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Anukampā (3 of 5) Care as Resonance with Others

I feel some happiness to be able to talk about or consider the Buddha's concept, teaching, or use of the word anukampā. Kampa means to shake, and anu means towards or with. In modern English, I like to think of it as resonating with others—to have something inside that can resonate. This resonance is this word, anukampā. I think the best translation that I can come up with right now for it is "care" or "caring."

It's a basic concept that appears in the Buddhist teachings, and oddly enough, it's emphasized a lot. It's used a lot—much more than the word karuṇā^[1] (compassion). But it is never something that a person cultivates. It's not something one develops. The Buddha put a tremendous emphasis on the cultivation and development of the heart, but anukampā is almost an assumed part of the human being. It's assumed that our capacity to care is kind of innate.

Of course, we'll care for each other, provided we have somehow settled or let go of all the obstructions. When we're caught up in preoccupations, caught up in being in a hurry, caught up in anger, greed, delusion, and fantasy, it might be very hard to give space to feel where we resonate. Where we have empathy, where we have these emotions and feelings of being in relationship to other people. But the Buddha seems to assume that this is the case, and that people will act from there. Parents will have this care for their children, and friends will have anukampā for each other.

The Buddha himself acts in the world not out of karuṇā, but out of this anukampā. As for some of the things that the Buddha says he does out of anukampā... People ask him—maybe it's a common colloquial expression in India—when someone is sick or wants and requests the Buddha to come to see them, they ask him, "Please, out of care." It could be translated as "out of compassion," but I think it means, "Out of care for me, out of consideration for me, please come to visit." The Buddha is said to teach out of care. When people want to give him food, for example, he receives it out of care, out of some kind of relationship to them.

One of the things I want to emphasize today is that this word "care" is a relational word. It's a word that exists, a concept or an event that occurs, in relationship to people—the relationships of others. For the Buddha, it seems he assumes that we live in a relational world, and he emphasizes it a tremendous amount, but without using the English word "relationship" or "in relation." I can't remember seeing in any English translation the word "relationship" or "in relation to." So for people looking for that and valuing that, it's missing. But it's a little arbitrary how we translate some of these words from the ancient language, Pali^[2].

We do find a lot of words that are closely connected to that. The Buddha was seemingly regularly thinking in ways that used conditionality. That's the English word we use: things existing in relationship. They exist because of conditions. Things exist in dependence—which is an English word that's used for Pali. Things exist in dependence on each other, in relationship to each other, on the basis of other things. Some things are said to exist like two straws of reed—the plant—leaning against each other. They hold each other up. They live in a relationship to each other. Existing in relationship to each other, holding each other up, they exist because they're in relationship.

For the Buddha, everything that exists is conditioned. This means that everything that exists, exists in relationship to other things. In terms of our behavior with other people, the Buddha—as far as I can read, over and over and over again—took the religious and spiritual teachings of his time and repeatedly reframed them in the context of a relationship to other people. In terms of what we might call ethics. In terms of how we would relate to other people out of our goodness, out of non-greed, non-hate, and non-delusion, as opposed to relating to people out of greed, hatred, and delusion.

There is this tremendous emphasis on greed, hate, and delusion in the Buddha's teachings. Becoming free of them as a definition of liberation is putting liberation in a relational context. Greed and hatred—especially hatred, but both greed and hatred—have a lot to do with the relational way we are in the world and with other people.

And so, over and over again, the Buddha comes back to this. One of my favorite ways he did this, which I think I mentioned yesterday, is when the Buddha defined a person of great wisdom. He said a person of great wisdom is concerned with the welfare of oneself, the welfare of others, the welfare of self and others, and the welfare of the whole world.

Where does that come from, this concern for the welfare of everything—self, other, the whole world? It doesn't come from obligation. It doesn't come from a logical idea of "this is what we should do." It comes out of... for example, for someone who spends a lot of time meditating, chances are that it wells up as a responsibility, as a response to this relational world that we live in. We are influenced by others; we feel others, they feel us. As we have this capacity to settle deeper and deeper, and the obstructions fall away, we touch into this place of resonance, this place of anukampā, which maybe is close to the English idea of empathy.

So ethics, then, doesn't come from following rules. It comes from being in touch with this place where things vibrate or resonate, or where this goodness exists. Where we feel, in a deep, heartfelt way, this being in relationship to the world around us, or how we mutually support who we are.

For the Buddha, it seemed that this kind of place is just assumed to be there. As people develop spiritually, it's just assumed more and more that, of course, that's what they'll operate from. It seems like the Buddha's care for the world, the Buddha's way in which he engaged and taught the world, came out of this place of anukampā.

Mettā^[3], karuṇā, muditā^[4], and upekkhā^[5]—loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. For a number of reasons, anukampā encompasses all those other four forms of love. It's also maybe more basic and simple. Mettā is friendliness (it's cognate with "friend"), so it's a way of being friendly and having goodwill, which is a little bit more conceptual, a little more active. Compassion is really in connection to people's suffering, and it's also a little bit more engaged or specific. Sympathetic joy is a little more conceptual in recognizing something wonderful that's happening there. And upekkhā (equanimity), maybe as a brahma-vihāra^[6], also comes from an understanding of wisdom—having a bird's-eye view, a perspective on what's happening. That's also a little bit more activated than this deep, subtle, quiet place where care exists.

This kind of place of care can then be manifested in loving-kindness or friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. But anukampā is something much more basic, simple, and relaxed. It doesn't require a lot of thinking. It doesn't require a lot of conceptualization. It's just this vibration, this resonance, this place of warmth and kindness.

The Buddha doesn't say that this is innate in us, but he seems to assume that it's there and that that's how people will operate. I find it very helpful to have this as a reference point: that there is something very peaceful, something at ease, something that doesn't get troubled easily, but that is a kind of warm caring. It's a way of living in relationships where relationships are important.

This Dharma practice we're doing, from the very beginning, is a practice that is very much connected to our relational world—our relationship to other people, animals, beings, and the earth itself. Of course it is. In all kinds of very fundamental ways, we only exist in dependence on other things. We only exist because certain conditions come together to hold us up. We only exist because we're leaning, and certainly leaning against other things, which are leaning against us, keeping us going and alive.

So it's this deep relational way we are. What happens when this deep relational place of empathy, of connection, of warmth, of goodness, of care comes from a place where there is no greed, no neediness, no attachments, no fear? Can we settle and discover this deep place of goodness within, and then let that be the support? Let that be how we come into the world. If we do that, I think it becomes second nature. It becomes a natural thing to want to care for others and to care for ourselves.

This idea that Dharma practice cultivates and develops people who care—maybe care in fierce ways, strong ways, and wise ways—is a very inspiring idea for me. I hope that all of us, as we continue to develop in practice, clearly see the connection between this practice and becoming people who have anukampā, anukampā for the whole world. Thank you very much.