This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Embodied Compassion

So, good morning everyone and welcome. Welcome to IMC^[1] and the continuation of our week on compassion samadhi^[2]. And it's a wonderful practice of meditation to focus on compassion. And it's for the obvious reason that some people would say it's wonderful because compassion is wonderful and it's wonderful to see that grow and develop. It's also wonderful because it can show us the opposite in us. It can show us all the things that stand in the way of having compassion, having love.

There's a lot of beliefs, a lot of attitudes, a lot of carried hurts that we carry, resentments we carry that can get in the way. There's fears we carry that can get in the way of really focusing on compassion. There are beliefs. And rather than seeing those challenges to compassion as mistakes, one way to understand this compassion meditation is that it succeeds if it shows us what makes it difficult. And the other thing that's wonderful about compassion meditation is the very things that make it difficult to have compassion are often good parts of ourselves to hold in compassionate care. And so we can practice the compassion on the very things that make it difficult.

Though sometimes what we need to do is to have a deep kind of reflection and consideration about what these interruptions to compassion might need from us. They might have their own needs that need to be addressed separately from the meditation. But also to see what gets in the way of them is also to understand maybe that the focus of attention in compassion meditation is in the wrong direction, an unhelpful direction.

It's easy with compassion, where the focus is somehow on suffering, to go into thoughts and to stories, into frightening futures—what this means, where this is going, this is going to be too difficult. They can go quickly into deep-seated beliefs and also attitudes of "I can't manage" or attitudes of responsibility: "I have to do, I have to respond." Sometimes what gets in the way of a simple compassion is somehow the idea that there's an obligation or there's people who are watching us, expecting us, wanting us to go all out to address the suffering of the world.

So the orientation that helps with this is to realize that this is not the direction that this meditation is going. The direction is a radical simplicity of care, radical simplicity where we can settle the thinking mind, the story-making mind, the agitated mind. We can quiet ourselves, quiet the mind so that as a samadhi we're really deeply connected to our body. And it's through the body that the Buddha taught that samadhi grows and gets expansive.

Some people will complain that this means abandoning the world to just be simple and just be present for ourselves. The opposite is true: that cultivating a powerful samadhi of compassion is something we can then bring with us into the world to support our friends, our family, our communities, the world itself.

So, the focus for today is embodiment of compassion and letting the body be the receptacle, the container, the field in which compassion has a chance to grow and develop.

So, to assume a meditation posture and to gently close your eyes. And to begin in seeing inside of yourself, in your body, your heart, your mind what my words, my introduction this morning has awakened in you. What response do you have? Is it welcome? Is it unwelcome? Does it raise challenges? Is it supportive? And any response is okay. The idea is to not be living in the response so much as knowing it. Knowing yourself through your body, feeling and sensing what is your body's experience of yourself right now. And can you experience yourself without thinking about it? As if you'll have a deeper connection to yourself in a silent sensing of body, breathing.

Gently taking some fuller breaths so you feel your body more from the inside, from the inside out. The expansion of the rib cage. Maybe the expansion of the belly. And as you exhale let's see if we can relax the body, letting there be a settling, a releasing downward of places of tension. Letting your breathing return to normal.

And on the inhale, feel the thinking mind. And on the exhale relax, settle the thinking mind. And then settling into your breathing again. Feeling how different it is the experience of breathing in and the experience of breathing out. Feeling it more than thinking about it.

And then as you breathe, is there any place in your body that you most associate with compassion? With a warm-hearted care for others or for yourself. And if there is such a place, even if you don't feel it right now, for two or three breaths, breathe through, breathe with that place in your body.

And then bring to mind some person, some situation the person is experiencing, something where it's easy for you to have a simple ordinary compassion. Compassion that maybe doesn't require response, responsibility. It could be an animal. Could be yourself. Someone whom maybe ordinarily you're ready to feel friendly for, have goodwill or good-hearted attitude towards. And thinking of their suffering, maybe considering how you would like them not to suffer. And how there's a goodness, a rightness deep inside of wishing them not to suffer.

And for now, no need to be concerned of how to do it. Just to feel the care, compassion, desire to help, to support, desire for them not to suffer. Almost as an opening of your own heart. Keeping this person in mind, maybe very softly saying, "May you be free of suffering." Feel the place where that compassion lives in you. Some aspect of it that has a rightness to it. A pleasure. A sweetness or goodness. And let that be the receptacle. The receiving end of all that's going on for you. Let that be the resting place for your awareness. The sensations of compassion. And to stay calmly with it. Gently breathe through that place with those sensations.

And if there is a place within of compassion where a warmth, a pleasure, a sweetness of compassion lives for you. Remember to put aside the stories and reactions, resistance you have, to let go into those sensations. Maybe allowing them to spread as you breathe in. Expanding with an expanding torso, chest. Settling and spreading and spreading outwards and downwards as you exhale. As if breathing is a gentle wind that fans the flames of compassion. Spreading through your body. Spreading the warmth of compassion. Imagining that warmth is relaxing the body. Outwards, upwards, downwards throughout your body. And as it spreads, if it spreads, to let that be a quietening of the thinking mind.

And as we come to the end of this sitting, whatever abilities you have for spatial awareness, to sense or imagine the space around you. Open up that sense to be aware of the room you're in, the place you're in. With your memory for what it was like and what space around you is like. And as you breathe in, to let the warmth or goodness of compassion, the sensation, the feeling, spread out into that space around you. As if it's a warmth or a light. And this involves a little bit of imagination. Imagining your compassion filling the space around you. And from there out into the world.

In a way that also represents you and your heart being open to receive and sense the suffering of this world. To feel it and know it in an uncomplicated way. For a few moments, nothing to do, nothing to be concerned with. Simple compassion open, spreading into the whole world.

And may it be that we stay open and thoughtful and considerate of the suffering of all beings. May we be open and available to wish compassion to any being in this world that we encounter. May all beings be free of suffering. May all beings be free of loneliness and fear. May all beings be free of insecurity of all types. May they feel safe. May they be safe. May all beings be free of their own clinging and self-criticism. May they be filled with the goodness of goodwill, compassion, and peace. May all beings be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Love (53) Compassion Samadhi 4

So, hello everyone and welcome back to these talks on the samadhi of compassion, the meditation with compassion.

And one of the values, as I said earlier, of compassion meditation is in fact to benefit from the wonderful absorption in compassion, the feelings, the intention, the whole experience of how we have and experience compassion.

And it can be very healing, it can be very opening, and heart-warming, and it can be very settling. It's possible to go into a deep samadhi where the whole field of awareness is saturated with a feeling of compassion.

Sometimes in breath meditation, the whole field of experience is saturated with peace or with joy. And with compassion, it can be saturated with compassion and joy, with compassion and peace. But compassion is the main characteristic of it.

And when we practice compassion meditation, there's two ways that it can succeed. One is by actually getting absorbed or unified around this experience of compassion. The other is we learn what gets in the way of us doing that. What makes it difficult and how we can't do it.

So, the very thing that is not succeeding makes it part of the success of the meditation because we learn about ourselves more. We want to learn about ourselves. We want to learn about what gets in the way, the hindrances^[3] we have.

And then to hold those in compassion, to hold ourselves in compassion for the kind of challenges we have, and the resistance we have, the resentments, the attachments we have, the strong sense of obligation that keeps us tied to the suffering of the world, the suffering of others. We almost lose ourselves in concerned preoccupation, concern for them, and what can we do? We lose ourselves in anxiety. We lose ourselves in a sense of victimhood. When we open to suffering in the world, we feel our own suffering in some deep way.

And if we understand what gets in the way of our compassion meditation, it's successful, as I said, and we can learn how then to better care for ourselves. We know what needs attention, what needs to be resolved or worked with or seen.

And then eventually, those things that get in the way will fall aside. And we can get absorbed in this wonderful experience of compassion better.

Compassion is this wonderful place where Buddhist meditation meets at the interface of our own personal experience in meditation and the world around us. And so, where there is an interface, there is a connection there where the meditation is now concerned for the welfare of others.

But because we're thinking about others, we're concerned with others, to some degree, it's easy to get pulled into our thoughts, our stories, our reactions, and pulled into the deep-seated beliefs that actually interfere with compassion, that make it more complicated. Feelings of responsibility, obligation, feeling of taking suffering too personally. A kind of empathy that's not quite compassion because it's kind of like taking on people's suffering. And now we have two people suffering, the other person and us, because we're somehow suffering with them in a way that we hurt.

Compassion is not a suffering with. It's a being with deeply. It's a caring for deeply. Yes, there's a kind of empathy where we sense and know and understand in some deep way the suffering of others, but we're not taking it on. We're not experiencing exactly the same suffering ourselves. That would not be so helpful.

And so, to begin seeing what gets in the way is an extremely important part of this practice. It's not a mistake, it's not a failure in compassion meditation. It's actually part of its purpose to reveal this part of ourselves.

And it helps us understand what is not the meditation. And what is not the meditation is a lot of thinking about the suffering of the world or reaching out or being assertive.

But what is the meditation is this being a receptacle for suffering, being a receptacle for compassion, and to feel this compassion we have in the body. To enter into samadhi is to allow us to really get centered on the sensations of compassion in the body, where that's the primary home for awareness. That's where the attention rests. That's where the default is. That's what is being massaged by breathing.

And everything else, like I said yesterday, comes and joins there and gathers there and is there in the periphery, but the central focus of attention is the compassion. But to feel it in the body, to feel it physically. And it may take a while to really get a strong sense of the physical manifestation of compassion.

It might be a warmth in the body, it might be a tingling or radiance in the heart. It might feel joyful or there might be a pleasure. I often talk about it here as a sweetness. It might be a feeling of openness somewhere in the body. It might feel somewhere like a softness. So, whatever the sensations might be, find where that's centered in you. Find the center of those sensations, and let that be what you focus on, where the breathing unifies the breath with it by breathing through it, breathing with it. The breathing accompanies these sensations.

And then all these other things begin to relax. Or we soften the less energy we give to the strong sense of "I have to do something" and that strong sense of the story around it and how this is going to turn out terrible for everybody involved or "I better get activated and clear my calendar so that I can do something about the suffering of the world."

All those can quiet and something deep within the mind, the heart, the body can begin relaxing so that this warmth of compassion can begin spreading through the body. Some people feel it like a light that spreads, a warm golden light. Some people feel it like there's a gentle heater inside, this warmth that's spreading. Sometimes it's a softness. Sometimes it's something a little more indistinct like a sense of beauty. Really a sense of pleasure that's spreading.

And the more we relax, allow this compassion to relax, the bigger the receptacle becomes that can just let everything come in and just settle and relax there. Including, in a sense, the way we experience the suffering of others is welcomed in to come and relax here with us.

For now, we don't have to respond, we don't have to figure out what to do. The radical and powerful thing to do is to simply be with it and allow it to rest in us. It's almost like we save the suffering of the world by letting all the suffering come and rest within us. We receive it, we be with it.

And this simplicity of compassion in the compassion samadhi is a treasure. And it's a capacity we have, the amazing capacity in meditation to really simplify our life around one beautiful, wonderful thing. And in this case it's compassion. Other times it's just the breathing and the goodness that comes from that.

And as with breathing, so with compassion it prepares us to be in the world in a better way. So it's a kind of delayed gratification or maybe call it delayed compassionate action.

Of course it'd be nice to actually respond to the suffering of the world in an active way and make a difference for our friends, our family, the world around us, our neighbors. Of course we'd like it, it's good. I hope that's one of the reasons I'm a Buddhist teacher, to be able to spread more compassionate action in the world.

But to know first the simplicity of it here, and to feel it out—all the complications and hindrances to compassion—so that when we go out to the world, our actions in the world, our care for the world, we don't carry those complications with us. It doesn't interfere and make our care for the world more complicated than it needs to be.

So that compassion can be an expression of generosity, not obligation. An expression of deep goodwill and respect and attunement to the world, not responsibility, not resentment, not a big should, not tension. Compassionate action without tension is more effective than compassion with tension.

So those are the thoughts today about compassion samadhi. And I would encourage you during this day to continue looking for little opportunities to feel compassion for others. Maybe strangers you see. No one has to know you have it. Maybe private acts, taking time to feel the simplicity of a care, a warmth, a concern for people's suffering.

And see if you can find in the simplicity of it where there's a pleasure. Where there's a positive feeling that comes with that compassion, however small it be. Let yourself check in and touch into that pleasure a few times in the course of the day.

And let that be a reference point to also understand how you make it more complicated than it needs to be.

So thank you for today and we'll have one more day on this topic tomorrow. And that'll also be the last day before I go on about a one-month vacation that I'll do. About four weeks I think. And so I look forward to, you know, being here tomorrow.