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Brahmaviharas: Compassion (3 of 5)

Introduction

I have one announcement. Tomorrow morning I'm going to have cataract surgery for my eye. I just learned yesterday that I'm supposed to report in for the surgery much earlier than I ever anticipated—I have to be there at 6:15 in the morning. I just learned this yesterday afternoon, so I haven't figured out what to do for our seven o'clock sitting tomorrow.

Now, one way or another, something will happen here for you. One possibility is that there's a substitute who comes, most likely Diana Clark. Another possibility is that I can pre-record something today and post it tomorrow at seven o'clock in some way. So, one way or another, something will be available. I'll try to provide an update; if it's not the regular program here with a substitute, I'll post something on the calendar for this event tomorrow. If you read the calendar entry, it will explain what's going on. Also, probably in the "What's New" section of IMC's website—it's on the bottom of the home page, on the right—I'll put a little notice there about what's happening tomorrow.

The topic for tomorrow is the actual meditation practice on compassion, on karuṇā^[1]. It is one of the actual brahmavihāra^[2] practices. We're building up to this practice for tomorrow. So, one way or another, it'll be here for you. I plan to be here Friday morning, and I look forward to being here with you then.

Brahmaviharas: Compassion

These days I'm giving talks about compassion. I feel a little cautious, or want to be careful here in talking about it, because I don't want to assume that compassion is only one thing, or that whatever way I talk about it is the "true" compassion or the "right" compassion. Because compassion is such an integral part of many people's lives, it is something very important, and sometimes lies at the center of what is most valuable for them. I think each person will experience it very personally and in their own way. So we certainly want to be careful.

One way to do that is to appreciate that compassion—whatever it might be for you or for anybody—is perhaps not a singular thing. Rather, it's a compound thing; it is made up of different aspects. It's possible to tease apart and look at some of the particularly important component parts of compassion. Maybe that helps us to look at it more carefully and find our own way with this important topic.

One of the elements of compassion, I believe, is that it involves contact with suffering. The word "suffering" sometimes in English seems like a really big word—like only big things count as suffering. But in Buddhism, dukkha^[3] can also be very small forms of discomfort or stress that we might feel. Compassion has something to do with being in the presence of suffering. For some people, that's an important part of it. I say "sometimes" because there might be an exception to this, as you'll see as we go along. So, we need to be wise about how we are in the presence of suffering, whether our own or other people's suffering.

One of the component parts of compassion—at least the karuṇā that comes out of Buddhist meditation practice—is having no resistance to suffering. It doesn't mean we don't have a strong protest to the suffering of the world, or a strong idea that this shouldn't be there or things have to change. But in the heart, in our inner life, there is no resistance to experiencing and feeling that suffering. This is what happens as a consequence of meditation practice. We learn in meditation practice that the contraction of resistance, the hardness of it, the closedness of it, is itself a form of suffering. It's kind of unfortunate to do it, and we want to be able to relax it and let go of it. We want to be able to let go of the different ways that we cling, and just be present in an open way for the suffering. It's one of the great gifts.

This is one of the things that I learned in my early years of Buddhist practice when I had a lot of suffering. The meditation practice was a lot about just sitting in the middle of it and allowing it to be there. Just being open to it, not being reactive to it in any kind of way, or caught in any kind of way. Just being present. It was a kind of unconditional acceptance of the present moment with the suffering, and that was transformational for me. It was hard, but it was kind of like the meditation practice was a tenderizer for hard meat. My heart just softened and softened by simply showing up and showing up to suffer without reacting to it or closing down to it.

It might seem counterintuitive to do this because it hurts—it's painful. But it allows something to soften and open. The idea is having the suffering we experience be something that touches us. Rather than contracting us, closing us down, or making us hard, it actually expands something inside us. Something becomes more open, or something suffuses us. I often think of this as tenderness. Tenderness, softness—these are words that I like for this kind of inner feeling. And that tenderness has no boundaries; it has no walls or sharp lines where the tenderness ends. To experience suffering and have this openness suffuse, pervade without boundaries, this feeling of tenderness somewhere in the chest, somewhere inside, is a beautiful feeling, a wonderful feeling, even though the suffering kind of hurts at the same time.

If we meet suffering with resistance, then it's easy to be distressed, upset, dismayed, frightened, angry, all kinds of other things. But to learn the capacity to receive it without resistance, again, the reference point for this is meditation practice. In meditation, you're not expected to act on the suffering. You're not expected to go help someone. You're expected to just learn how to sit and be really present. In that kind of context, to discover this place of freedom inside, this place of softness and tenderness that gets evoked in the context of suffering.

It's a very strange idea for people who've never experienced it, because suffering feels awful, and why should I feel awful and bad? I've known people who've gotten angry when it was suggested they should sit in mindfulness and open to their pain, or open to their suffering and really feel it and know it. Their whole life was about getting away from it and fixing it and doing something. So part of compassion is this tenderness, this place that's touched inside that, when there's no resistance, is a kind of opening.

Then the second part of compassion that I think of is caring for whatever that suffering is. Either caring for the suffering itself, or caring for the person who is suffering, or the being that is suffering. The word "care" is a special word. It doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to act to help alleviate their suffering, or that you're responsible for their suffering. It means that in some contexts it's enough just that we have the capacity to care. "Oh, I care about your suffering. It's important to me that you're suffering, because I care about you. I want to let you know that I care, I sympathize, I'm with you. I'm your companion, I'm your ally, I'm your support. I'm here with you in your suffering."

I've been the recipient of that from people where I really felt that in some ways they cared for me and my suffering. I didn't feel like they were asking anything or expecting anything from me. It wasn't like they were actively involved in trying to fix or take away my suffering. But just knowing that they sympathized, that there was this wonderful care and warmth and love, and recognition and appreciation of me as I had my suffering—it kind of helped things relax and soften. Just feeling the human warmth and connection to someone else. So part of compassion^[4] is simply caring for someone, the kindness, the openness, the sense of shared humanity, independent of wanting to do something to alleviate it.

But another aspect of compassion is that motivation to do something about the suffering. This is where we have to be a little bit careful, because what kind of motivation is it? When we're in that context of suffering, there are two dharma motivations that can arise out of it. One is in fact wishing and wanting to help the person so they don't suffer anymore—hoping for them not to suffer, and offering help and support. So, compassionate action.

The other response to suffering is when it doesn't make sense for us to act on the suffering to help them out, or to do something to change it or give a helping hand. The experience of suffering in the world, and our own suffering, can motivate us to practice more diligently. To be inspired to practice and really get to the bottom of our own suffering. To really find a deep peace, find a deep place of non-resistance and wisdom and deeper compassion to go on the path of practice.

This is a very important part for me. Because there's a lot of suffering in the world that breaks my heart, but I'm not going to do anything about that particular kind of suffering—not directly. It's limited what I can do, so I put my energy into another direction. One way is I devote myself more to my practice. Now that I'm a teacher, I also devote myself more to teaching. Because I'm not necessarily helping somewhere else in the world, but I'll just put more inspired effort into making a difference where I can make a difference. To have the contact with suffering give birth to motivation of different kinds, I think sometimes is very respectful for our own hearts. There's something about acting and being motivated by something that moves us a lot that actually keeps freeing the heart or developing the heart. Not acting sometimes is a kind of causing more suffering, causing more harm to ourselves.

The bigger the suffering is that we experience in the world, the more important it is for us to respond and to act and to do something. But remember, it doesn't have to be that we respond directly to that thing. It might be we do something different. For example, 9/11 had a big impact on me. When it happened, I felt I had to change; I had to be a different person. I had to be changed by this experience. How did I want to be changed by it? I decided to start a program to train people to become Buddhist chaplains. So I acted in the world; I felt like I had to do something different. And so I had to create this program that still exists and has been going on now for getting close to 18 years, training in Buddhist chaplaincy.

So the idea is, what can we do, and not be burdened by the idea that we have to do something directly related to the suffering if it doesn't make sense for us to be involved? So there is the tenderness that comes from non-resistance. There is the simple care and caringness that doesn't really involve doing anything; it's a deep care. And the third is being motivated to do something, and being wise about what direction we go there. But again, the reference point is deep meditation practice.

To have these component parts come forward, they come out of us without any obligation. We can feel in meditation that any sense of obligation is a resistance, or a heaviness, or a burden; it is a closing down. It's not really healthy to do it out of a sense of duty: "I'm obligated to be compassionate." You can't be obligated to be compassionate, because by its very nature, it's something deeper than any obligation. You can't manufacture it and act it out. It is something deeper.

So to not feel obligated to be compassionate, but to be motivated to be compassionate. To be motivated to develop our compassion, because something deep inside us wants us to be a different person. Wants us to be someone who can respond to the world in effective and useful ways. So, no obligation to be compassionate. I think for some people this is maybe a difficult lesson and a very important one to learn. Because then the compassion can be clearer, stronger, and come from a deep-rooted place inside that hopefully makes it more effective and more meaningful for the people who we encounter and for ourselves.

You might have different component parts of compassion. Because there are so many different kinds of compassion that different people experience in different ways, maybe just the principle that your compassion is made up of different parts can help you to look more deeply at what goes on with you when you have compassion. That's something I think is sometimes very helpful to write about or talk to friends about, to kind of really start teasing apart what goes on for you when you feel or act with compassion.

So thank you very much, and I will see you in a couple of days.