I'm thinking particularly about my mother, finally going home to get some rest and coming back to the hospital over and over again to offer a form of compassion that no one else could. An important thing is that it be done in a way that she could sustain. She wasn't lost in my suffering. She was steady for as long as it took.

I bring this back up in part because it mirrors a point that Bhikkhu Anālayo^[4] made to me when I was totally underwater in dukkha. Of course, compassion is the heart's response to dukkha with a wish for well-being for the one who suffers. But compassion doesn't absorb. It doesn't take on the suffering of another. It doesn't get swept away with what is dukkha.

Anālayo has this great image about compassion where he likens mettā^[5] to the sun at noon where it's bright and shines evenly on all things. Sympathetic joy, muditā^[6], is like the sun at dawn, he says. Everything is kind of sparkling and the birds are singing. And compassion is sunlight at sunset. The light is shining, he says, all the more beautifully even though darkness is nearby. It's a form of light that enters darkness without losing the light. And it warms what's near without being lost.

So maybe this form of compassion doesn't take on what is nearby suffering. Maybe again it looks like you're sitting with someone in their grief without making it your own. I'm sitting with a friend in pain without taking on their pain.

So just a note of tenderness as we wrap up the week. Practice with compassion is one of the heart practices that can certainly bring up things that are difficult. And so I want to encourage the patience, encourage the willingness, encourage the forms of compassion that we've been discussing all week, so that you can meet exactly what's here. But meeting exactly what's here with all the time in the world.

These are different faces of compassion. There's not one that's better than the others. Just meeting the difficulty with the compassion that's available. There's so much more than I think these five mornings can hold about compassion. They open pretty profoundly. And one of the ways they open profoundly is into another quality of equanimity. It's a companion quality that balances and helps us stay steady through all the highs and lows.

I'll be teaching a retreat on this next week up at Spirit Rock. Whether you're there or not, may we all find the conditions for practice that's calling us. Whether that's at retreat, at our home, whether we're on a cushion or we're walking on the sidewalk, may we all have the conditions that we need to sustain this practice for ourselves and for others.

These five faces of compassion, compassion morphs to meet what's needed. Thank you so much for your attention this week and your kind practice together.

Q&A

I'll say thank you and we'll look over to see if there are any questions that popped up with our last minute.

There is one question about people who harm others and practicing compassion with them. In the one minute that I have, I want to say it's a challenging practice, of course. But there are two aspects to it. One is, if you're not able to offer compassion over there, offer it over here. Cultivate it where it's possible. And that spreads. You don't have to go directly into the most difficult thing.

And to recognize that there's a limit to our sphere of control. So it's a sometimes challenging thing to hold, but it comes into contact with the second thing, which is equanimity. This quality of balance becomes possible when we recognize that I've done all that I can. It's been a good effort. It's been a wholesome contribution. And there's a limit. This person's happiness doesn't depend on my wishes for them. Their happiness depends on their actions.

And then I'll close with this one other question that I can see. What was the image for equanimity? Oh, so in that metaphor of mettā, it was the noonday sun. Muditā, or sympathetic joy, was the sun at sunrise. Sun at sunset is compassion. And then equanimity is the sunlight that reflects off the full moon. So it still has all the love of mettā, but it doesn't shine with the light of its own. It's cooled. So that's the image for equanimity.

So I think we've gone a minute over. Thank you for your extra time. Please take good care. Hope to see you again soon. Best wishes.