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: Liberated Compassion

Hello and welcome. Warm greetings from IMC^[1]. And we're here for the guided meditation on compassion. Compassion is one of the very profound and meaningful emotions and motivations a person can have. And it's one of the great central orientations for a life that can give life tremendous meaning and purpose. But it also can be the byproduct of becoming free of reactivity, attachments, clinging, and hatred, which is a deep work of Buddhist practice.

The deep work is really delving deeply into our inner life to release the places of reactivity, the places of holding, the places of resistance, and all the places that limit the heart's capacity to love freely, openly, without expectations, without exchange, and without needing to have it returned. This is just because it's the nature of the inner life, the heart, to love. And the inner life, in a sense, needs to love more than it needs to be loved. The greater that difference is realized, the deeper the inner freedom is, resulting in a sense of deep ease.

So, in Buddhism, there's a very strong connection between liberation and compassion. Liberation creates the opening, creates the space in the inner life for compassion to be fully operating. To be operating without any obstructions is one of the beautiful treasures of liberation.

For this meditation, as a synonym for liberation, I'd like to use the word ease. A profound sense of ease when all reactivity is put to rest. A profound sense of ease when we're not compulsively activated by desires and aversions, not compulsively preoccupied with our identity, self, ideas of who we are and how we're seen, and not caught up in thoughts of "me, myself, and mine." To have a deep sense of ease where all those things kind of melt away, even temporarily. And in that ease, to discover compassion. We discover that compassion operates cleanly and most fully when there is no reactivity.

Some people will think that a lack of reactivity is indifference or numbness, disconnection, or unfeeling. They might think a lack of reactivity is a betrayal of needing to show that we really care and that we're engaged and responsible. The opposite is the case. The absence of reactivity—the ability to rest in deep ease—allows our responses to the world to come from a deeper, fuller, and more beneficial place.

We realize that how we are is sometimes more important for the world than what we do. We might give some money to a hungry person on the street who's asking for a meal. That might feel good if we do it out of compassion, but also out of distance—not getting too close, staying safe, or maybe feeling a little bit disturbed by this person because of their dirt, poverty, or lack of teeth. But when we have a sense of ease and freedom with everyone we encounter, we might stop and say hello. We might ask how they're doing, look them in the eye, and appreciate them or see them clearly for who they are. Then we might give them some food or money. It turns out that they often have a greater need to be seen as a human being with care and love than they have for money.

Sometimes how we are is more important than what we do. And that's what we're learning to do here.

Assume a meditation posture, and then gently close your eyes.

Become attuned, aligned, and in harmony with the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out. There is no need to breathe any special way.

As you breathe, as you exhale, set your body at ease. Maybe relax the different muscles that are tense. Set your body at ease with a global relaxation of any ways in which you're braced against life. Easing up on the body. Easing up with the challenges of your body. Be easy. See if there can be an ease or easiness with whatever way your body is.

And then, set yourself at ease emotionally. Let your heart be at ease, maybe relaxing as you exhale. Setting your body's heart at ease. If there's some way that you feel emotionally challenged, it's okay. See if you can ease up on it. Be easy with how you're feeling. And be at ease with your body in the middle of it.

Set your mind at ease. Maybe on the exhale, relax your thinking mind. Experiment with quieting your thoughts. Slow down and gentle the images you have in the mind. Easing up on any challenging thoughts and ideas that you're involved in. Being at ease with how your mind is. Maybe by breathing with and through the mind as a gentle, cool breeze that cools and calms the thinking mind.

Then, be at ease with your breathing. Easing up. If your breathing is challenging, be easy with that. Easing up on any attitudes, resistance, or struggle.

With whatever sense of ease you have, in the places of ease, see if you can connect to compassion. A place where you feel compassion. A place where you feel a tender care.

Bring to mind someone—yourself or someone else—who it's easy and easeful to have compassion for. Their suffering or challenge is not difficult for you, but you do have compassion. You do have care. You do want the best for them. Find that place of compassion, that motivation of compassion. Thoughts of compassion.

Let that compassion flow through and with any sense of ease you have. Ensure the compassion is not compromised by any reactivity, judgments, fears, or contraction.

Maybe with the rhythm of breathing, give voice to the compassion with the words, "May you be free of suffering." Or if it's your own suffering, "May I be free of suffering." Let the voice that says this have an ease to it. Easing up. The image of compassion, the feeling of it, the sense of it within, is like the center of a big receptacle that you breathe with and through. Welcome suffering to come and sit quietly around the center of compassion. Your ease and freedom offer a generous welcome for suffering to come and sit close, to be held safely and caringly in your own heart.

If you have any reactivity, preoccupations, distracted thoughts, or tensions you carry, can you for a few moments relax them and settle them, trusting that compassion is the better option? Sit with compassion. With compassion at the center of all things and breathing, the weaver that weaves your soul, yourself, and everything else into and with that compassion.

When there is a deep sense of ease and freedom in the heart, compassion is easy. It has a naturalness. It's not forced. It's not held back. It's not doubted. It's as if freedom has been given its freedom, as if compassion is given its freedom to be fully itself in the fullness in which we inhabit the receptacle of compassion.

As we come to the end of this sitting, once again, set yourself at ease. Be easy with how things are. Easing up. Being easy with the suffering that we encounter. Being easy with the compassion that arises. Gazing outwards onto the world with a calm gaze. Be at ease. Gaze upon the world compassionately.

May all beings be free of suffering. May all beings be free of distress. Free of anxiety. Free of the pain of having hatred. May all beings be happy. And may we all contribute to the welfare and happiness of this world from a place of deep ease, trusting that how we are is often more important than what we do. And the very best is when how we are and what we do are in harmony, offering the best we have to support this suffering world. Thank you.

Dharmette: Love (54) Compassion Samadhi 5

Welcome to this last talk on the compassion samadhi^[2]. It is partly a continuity of the guided meditation that we just did, making a very strong connection between the Buddhist goal of practice—liberation from suffering—and our capacity for compassion.

There are two really important ways in which liberation gives rise to a very clean compassion that has no suffering in it.

One is that our experience of suffering, the way we take in suffering in order to have compassion, happens without any reactivity. We're free of clinging, hatred, distress, pushing back, closing down, or collapsing. Even when we feel suffering and it's painful, that pain is in a certain way welcome. We're not against it, we're not struggling with it, and we're not troubled by having it. It's almost like we're willing to have this pain, even the heartbreak that we experience with the suffering of the world, because that is where compassion for the world can arise. It's almost as if we're willing to hold and share the suffering.

But we don't actually suffer by the suffering of others. We're attuned to it, we know it, and there's a kind of empathy, but we're not suffering. Even though we might be feeling pain or discomfort with what's happening, there's no reactivity. There is no place of contraction or compulsion required for a reactive kind of suffering—the kind that comes from holding on to certain things, including clinging to responsibility, wanting to be liked, wanting to be seen as a good person, or holding on to the idea of what we think we should do in order to be a successful, card-carrying human being. Instead, there's a deep, deep sense of ease. There is a trust that this easeful, liberated way of not suffering because others suffer is actually the best way to respond to suffering. It's the best way to be in this world with others in a deep, caring way.

We can't really care for others very well if they suffer and we suffer also. Sometimes I've seen people who suffer more than the people who are actually suffering. They hear or see the suffering of others and they become more distressed, more upset, and more anxious than the victims themselves. That doesn't make any sense. It represents that we haven't really monitored or cared for ourselves in a deep way.

Being on this path to liberation is one of the deepest ways of caring for ourselves in a responsible, appropriate way. Finding ease, finding non-reactivity, and finding the ability to be present without closing down, resisting, or bringing "me, myself, and mine" into the picture—a kind of attachment to self, worrying about what people are going to think of us, and getting caught up in all the shoulds about how we should be.

It's okay to have a should where you say, "Ideally, I should be different," but there's no force behind it. We're at ease with it. "Yes, I would like to be a more generous person. Let's work for it. Let's see what I can do." This is opposed to closing down, becoming distressed, or being critical of oneself. That kind of should makes us tense. The other should is aspirational and beautiful to have: "Yeah, I should be more compassionate. Let's see what I can do about that." The feeling is not reactive. So, this greater sense of ease that liberation provides gives more space for clean compassion to come out.

The second thing liberation does is give us a much clearer, fuller idea of how thoroughly it's possible to become free of suffering—the depths of freedom that are possible. How that comes into play is... well, maybe this is a silly example. Suppose someone has painful knees when they meditate. You care for them and their suffering, and you don't want them to have painful knees. So, the best thing you can do is to meditate for them. You sit on their cushion and do the meditation so that they don't have to feel their pain. Well, you address their immediate physical pain and suffering, but you're preventing them from doing the deep inner work of finding this deep inner happiness and freedom that only they can do for themselves. Sometimes we interrupt people's capacity to go deep and really find deep freedom.

This was a decision I made when I was young that took me into Buddhism and wanting to dedicate my life to it. The alternative was to go back to graduate school to study soil science. I was very concerned about the erosion of soils around the world and saw it as one of the really big environmental needs of our times. It still is, and it would have been a worthwhile life had I chosen that way. But I had a deep sense that, yes, I could help farmers in poor places be more successful, save their soils, and promote better agriculture. Those farmers might have more money to buy televisions and cars, and it would be much better for them. But I felt that I didn't want to simply provide people with the comforts of life. As important as those are for some people, it isn't touching the depth of the suffering in the heart. They can still suffer quite a bit even though materially they're doing much better.

Buddhism is where that deep inner work goes on. How do we care for people deeply if we don't ourselves know the deepest possibilities of freedom that the heart is capable of? Liberation provides a reference point so that we're much more capable of helping other people suffer less because we know the full possibility of freedom from suffering. It helps us understand the depth of human suffering and the subtlety of it that is sometimes invisible to people. Something like meditation allows us to really touch in deeply to what's going on.

There is a long history in Buddhism of associating liberation and compassion, tying them together as intimate partners that arise together. Because of the compassion that comes along with deep and full liberation, liberated people tend to be motivated to live for the benefit of this world.

Everyone has a different gift to give. Some do it through the work they do, through their skills, or through the gifts they were born with. Some care for the suffering of the world explicitly by being a physician, an artist, a craftsperson, a better manager at work, or a good co-worker. It's possible to do it anywhere.

The point is that, at some point, our Buddhist practice doesn't really make sense if it's only for ourselves. At some point, we practice for the suffering world to benefit others as well. Even though the practice might still be very focused inside ourselves in a deep way, the motivation becomes wanting to better serve and care for this world of ours. We can only do that if we find the deepest forms of ease from non-reactivity. These forms of non-reactivity are celebrated in Buddhism by the words liberation, freedom, and release.

Finally, practicing compassion samadhi is a wonderful thing to do because it's also a vehicle for discovering liberation itself. Liberation brings forth compassion, and compassion can bring forth liberation.

If you're at all inclined to do this compassion meditation, it's a fantastic thing to do to benefit the world. And if you're inclined to practice more traditionally for the purpose of liberation, you will become compassionate. That will arise from liberation. Liberation leads to a deep sense of care for this world.

Announcements

Thank you very much. As I said earlier this week, I'm mostly going to be away for the next four weeks. I'll be doing pilgrimages. I'm doing a kind of walking pilgrimage here in California for about five days. Then I'll be going to Europe with my wife for a vacation, and we'll be hiking in the mountains. We have wonderful IMC teachers coming through to teach during this month of May, and I'll be back the first week of June.

Thank you very, very much. May your compassion be a medicine for you and a medicine for others. Thank you.