Compassion

This talk focuses on compassion and how it opens the door to freedom, opening the heart to the rest of the world, while also taking away the paralyzing heaviness some of us endure. Compassion is often overlooked in this extremely busy world. Allmen reminds us that it’s such an accessible tool to change the way we experience life.

Transcript

Tonight I would like to talk about compassion.

I'd like to begin with a quote by Nyanaponekatera.

He finds that it's a beautiful statement on compassion that he made.

It is compassion that removes the heavy bar,

Opens the door to freedom,

Makes the narrow heart as wide as the world.

Compassion takes away from the heart the inner weight,

The paralyzing heaviness.

It gives wings to those who cling to the lowlands of the self.

First I'd like to look at the reflection that is often used in Tibetan tradition.

It attempts to make something that should be quite evident or obvious to us,

But for many of us isn't,

Stand out more clearly.

The fact that in life it's a lot more meaningful and rewarding to care for all of life with compassion than to just look for oneself and perhaps a few close ones,

Chosen ones.

It's called the reflection on the disadvantages of an attitude of self-centeredness and the benefits of a compassionate attitude of altruism.

Altruism means instead of caring just for oneself,

Caring for all beings without exception.

I think the disadvantages of self-centeredness and egotism are quite obvious really.

Coming from a place of constant preoccupation with self,

Our life easily becomes narrow,

Becomes quite uptight.

Being entangled in the movements of greed and wanting,

One creates and develops an inner atmosphere of poverty.

Even when one has a lot,

There is a sense of not having enough no matter how much one has when we're always in the mode of wanting,

Of needing more than what we have.

We are constantly preoccupied with protecting,

Confirming,

Defending,

Gratifying,

Inflating the sense of self.

And through that there is very little joy and happiness in one's life.

This is why this self-centered attitude is comparable to a chronic disease.

It's not only difficult and painful and troublesome,

But it causes all kinds of additional painful side effects and ailments.

It's an inner attitude that keeps us from realizing our spiritual aims,

Keeps us from even moving in that direction.

In fact,

We always get the opposite from what we hope for with this kind of attitude.

We act from selfish motives because we want to be happy.

That's an appropriate and a rightful wish and state of being.

We should be happy.

But what tragic misperception to hope or to believe that self-centeredness can make us happy is exactly that which cannot make us happy.

Because the means,

The kind of mind states it uses are mind states that create suffering,

Such as desire and wanting,

And excluding others and just looking for oneself.

It does not only make us unhappy in the moment of an act or in a particular situation,

But in addition it causes and creates endless negative tendencies within us with all the future negative results for us.

On the other hand,

There is a sense of openness,

Of inner wealth,

Of abundance and joy with the attitude of cherishing all beings,

With the attitude of caring for all of life.

Just as self-centeredness can be compared to a chronic disease,

The attitude of altruism can be seen as a wish-fulfilling jewel,

A legendary gem that has the power to fulfill all one's wishes,

Because it very basically fulfills our wish for a sense of happiness,

Of completeness,

Of connectedness in life.

It's the compassionate attitude of altruism which makes happiness,

Harmony,

Even inner freedom possible for ourselves and others.

It's the potion which turns everything that gets touched by it into gold,

Using the Tibetan images here.

Each one of our acts,

Motivated by compassionate altruism,

Creates powerful positive energies in ourselves and also around us.

Our heart and minds get calmer,

More peaceful.

We're being more respected,

More appreciated,

More loved.

We create inner ease and harmony and create wholesome karma or wholesome inner tendencies,

If you wish,

For our future,

And we experience the growing inner freedom.

I guess a very good advertising for it.

The Tibetan Lama Thubnayeshe said,

If we want to make others happy,

We should practice love and compassion for them.

If we want to make ourselves happy,

We should practice love and compassion.

Very straightforward.

Also Shantideva,

The great Indian Buddhist Hathuan poet,

Wrote,

Whatever joy there is in this world,

All comes from wishing others to be happy.

And whatever suffering there is in this world,

All comes from the desire for one's own exclusive advantage.

And he continues,

But what need is there to say much more?

The child is just worth for their own benefit.

The Buddha's worth for the benefit of others.

Just look at the difference between the two.

Maybe even more convincing.

Even from a completely selfish point of view,

It makes much more sense to develop an attitude of compassionate altruism.

So if you think,

OK,

I don't care about all this stuff,

I just really want to develop what makes me the most happy yet.

Then still,

It's that attitude of caring for all beings that will serve us best,

Ourselves.

It's really so obvious if we think about it.

And it's really strange that we so often shrink away from that attitude or just not remember that it would be an option.

So what is compassion?

Compassion or karuna in Pali language is the genuine wish that all beings may be free from suffering and pain.

And the classical phrase that would be used in compassion or karuna meditation is,

May you be free from suffering and pain.

May I be free from suffering and pain.

May all beings be free from suffering and pain,

From torment,

Free from sorrow.

Compassion really is the same attitude or the same quality of the heart as the one of metta that we have been practicing a few times here,

The one of loving kindness.

But the focus is not the wish for beings' happiness,

But the focus is on the suffering of beings and on the wish that they may be free from that suffering,

From that pain.

It's a little different.

It has another tone,

Creates somewhat another atmosphere because we become aware and open to the presence of suffering in oneself and in other beings.

And to that the wish is generated that we all may be free from that suffering.

And it's not just a nice wish that we express,

But it's a giving of strength to that intention,

To that heart wish that living beings truly may be free from suffering.

I think I pointed it out in the guide to metta meditation.

It's also not an order.

We don't order,

You know,

May you be free from suffering,

And you better get on with it.

And it's not,

You know,

Oh,

If only they were free from suffering and we're sort of really sorry.

It's also not pretending that everybody now is free from suffering just because I send out that wish.

It's working on one's intention,

Facing suffering and really in contact with that wishing,

Allowing that wish to arise.

Compassion is defined as the quivering of the heart when it is in touch with the suffering of beings.

Compassion can't stand the suffering of others,

And it does whatever is possible and necessary to help.

The Zen monk in poetry,

O'Kahn,

Captures this kind of feeling or attitude when he says,

Oh,

That my priest's robe were wide enough to gather up all the suffering people in this floating world.

And again Shantideva wrote,

Expressing this movement of the heart,

This wish,

May I be the doctor and the medicine,

And may I be the nurse for all sick beings in the world until everyone is healed.

May I become an inexhaustible treasure for those who are poor and destitute.

May I turn into all things they could need and to make sure it's of use,

He wishes,

And may this be placed close beside them so they can use them.

Compassion really is the heart that is touched and wishes to reach out to all the suffering beings,

To anyone who is suffering or to the one that is right in front of us or with us that is suffering.

When we think of compassion,

We can see that there are feelings,

Emotions,

Mind states that are directly opposed to compassion.

And that is there are feelings,

Mind states,

Like violence,

Like cruelty,

Maybe,

Destructive aggression,

Mind states of that kind.

Just as hatred,

Aversion,

And fear is the opposite of kindness,

Of love,

Of metta.

Then there are also the so-called near enemies,

Mind states or emotions that look like compassion,

But in fact aren't.

Before I touch on them,

I want to look at how compassion arises.

Generous compassion is the natural response of the heart when it is open and in touch with the suffering,

Be it our own or that of others.

It's really that simple.

The problem that easily arises is that we don't want to see the suffering often,

That we don't want to feel the pain,

That we don't want to open to the pleasant,

Therefore shrink away,

Retreat,

Close up,

Put up aversion,

Resistance.

The great Indian master Atisha said,

Those who truly wish to dispel or to heal the suffering of others are excellent people.

They have understood suffering within their own being.

They have touched suffering within themselves.

What does that mean?

It means that we first have to be willing to dare to open to our own suffering when it's there,

When it arises.

Rather than closing up aversion when it gets difficult,

We need the willingness and the courage to stay open to the pain.

I think it's interesting in the meditation to see that when there are difficult feelings,

Mind states,

Difficult physical sensations,

We remember that and we sometimes think we're open to it,

So we look at it and immediately we come up with all the strategies.

How,

What we could do to make it go away,

To ease it,

To push it away,

To dissolve it,

To range things so it gets better.

And that's very natural,

That makes sense.

But it's also important and interesting to see how very often those strategies really come out of aversion.

I don't want this,

I'm not going to feel it anymore than it's already there,

And I quickly want to do anything that works,

That promises to work to get rid of it.

So we sort of pretend to be there for the difficulty,

For the unpleasant or painful mind state.

But we're not really there for it.

I think really this is sort of the main or the most important area to look into how to be related to difficulty,

To pain,

To suffering,

What it means to just be there with it,

Just be there with it in the meditation and see how much we can just allow ourselves to feel it before we do anything else.

What is that suffering we need to open to?

Many kinds,

Small sufferings,

Very difficult sufferings.

Maybe we want to go somewhere,

We hope for something pleasant or interesting,

And then there are obstacles,

We get sick,

We can't do it,

We can't go there.

Or perhaps in our life,

Even though we're young,

We feel we don't look good enough,

Or our bodies,

Our face isn't quite right,

Or we don't have the kind of mind that we wish to have,

We can't make it in our job,

In our school,

The way we would want to go ahead.

We find that we get older,

Or we get weaker,

Or we get wrinkled,

Or we get abandoned,

Abandoned by a loved one,

Or we feel abandoned,

Even everybody's around.

We feel lonely,

We feel sad,

Or we've experienced abuse or violence,

Or we do experience it,

We're confused,

Or we're very needy,

Fearful,

Or just angry,

Upset,

All forms of great suffering.

If we're close to all that,

If we want to get rid of it as quickly as possible,

Suppress,

Deny,

Avoid it,

That's very natural and it's understandable.

It's just not so helpful.

It's actually not at all helpful.

Because reacting to suffering with more aversion,

With suppression,

With denial,

Is going to lock it in,

Is going to in some way prolong it,

And will certainly not heal it in the long term.

It's very likely that this kind of reaction was the only one we knew,

Was our only possibility,

Perhaps,

When we were small,

When we were children,

When we were helpless.

To some degree,

This mechanism might have allowed us to survive,

To bear the unbearable.

And that's why I think it's very important that we meet this pattern with respect,

Not with judgment,

Not by thinking,

Oh,

This is really stupid.

There's a reason why it's there,

And we need to respect it and be,

Again,

Already gentle and compassionate in the way we meet and we see that kind of unhelpful pattern.

Often then those ways of dealing with difficulties have frozen into habit,

The habits which we need to reconsider,

Which we need to unlearn,

Perhaps,

Or to transform,

Or to see through in meditation.

That's what,

Part of what we're doing here,

What we learn in meditation.

We learn,

We practice to face difficulties,

To open to pain,

To bring the suffering that's present into the field of awareness.

And at times it's very demanding.

It's a job that can take a lot of courage,

Takes a lot of patience,

A lot of perseverance,

Because suffering is difficult,

And often it is vast.

It's vast,

Especially when we also look at it in the world,

In life outside.

My mother nowadays watches more TV than she used to,

Because she can't do many things anymore at her age.

It's quite limited to her room.

But she complains about the program.

She says it's much too much violence and shooting and killing.

It's difficult to find the program that I can watch.

So I said,

Why don't you watch nature movies and documentaries on animal life?

And she said that she's trying to do that,

But she said it's almost the worst.

And then once I saw that kind of a movie myself,

Not usually watching a lot of TV,

And I understood the really fantastic pictures of nature,

Incredible shots of all kinds of amazing animals,

Things animals we will probably never see in life.

What it was basically is one hour of real life.

But you saw close-ups of aces happily sitting on a flower,

And then you see from the side this big insect coming out and just eating them one after the other.

And suddenly this frog tongue comes and snatches the insect away.

So interesting.

Each time people have to laugh.

Is it really too much or is it really funny?

It happens each time I come to that point.

Then as you can guess,

There's the frog eating its insect.

There's a big snake approaching,

Grabbing this frog in its jaws.

And you see five minutes of frog devouring.

And comes a big iguana and grabs the frog.

And then this prey bird comes flying,

Whooping down on the iguana,

Carrying away the iguana.

And it goes on for an hour.

So I understand that it doesn't want to watch it.

I watched it for a while,

But I couldn't watch it for an hour.

So unbearable.

And yet that's exactly what's happening a lot of the time.

And what happens to human beings in wars,

In famines,

In prisons,

Even just in their homes,

Is sometimes much worse.

Fortunately that's not all that life is.

Not at all.

But it's a part of it.

And we share in that to some extent.

If we wish to cultivate the heart of compassion,

We'll have to try over and over again to open to at least some of it.

And to open to our share of it.

Pir Vilayat Khan,

A mystic,

Writes,

Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of pain that was entrusted to you.

Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart,

Each one of us is part of her heart and therefore endowed with a certain measure of cosmic pain.

You're sharing in the totality of that pain.

You're called upon to meet it in joy instead of self-pity.

And now we get to the so-called near enemies of compassion.

The mind states or feelings that look like compassion,

Sometimes masquerade as compassion,

But really are in most of the cases obstructed by resistance,

By aversion.

Self-pity or grief is one.

We feel the suffering a little,

Then we get very sad.

And maybe we feel something like,

Poor me.

I remember having felt that sometimes at burials or cremations,

Standing at the grave and crying.

Usually it was the people that I knew somewhat but not too close to me.

Life is so sad,

Poor us.

It's all right to have that kind of feeling,

But it's not compassion.

It's kind of,

I don't know,

In English maybe pity is the right word.

Then there's compassion that looks down at the sufferer.

I think the extreme of that was the donation box at my Sunday school.

It's actually all I remember of my Sunday school is that donation box.

It was about this big,

And there's this Negro child,

And I purposely used the politically incorrect word,

This Negro child who would nod and bow his head each time he would put the dime or something.

It's incredible.

It's really that attitude of poor them.

We're sort of very much at a different place,

And of course we're very separate from them.

And we look down,

And we are compassionately doing something for them.

Bad conscience,

Guilt.

When I close to the suffering with aversion,

I know that if I don't do something,

I'll feel guilty.

I don't feel okay.

I'll have a bad conscience.

So I do it,

Or I do something.

I make myself feel better.

Again,

I think it's okay,

Too.

It's just,

Again,

It's not compassion.

Perhaps it's important that it exists,

Because quite some of the charity projects,

I think,

Get funded that way.

I know I do it sometimes.

It's unbearable,

And it's just one thing,

Too many,

But that's just right to check and get it out of my way.

And still,

I know it's important for those who are on the receiving end to be supported.

But it's not compassion.

The last one I can think of.

Seeing the suffering,

But right away jumping to propose a remedy.

Instead of listening well,

Acknowledging the suffering,

I quickly give advice.

I suggest a remedy.

I think it's in this book,

Women are from Venus,

Men are from Mars.

They say men do that.

I don't know.

That's only men who do it,

But I did notice that.

I say,

Why don't you do this?

As soon as there's a difficulty,

Rather than taking a moment and saying,

Oh,

Right,

I'm really sorry,

Which is maybe what is more appropriate in a situation.

Again,

I think also the remedy is fine.

But when I don't first listen and acknowledge the suffering,

Again,

It's not really compassion.

Yet the proximate cause for compassion is really feeling,

Seeing,

Opening to the suffering.

And as soon as we open to it,

Compassion is the natural response of our heart.

And that's what we practice in Karuna meditation.

We can do it in a formal way,

Just as we did the metta,

The loving-kindness meditation.

We can do compassion meditation.

Traditionally,

It's done by beginning to send the good wishes,

The good intention,

To a person who is near to us,

Who we care for,

And whose suffering is obvious to us,

Because that's where it is the easiest to open and compassion can arise the easiest.

Yet the array of feelings can and probably will be quite vast.

I did a month or so of a Karuna retreat where one practices just that kind of meditation throughout the retreat.

In one sitting of an hour or two,

I would have felt,

In face of the suffering,

Helplessness,

Grief,

Deep compassionate caring,

And being such mental about all this ignorance which causes such suffering,

And soft,

Motherly concern,

Hope for the suffering to go away,

Aversion,

Outrage,

Numbness,

Flatness,

Sadness,

Tenderness,

Many,

Many different feelings that are evoked.

Compassion can be very tender,

Can be profoundly serene when it's combined with equanimity,

Can be courageous,

Quite heroic compassion,

With a sense of really wanting to do one's best to help in whatever way one can.

And I think it also became very clear that when compassion is genuine and deep,

It isn't anymore I or me or my compassion,

But it's something much vaster than our little self.

Much vaster.

The way it's really,

You could say,

It's really life,

Caring for life as soon as there is a real connection there.

In the formal practice after the person with very obvious suffering,

One then turns to oneself as we do in the loving-kindness meditation.

And then,

Same order,

To a benefactor,

Then to a friend,

Then to a person that we feel somewhat indifferent towards,

And then a person that's difficult for us.

And then we open to all beings,

And all beings in all ten directions.

Again,

I think it's good to remember that when it's quite obvious.

It's not that those good wishes are going to alleviate the suffering of those we send them to.

What it does do is cultivating in us the capacity to see the suffering,

To notice it,

And then the capacity to open to suffering,

And it strengthens the intention to eventually do something about the suffering.

So we could say compassion really arises in two ways.

It arises as a feeling of compassion when the heart is touched,

And then it arises as active compassion when the heart that is truly touched reaches out,

Acts.

The first feeling of compassion is expressed in Ryokan's poem,

Thinking about the people in this floating world far into the night.

My sleeve is wet with tears.

That feeling,

The suffering,

There's compassion.

In the other poem,

Ryokan expresses that wish,

That aspiration to do something about the suffering,

The one I read before.

Oh,

That my priest robe are white enough to gather up all the suffering people in this floating world.

So there comes a response,

And our response to difficulty,

To suffering,

To pain,

Is to provide what is needed to do what we can do,

To nourish,

To support,

To help,

To heal,

Whether it's inside or outside,

Whether it's here or there,

Because we realize it's not enough to feel compassionately.

When we see someone approaching a precipice,

We need to act.

It's not enough to feel compassion for them.

So we must not only meditate on metta,

On karuna,

On kindness and compassion,

But let us be moved to manifest these qualities of the heart in the world.

So out of a deep sense of connectedness,

Out of sensing and realizing the oneness of life,

We practice,

We act,

We live more and more for the welfare of all of life.

And each one of us will manifest in different ways according to our own,

Our unique personal way of being,

As cooks or as doctors or as accountants or politicians or activists or householders or Dharma teachers or whatever.

I like this statement by the great Indian spiritual teacher Vimalak Thakkar.

She's also very active as a social worker in the Indian villages.

She said,

I am a lover of life,

And as a lover of life,

I cannot keep out of any activity of life.

If there are people who are hungry,

My response is to help to feed them.

If there are people who are hungry for love or for understanding,

For the truth of the Dharma,

My response is to help them to discover that,

And I make no separation.

So we turn towards life when we open our heart to the pains,

The difficulties,

To the needs of beings.

Buddhism has a beautiful,

Very powerful statement one can make to oneself or to others if one wishes.

It's the intention or inspiration,

Perhaps I could say,

Of the bodhisattvas,

Those concerned with the welfare of all of life.

It goes as follows.

Sentient beings are numberless.

We'll help to save them all.

Inner conflicts are endless.

We'll pacify them all.

Teachings are infinite.

We'll master them all.

The Buddha's way is inconceivable,

And we'll realize it fully.

Approaching life and spiritual life in this way means choosing a very vast perspective.

And we don't need to see this as taking a vow to attain an ideal of perfection which we possibly will never really reach.

It's not like a kind of tough demand or a burden we take on to make us feel heavy.

Rather,

It's a kind of aspiration.

It's a wonderful,

Beautiful intention in life,

A clear sense of direction.

In a very open and vast way of looking at life and at practice.

And whether it's about this one lifetime or a million lifetimes,

It doesn't really matter,

And we don't need to know even whether it's just one or millions.

Simply an outlook perspective that is so vast that our own small petty concern don't matter so much anymore.

And even the question of one's own welfare,

Even of one's own liberation,

Becomes simply one of the possible helpful side effects in our way of practicing and living.

Because all of life,

In all its aspects,

Is what really matters.

I'd like to close with two lines of the verse by Nyanapone Katera,

Which I read at the beginning.

It is compassion that removes the heavy bar,

Opens the door to freedom,

And makes the narrow heart as wide as the world.

I'd like to sit quietly for a minute.

Reviews

Lovely tall. Thank you??

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