--- ai_generation_date: '2026-08-21' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2020-12-14' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/12575/20201214-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-brahmavih_ras_compassion_1_of_5.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: "Brahmavih\u0101ras: Compassion (1 of 5)" url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12575 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: r-GtMUReA1s imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Dharmette: Brahmaviharas: Compassion (1 of 5)' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-GtMUReA1s --- # Brahmavihāras: Compassion (1 of 5) - [Gil Fronsdal](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1) _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._ ## [Brahmavihāras: Compassion (1 of 5)](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12575) So with this talk, I begin a five-part series on the brahmavihāra of compassion. It's hard to imagine Buddhism without compassion. It is one of the primary forces that has brought Buddhism down to us through the ages. It's one of the primary movements, or things that are awakened in us with awakening. The more awake we become, the more compassion there is, the more care, love, and goodwill. I like to think of awakening—this famous English word for liberation, enlightenment—as including the awakening of compassion. Certainly for me, one of those big surprises and treasures of Buddhist practice was the slow and gradual awakening of my compassion. It was so gradual and slow that I didn't really recognize that it was happening while it was happening. I wasn't oriented to notice it even though I was changing. In retrospect, after a few years of practice, I looked back and saw that, well, maybe I didn't get enlightened, but I certainly became compassionate and discovered this wonderful quality in myself. To my surprise, it was a quality that was very satisfying to feel. It has a kind of sweetness, a subtleness, and a rightness to it in and of itself. Compassion is not troubled by anything, and to come to this untroubled compassion is one of the great tasks of a lifetime. It's certainly easy to experience the suffering of oneself and the suffering of others, and to certainly have alarm, upset, and distress around it. It's also possible to have qualities of compassion together with distress. But to be able to have compassion without any distress is one of the great gifts that we can give to the world and to ourselves, and that comes from Buddhist practice. What is compassion? I almost don't want to define it too much. Sometimes I like to think that I don't really know exactly what it is, even though it's been one of the central organizing principles for my life for much of my adult life. I can think of very few things that are more important to me in how I live, what motivates me, and how I orient myself to the world than this compassion that's been awakened in me. So it's clearly very important to me, and it may be a little bit odd for me to say I can't really define it exactly. Perhaps it's because, over the years of my practice, what I have called compassion has changed over time. Maybe as I've developed, or as circumstances have changed, the quality and characteristics of compassion have not stayed the same. In fact, maybe there are different forms of compassion, and in the course of time, we tap into these different forms, shapes, and characteristics of compassion. So we don't want to narrow it down to just one thing, saying, "This is what it is." So, I am a little bit reluctant to give a definition that way. But it's also helpful to understand some of the classic definitions of it. Probably the most classic Buddhist definition in our tradition, the Theravada tradition, doesn't come from the Buddha, who never actually defined _karuṇā_[^1]. So it's a little bit of a guessing game to understand what he actually meant by this word _karuṇā_, the Buddhist word for compassion. But Buddhaghosa[^2], a teacher who lived about a thousand years after the Buddha, provided a wonderful description of compassion, _karuṇā_. He begins with what he loves to do—and what many Buddhist teachers in Asia love to do—which is to try to connect the meaning of a word with words that are similar sounding. It's not quite the etymology game, but a correspondence game of similar-sounding words. So _karuṇā_, spelled K-A-R-U-N-A, starts with K-A. He finds all these words in Pali that coincidentally start with K, or K-A-R, that he sees as resonating with compassion or giving the reason why it's called _karuṇā_. To go along with this, I've translated these Pali words with English words that start with "com-" or "co-," closest in meaning to what the Pali words are. So, it is compassion because it causes the hearts of good people to be moved by the suffering of others. What does it mean to be a good person? The word can also mean an ethical person, someone who tries their best not to live from hatred, greed, and lust. They try to live from qualities of friendliness, goodwill, kindness, and wisdom. This is why meditation is so helpful, I think: meditation helps us to become good people. It helps free us from forces of hostility, ill will, or the things we can do that hurt other people, helping us to be strongly motivated not to hurt. If we are such a person who is able to be in the present moment—it's such an important place to be as a reference point, as a discovery of this life—then when we are in the presence of other people's suffering, or know about it, something inside of us moves. Some people translate this word as "trembles" or "shakes." We are moved by the suffering of others. And the question is: how are we moved so that there is no distress? Then the definition goes on further and says it is compassion because it combats, strikes, and destroys the suffering of others. It's a little bit paradoxical, or ironic, to use such violent terms in relationship to compassion. But it does speak to the strong motivation to really make a difference, to really try to overcome suffering in this world. It is not just about accepting it in some kind of deep way, but really having this goal, this idea that it can end in some way or other. Then, it is compassion because it covers those who suffer. The word in Pali can also mean "moves" or "affects" other people who suffer, so the compassion touches other people. Reaching out—actually, there is a different translation: reaching out to pervade those who suffer. There's something we reach out from the heart with, the idea of suffusing or spreading compassion. Now, is this kind of fanciful thinking, to think that compassion can spread from us out into the world? Is there a force like electricity, where there are wavelengths or vibrations that spread out? What is it? I don't know, and I am disinclined to call it anything like that. But we do affect each other. We do pick up cues, the tone of voice, the mannerisms of others. We can sometimes feel the intentions of others. To know that this spreads out means knowing that somehow people are touched by it; it resonates in people. We open our hearts and spread loving-kindness and compassion to the world, as if we are suffusing, or touching, other people who suffer. A little bit more I want to say about this ancient definition or discussion of it: compassion is characterized as supporting what reduces suffering. I like this definition because it's not necessarily saying we work directly to end suffering, but we help reduce the support for suffering, the underlying causes for suffering. And that's many things: sometimes it's things in the external world, sometimes it's things within. But whatever it is that supports people to suffer, or the condition for people to suffer, that is addressed by people who have compassion. This next point is very important: compassion functions to not carry the suffering of others. Compassion has the quality that when we have this _karuṇā_ kind of compassion, we are not burdened or distressed by the suffering of others. That is one of the key qualities of this compassion: to not be distressed or burdened by it, and to be interested in alleviating suffering elsewhere. It manifests as the absence of cruelty. Its proximate cause is to see the helplessness of those overwhelmed by suffering. That really can touch the heart in a deep way. People suffer, but there are some people who have no ability because of circumstances, because of what's happening in the world—they are helpless, they can't really help themselves. And that really tugs at the heart: "Well, if they can't help themselves, who is going to? Let me help them." People are in war zones; people are in tremendous experiences of oppression where the whole system is set up around them, the whole world is set up, and there's no way out of their oppressed state, the terrible state they're in. Many other people are helpless sometimes in their suffering, and it tugs on the heart and awakens this kind of _karuṇā_ compassion. Compassion succeeds when it makes cruelty subside, and fails when it produces sorrow. When cruelty and hostility subside, and it doesn't elicit sorrow and distress in us, compassion succeeds. To have our hearts moved in such a way that we're not burdened, not distressed, that there is an absence of hostility and anger, but a strong motivation to help and support people to suffer less—those are the general parameters of what this compassion is. I think many times this part—that it doesn't involve being burdened, that there is no distress or sorrow involved in compassion—that is kind of the art, kind of like the magic or the specialness of it. Some people cannot believe that, or cannot justify that. They feel like there has to be sorrow and distress, and a sense of weight, the weight of the world on their shoulders. But to have this compassion that is sweet, a compassion that is one of the great sources of being happy in the world—if we want to be happy, we live compassionately. But the compassion of _karuṇā_, this particular kind of compassion that the Buddha emphasizes, or Buddhaghosa emphasizes here, is a very special thing. In these few words that I had to talk about compassion, what I hope is that it will awaken in you a curiosity and interest: what is compassion for you? What does your compassion feel like? What reference do you have for compassion that is sweet, compassion that is a source of well-being, compassion that is deeply moved by the suffering of the world but is not burdened by it, distressed by it? What is that? Do you have any reference point for it? If not, maybe you can reflect on this and think about it, and talk to people over the next day about your relationship to compassion and how you understand it. So, thank you very much. --- [^1]: **Karuṇā**: The Pali word for compassion, which is one of the four Brahmavihāras (sublime attitudes) in Buddhism. [^2]: **Buddhaghosa**: A 5th-century Indian Theravada Buddhist commentator and scholar, best known for his comprehensive work, the _Visuddhimagga_ (Path of Purification).