So,
We have been exploring the Brahma Viharas and these are considered to be attitudes that
are boundless,
Meaning that they're not just reserved for our friends and our family,
They're
for all beings.
And because of that,
This is something that we cultivate.
Brahma,
Meaning
like God-like,
And Vihara is home.
So,
This quality of divine home within ourselves.
And
I spoke about cultivation last week when we looked at the first of these four,
Loving kindness.
So,
Traditionally,
As I said,
Cultivation is a process of sort of tilling and loosening the soil in
preparation for planting.
That's the traditional definition.
So,
When we're looking at these divine
qualities within us,
I invite you to consider that what we're doing here is this type of
cultivation.
We're nourishing the mind in stillness and in practice so that these qualities can
genuinely take root.
And I was reminded last week by one of our practitioners that we've studied
these qualities,
These Brahma Viharas,
Last year.
And just to say that we've studied them every year
because the way the the Buddha Dharma works is actually through repetition.
So,
Every year I
offer these foundational practices right around the beginning of the year.
And what's interesting
for me in this process is when I'm preparing to speak about whatever the topic is,
It's entirely
new and entirely fresh.
It's sort of like,
Well,
What are the Four Noble Truths now?
What are the
Brahma Viharas now in the lived experience?
Over the years,
Practitioners have shared with me that
sometimes they'll hear the teaching from me or another teacher and then something happens where
it's actually like they hear it for the first time.
And that happens a lot.
Sometimes,
You know,
We
enter into the experience and it's like,
Oh,
Like you get it.
Like,
Wow,
I'm seeing now for myself.
And it's wonderful when this happens because it really confirms or verifies what we're doing here.
So that's just a preface to say,
You know,
We began with loving kindness with metta.
It's the Pali
word.
And metta,
Loving kindness,
Is rooted in intention.
So,
May I experience ease and gratitude
in my life.
This is the intention.
May you experience freedom from suffering.
This is also an
intention.
And we've been talking a little bit about what are known as the near enemies and the
far enemies.
And so the near enemy of loving kindness,
What looks a little bit like loving
kindness,
Is attachment,
Is sentimentality,
Is,
You know,
It's different,
Right?
A kind of false
sentiment,
Like,
Oh,
Yeah,
I'm saying these phrases,
But really,
I don't feel it.
It's not
feel,
It's not a felt,
It's more like an auto response.
And the far enemy,
The opposite of
loving kindness,
Is ill will,
Is hatred.
And we know that,
That experience.
So today,
The Pali word
is karuna.
Karuna means in English,
Compassion.
Compassion is the wish for all beings to be free
from suffering.
It's a counter to cruelty.
So cruelty is its far enemy.
And its near enemy,
The
near enemy for compassion is pity.
So that has a different feel than compassion,
Right?
So for
example,
When a mother sees her son seriously injured,
You know,
She will naturally be moved to
compassion,
And a wish that he not suffer.
Or if you've ever sat with a loved one who is dying,
Or
a pet that is passing.
We sit with these beings wishing for their suffering to end.
And these are
very ordinary ways and examples of feeling compassion.
To be a sublime state of mind,
A
Brahma vihara,
Compassion has to reach beyond the limits of our,
Of beings who are in our close
circle.
You know,
The ones that are really close in,
And we actually extend it to all beings.
So
this is again thinking about the cultivation of those states.
We start in close,
We water and feed
the soil of our mind to extend our mindfulness beyond these few chosen people or groups of people
in our life to all beings.
And what's interesting about compassion is,
You know,
It kind of snuggles
up to pain.
It's like,
I know what it's like to suffer.
And I am just right here with you.
It's a
willingness to be with what's uncomfortable and what's hard and what hurts.
We often describe
compassion as a relief from suffering.
But sometimes it just gives us the capacity to stay with it,
To
stay with the suffering,
To stay in the room when the going gets tough.
And this also applies to
self compassion.
The Buddha said you can search through the entire universe for someone who is more
deserving of your love and affection than you yourself.
And that person is not to be found
anywhere.
You yourself as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.
It appears that we humans are like one of the creatures that repeatedly forget this.
Doubting
ourselves,
Questioning ourselves,
Berating ourselves.
So we practice,
You know,
We practice
patience.
We catch ourselves when we go into self pity,
Or experience afflictive emotions,
Like ill
will towards ourselves.
We turn towards rather than run away from things that are difficult.
There's no
benefit to blaming ourselves or blaming others.
There's no benefit to avoidance and wishing things
were otherwise.
It doesn't serve us.
But to allow the difficult to be present with dignity in this
like sort of upright sitting.
And we forgive ourselves over and over again.
And we forgive
others over and over again.
Whoever we might be blaming for our difficulties.
There are different
ways we can evoke compassion.
In the eighth century,
The text is the way of the Bodhisattva.
Shantideva
writes,
All the joy the world contains,
Has come through wishing happiness for others.
While all the
misery the world contains,
Has come through wanting happiness for oneself only.
Yeah,
We can see that
at play,
Can't we?
One practice that is useful that you can do when you're feeling sorrow,
Or grief,
Or some
pain in the body is to just think for a moment of all the other beings that are feeling sorrow in this very moment
that you are.
It's not a magical practice,
But there is a certain power within it.
Another practice that I do as a
regular practice is I hold my own hand.
Just this gesture.
It's a movement towards nonviolence.
It's a way of,
You
know,
Caring.
I care about this.
I care about not perpetuating the inner violence to myself.
So these are my reflections on
karuna,
Compassion.
I thank you for your attention,
And I welcome your thoughts.
