Compassion: The Only Thing That Makes Sense

The talk discusses what compassion is, what it is not, its relationship to the other brahma viharas (heavenly abodes) and finally, why practice compassion. Some research studies are also discussed. Recorded at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, March Monthlong on 3/11/2017.

Transcript

So,

Good evening.

So,

In the richness of silence,

Given that this is now pretty much the middle of the retreat,

The richness of silence is really being felt.

And sometimes it feels like there are too many words.

There are the morning instructions,

There's the metta,

There's the evening talk.

So,

I invite you to let the words tonight just waft over you.

Relax,

Soften,

Receive the words with your whole body.

Just listen with your whole body.

Not so much with your head,

Trying to get every last detail.

Whatever sinks in makes sense.

Let it resonate in your heart,

In your body.

Whatever it doesn't,

Let it go.

Make it a practice.

Keep it simple.

No reason to be overwhelmed with too many words.

Yes?

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

So,

Let's get started.

So,

Last night in her talk,

Andrea,

Talking about wisdom,

Said that meeting Dukkha,

Suffering,

Is where wisdom can grow.

It turns out that meeting Dukkha is also where compassion can grow,

Which is the topic for tonight's talk.

Who knew suffering could be so fruitful?

Wisdom and compassion both come out of it.

There is a Rumi poem,

Rumi being the Persian Sufi poet,

Translated by Coleman Barks.

Translation is,

Stretch your arms and take hold the cloth of your clothes with your hands.

The cure for pain is in the pain.

So,

Given that I am Persian,

I am going to read it to you in Farsi.

And then I am going to give you the nuance translation that Coleman Barks missed.

So,

In Farsi it is,

Dast bhagasha dhaman hod rabegeer,

Dast bhagasha dhaman hod rabegeer,

Marhame in rish jozin rish nist.

Got that?

Yes,

You did.

Great.

So,

This poem,

As beautiful and as relevant as it seems,

The translation,

It is even more relevant to compassion and the beauty of it.

So,

The first sentence,

The first stanza is,

Spread your arms,

Dast bhagasha,

Spread your arms,

Spread your arms and take hold of your own cloth.

Or rather,

Better translated as your own robe.

But what Coleman Barks doesn't tell you is that the expression in Farsi is,

Dast bheda mangeer iftan,

When you hold someone's cloth,

When you hold someone's robe,

You are asking for their help,

You are asking for their mercy,

You are asking for their forgiveness,

You are asking for their compassion.

So,

The first line it says,

Grab your own cloth,

Open your own heart of compassion.

Don't grab somebody else's cloth,

Grab your own cloth.

Ask your own heart to open to compassion.

And the second part,

Marham ein rish,

Jozin rish nist.

Marham is the word for a cure,

For a curing salve,

That Coleman Barks translates as cure,

So it is the salve.

Marham ein rish,

And then Rumi uses the word rish twice,

Marham ein rish,

Jozin rish nist.

The cure and salve for this wound,

Rish translates both as wound,

And also it can translate as the Arabic word,

And this is a play on words,

Is embroidered garment.

So basically the garment that you are taking hold of,

Which is your own compassion,

Is the only salve for this pain.

So there is a lot of play in words,

And nuances,

And the Farsi expressions that I hope we could enjoy together tonight and share together.

It is beautiful.

It really is that your own,

Basically the only salve,

The only curing salve for the wound,

For this wound,

Is your own compassion.

As mentioned both by Ruth and by Philip,

The two wings of the bird of awakening are wisdom and compassion,

Both.

They are inseparable,

They are strongly intertwined,

And they are dependent on each other.

They provide balance in our practice.

If you develop just one without the other,

If you think of the bird,

Either there is no lift off with one wing,

Or you go in circles with only one wing.

Not a good situation for any practitioner.

Wisdom without compassion,

It's been said,

Is like riding a flat bicycle.

It's rough,

It's uncomfortable,

And it's very slow.

Not recommended.

Compassion without wisdom can also become what's called blind or idiot compassion.

What is idiot compassion?

It's also known as enabling.

It's the tendency to give people what they want,

Because you can't bear to see them suffer,

Even if in the long term what you are giving them is not for their benefit,

It is for their harm.

So the act might appear compassionate,

But in the long run it increases suffering.

As we have been in the afternoon Brahma Viharas up to today,

We have been offering the practice of metta.

Starting tomorrow,

We will start by offering the practice of compassion for the next few days.

So you can consider this talk being an advertisement,

Or coming attractions,

Or contextualizing the practice of compassion.

So you will actually be exploring the practice,

The hard practice,

The phrases,

How it's done,

Trying it out for size,

Different concentric circles,

And all of that in the next few days.

So I won't be per se talking about the practice,

The how of practice so much tonight,

Because that will come in the next few days.

But tonight I will contextualize the practice of compassion,

How it fits in the bigger picture of our practice.

And why,

Why practice anyway?

So the topics I will cover tonight is what is compassion?

What is it?

We keep throwing the word around,

But we should be on the same page.

We should have the same operational definition of what compassion actually is.

And what compassion isn't.

It's important to also know that too,

You are going to run into that in your practice in the next few days.

What it's not,

What the near and far enemies are,

Recognizing them when they arise.

And then we will also discuss why compassion,

Why.

So before all of that,

I want to just tell you a little bit about my own relationship and background with practicing compassion.

Compassion cultivation.

So I dedicated about one year of my daily practice a few years ago to compassion cultivation.

It's when I was going through a training program at Stanford University,

Which was the compassion cultivation training to become a teacher,

To teach the curriculum that they had developed.

And they stand for Tuktan Jhimpa,

Who is the Dalai Lama's translator,

As well as many scientists and neuroscientists at Stanford who had done research.

And they had come up with this course.

So both being trained in that,

Reading lots of scientific papers on compassion in the secular context,

Wide works,

Etc.

,

Etc.

,

Which in a way,

Us practitioners already know,

But science wants to convince us that it is true.

So spend a year of daily compassion cultivation.

I also taught that eight-week course to compassion cultivation in various contexts to various people and getting a sense of where the blocks are,

What flows easily,

What works,

What doesn't.

Also,

A couple of years ago I spent about a month on the February retreat exploring Brahma Vihara jhanas and all the insights that arise from those beautiful states of the heart.

I know some of you are practicing Brahma Vihara's metta,

Compassion,

Mudita,

And nupika this year.

And last but not least,

It has been a favorite practice for me,

It has been one of my go-to practices.

I shared with you last time when I gave a talk that I have had a chronic illness for many years that has given me the privilege of a lot of dukkha,

A lot of bhadi dukkha.

And a lot of times there is no way out of it but to just be with it.

And self-compassion in working with the many symptoms and the repercussions of my long-term illness has really been a main practice for me.

And I will talk more about that later when I talk about self-compassion.

I will bring that in.

So,

What is compassion?

Again,

We think we kind of know what it is,

But let's just get on the same page.

And as some of you know,

My background is in academics,

So it is always important to have a definition first before we discuss it,

We go any further.

To have clarity about what we are talking about.

So,

Compassion.

Being with suffering with an authentic wish for its alleviation.

So,

Very simple definition.

Being with suffering with an authentic wish for its alleviation.

As you see,

There are two parts to it.

Being with suffering and the authentic wish.

Those are two parts which we will talk about more,

We will decode more in a moment.

So,

Compassion is both a stance,

An attitude,

As well as a formal practice.

So,

For me,

Experientially,

Having practiced on the cushion,

Compassion has two main components,

And the third component is the bedrock,

Which the two main components sit on.

So,

Two main components and the third one is like a bedrock,

Experientially speaking.

So,

The first component is that tapping into suffering,

Is being with suffering,

Is not running away from it,

Not being afraid of it,

Is holding it,

Is being with the suffering.

That is the first component.

Acknowledging that this is hard,

This is hard,

This is hard.

And specially with self-compassion,

That is usually harder,

Because we tend to underestimate or overlook our own suffering,

Like,

Oh,

Come on,

Be a big girl,

Come on.

It is like,

Oh,

This is hard,

This is hard.

Just to realize that,

To see that this is hard,

This is difficult.

That turns the mind to see it differently,

It opens the heart naturally to compassion,

Instead of,

Oh,

Well,

You should be tough,

Working through this,

And tough it out,

And don't be a sissy,

Or whatever language,

Whatever words we have,

We all have our own version,

Right?

Of not seeing our own suffering,

Of pressing ourselves through it,

Minimizing that this is hard,

This is hard,

Taking a pause,

This is hard,

This hurts,

Ouch,

This hurts.

The Latin word compassion,

Come together,

C-o-m,

Together,

And pati,

To suffer,

To suffer together,

Suffer together.

So that is the first aspect of compassion meditation,

Or compassion cultivation,

Is really acknowledge,

See,

Hold the suffering.

But it doesn't end there,

That is just one component.

Just as importantly is the second component.

And the second component is tapping into the goodwill,

Into the care,

Into the warmth,

Into the affection,

The heart's desire to alleviate suffering.

That is just as important as the first one.

And the two have to be balanced.

As I will talk about more,

One shouldn't get stronger necessarily than the other one,

Or it will get imbalanced,

And the practice will become one of its near enemies.

Again,

I will talk about this more in a moment.

The third aspect for me,

Practically,

You won't see this in the suttas,

But this is from a practical perspective,

Is a platform of spacious and equanimity.

So these two,

Tapping into the suffering and the goodwill and kindness to be held in a spaciousness,

In equanimity,

To be OK with whatever is,

So that one doesn't tip into one or the other.

Often,

Compassion,

The first two components are offered as being the aspects of it.

Experientially,

I found that there is that bedrock of equanimity,

There is that bedrock of stability,

That I feel when I do this meditation.

So I offer that for your contemplation.

Don't take my word for it,

See it in your own practice,

See if it is true for you or not when you practice this.

So just to put compassion in perspective,

It is part of the four Brahma-viharas in this practice,

Or the four heavenly abodes,

Which are the heart practices in Theravada.

The other three that I briefly mentioned is the loving-kindness,

Metta,

Which we have been offering and doing together.

There is vicarious joy,

Or mudita,

Which we will do,

And equanimity,

Upeka.

So in the Theravada tradition,

The central practice is metta,

Loving-kindness,

Which is the sense of friendliness,

Goodwill,

Kindness,

A feeling of love that is free from reciprocation or expectation.

Metta is the feeling of goodwill that is expressed when it comes across an object,

When it comes across a being who is neither suffering,

Really,

Really suffering,

Or really,

Really happy.

I mean a neutral,

A being that is in a neutral place.

Metta is that expression of goodwill.

May you be happy.

We have been doing it together for almost a couple of weeks now.

May you be safe,

May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

And be together with ease.

The same goodwill,

The same metta,

The same kindness,

Goodwill of the heart,

When it comes and reaches a being that is suffering,

That goodwill becomes expressed as compassion,

Because it is holding the suffering,

It is meeting the suffering,

And there is that sense of goodwill.

The same goodwill,

When it comes across someone,

A being that is doing really well,

Just won the lottery,

Had a baby,

Whatever,

They are really happy.

When that sense of metta or goodwill comes and holds and touches the being that is really happy,

That becomes expressed as mudita,

As vicarious joy.

Equanimity,

Being the fourth Brahma Vihara,

Could be thought of in a couple of ways.

One way it could be thought of is that it is the bedrock,

It is that caring stability,

It is that kind,

Caring stability that holds all the Brahma Viharas,

It holds them all.

Another way it is also taught and that could be thought about is that when there is overwhelming suffering,

And the mind gets overwhelmed,

It is just too much,

Then that sense of care can be expressed as equanimity to hold a situation,

To hold that overwhelming difficulty with ease and spaciousness.

So,

What compassion is not,

Now that is the next part.

We talked about what it is and how it relates to the other Brahma Viharas.

What it is not,

The near enemies,

The first one is pity.

Compassion is not pity.

Pity is the feeling of comparative,

Less than.

It creates a sense of separateness and distance which actually gratifies the ego.

It is not a feeling of the quivering heart that wants to alleviate pain.

The thought or the feeling is like,

Oh,

Poor them with that lot in life.

That would never happen to me.

That is pity.

It is like,

I am up here,

They are down here,

They are suffering.

It creates distance.

That is pity when there is a comparing mind.

Whereas compassion is,

It could be me.

I could be suffering in the same way.

It is me.

I am no different.

I could be suffering in the same exact way.

Besides pity,

The other near enemy is grief,

Or sympathetic distress,

Also known as overwhelm or anguish.

This one is not uncommon,

By the way,

For it to come in compassion meditation.

When we fall into that suffering.

Remember how I talked about the two being balanced,

About feeling the suffering and the good will?

If we fall into the suffering,

If this gets heavier,

It can become empathetic distress,

It can become anguish,

It can become immersion.

So that feels like immersion in another person's pain without that feeling of good will or warmth or care to support it,

To hold it,

To hold the balance in check.

It can feel like identification with the suffering of others so much in an unbalanced way that it leads to this anguish reaction.

Whereas compassion is the tender readiness of our heart to respond to our own or somebody else's pain without grief,

Or resentment,

Or aversion.

Because the sympathetic distress or grief can actually bring up aversion.

Can bring up,

This is overwhelming,

I'm anguished,

I don't want to go there,

This is too much,

I don't want to do compassion meditation because it's just too hard.

But it's actually what's happening is the near enemy,

It's that anguish and aversion is coming up.

So,

Nothing wrong,

Just see if that happens,

Just recognize it if that comes up in your practice.

Another thing that compassion is not is empathy alone.

Empathy is an aspect,

Is one part of compassion,

But it's not the whole picture.

Because empathy,

As it's defined by researchers,

Psychologists,

Is the visceral or the emotional experience of another person's feeling.

It's actually the automatic mirroring of another person's emotion,

Like tearing up.

So,

If you've heard of mirror neurons in our brain,

It's the mirror neurons that fire and we feel,

We resonate,

It's empathy,

We feel their pain.

It doesn't have the good will,

It doesn't have the kindness to balance the empathy.

So,

Empathy alone,

Just feeling the suffering alone can veer into empathetic distress or anguish.

Compassion also is not altruism.

Altruism is an action that benefits someone else.

Compassion can lead to altruism,

But they're not the same.

And also,

It's really internally,

Because externally sometimes when something's,

An action is seen as altruistic,

Internally,

One doesn't know where that action started.

It just externally looks like an altruistic act that someone gave a big donation to a charity,

But internally maybe it was because of a tax write-off.

So,

Again,

Altruism is not compassion.

Compassion can lead to altruism,

But they're not the same.

Finally,

The far enemy is cruelty.

And that is pretty clear to see,

Right?

Cruelty is the far enemy of compassion,

Is wanting someone to suffer instead of wishing for their suffering to be alleviated.

Similarly,

Schadenfreude,

This great compound German word which is happiness at others' misfortune,

That's not compassion.

So,

I want to say a little more,

Before I go into why compassion,

I want to spend just one more moment into the what,

So the heady part,

Before we get into the more heart part of the exploration,

This talk together,

Just to drive the point home really,

Really clearly about the two aspects of,

Or the two components of meditation.

So,

I want to bring a research study of scientist Klemecke 2012,

That's your reference.

They brought in people,

Subjects,

And taught them compassion meditation,

And then put them in the fMRI.

Two parts of their brain lit up,

Two parts.

One part is the core neural network that underlines empathy for pain.

So that part lights up when you see another human being in pain,

That part of your brain lights up,

You feel their pain,

You actually feel their pain.

Literally,

The mirror neurons,

You feel their,

It's the feeling into the suffering.

With compassion meditation,

The second part of the brain lights up too,

And that region is associated with positive affect or affiliation.

Positive affect,

Goodwill,

Kindness,

Warmth,

Care.

You see,

It's the same thing.

So remember that when you're doing this practice,

As you're meeting your own suffering,

Or meeting another being suffering,

It's that goodwill,

It's that warmth of the heart,

It's that kindness that allows it to be held with ease.

One last example is from years ago,

I was at the International Symposium for Contemplative Studies in Colorado.

The researcher,

Scientist Tanya Singer,

Was giving an off-the-cuff remarks at that point and saying that what she had done,

She had invited Matthew Ricard,

Who is the monk Dalai Lama translated,

He is also a neurobiologist,

Photographer,

Many of you have heard of him or read his writings.

Wonderful,

Wonderful practitioner.

Matthew Ricard is very well reversed in compassion meditation.

Tanya Singer puts him in the fMRI machine and says,

I want you to not do full compassion meditation,

But just contemplate suffering.

I just want to see what happens,

What part of your brain lights up.

Matthew Ricard does that,

And Tanya Singer says,

Yes,

That part,

The mirror neuron part,

It's just the pain part lights up.

The kindness,

The warmth,

The care part is not lighting up.

Brings him up and says,

OK,

All right,

Done.

He says,

Can you please put me back?

I feel terrible.

I feel like,

Ugh.

It was empathetic distress.

He says,

OK.

She puts him back in the fMRI,

So he does the full meditation,

Compassion meditation,

And both parts of the brain light up,

The warmth,

The care,

And the love,

As well as the feeling into the pain and the suffering.

Brings him back,

OK,

That feels better.

Compassion meditation actually is supposed to feel good.

If it's not feeling good,

If it's not feeling warm and kind,

And it doesn't feel like you are in the heaven realm,

Then maybe,

Maybe there is more emphasis on the suffering bit,

And not held as much in the care,

In the wish for the alleviation.

So keep that in mind.

Bring Matthew Ricard to mind.

You may want to go back into the fMRI machine and do it some more.

Do it right.

So,

So why compassion?

Why?

Now we've talked about what it is,

What it isn't,

OK,

Now we know what it is,

All right.

Now why?

Why compassion?

Why?

Well,

It's the only thing that really makes sense,

Really.

It's the only response that really makes any sense in this human life.

If we didn't have any delusion or dust in our eyes,

Then wisdom and compassion are all there would be.

It's the only thing that would make sense,

The only response,

The only appropriate response that would really make sense.

Not jealousy,

Not hatred,

Not anything else.

It just wouldn't make sense,

Not fear.

I'd like to read you something from the Tibetan teacher,

Mingyur Rinpoche.

If you think in Theravada tradition,

Compassion is big,

You know that it's even bigger in the Tibetan tradition.

So I'll bring a paragraph in.

It's actually,

As I was explaining in the Theravada tradition,

Just a footnote that metta is the central heart practice,

And all the other heart practices start,

We start from metta and go to the other ones.

In the Tibetan tradition,

They start with compassion and go to the other ones.

But six of one,

Half dozen of the other,

You get them all anyway,

Sooner or later,

You don't have to keep your practice long enough.

The Tibetan teacher Mingyur Rinpoche,

He left in 2011,

He left on a three year retreat.

He just left in the middle of the night,

Didn't tell anyone.

He had a lot of teaching,

A lot of big following,

But he wanted a period of solar practice.

He left,

He didn't tell anyone about his whereabouts,

And he went just wandering and begging for more than three years.

Nobody knew where he was.

At some point,

Someone who knew him actually ran into him and delivered back,

In January 2014,

Delivered back a letter back to his mother so that she would know that he is alive and okay,

As well as other practitioners and followers.

I will read you a paragraph from that letter.

I am wandering without any fixed location,

Staying in isolated mountain hermitages and other such places.

I have experienced feelings of happiness and suffering,

Rising and falling like waves on the surface of the ocean.

At times,

Food and clothing have been hard to come by,

And I have felt cold,

Hungry,

And thirsty.

Even when I have begged for alms,

I receive nothing but insults and harsh words.

At other times,

I have received food and clothing effortlessly without even asking for them,

And in my mind,

It felt as though I were enjoying the pleasures of the gods.

While I have experienced both happiness and suffering,

The most important thing is that a deep and heartfelt sense of certainty has arisen in the depths of my being,

Such that no matter what happens,

I know that the true nature of these experiences,

Their very essence,

Is that of timeless awareness and vast compassion.

Compassion is what is the only thing that makes sense.

It is not unique to our tradition and our path,

Other paths,

Other traditions.

Compassion is universal,

Is a universal human kind,

Right,

Birthright.

It is important in this path,

In any path that leads to awakening,

Any path that aligns one with one's highest intentions in life.

Compassion is an important part.

I was brought up in Iran,

Which is why I speak Farsi,

My native language,

And I was brought up as a Muslim.

And in Islam also,

Compassion is very important.

Every surah or sutah,

Every sutah in the Quran starts with in the name of God,

The compassionate,

The merciful.

Every surah starts with in the name of God,

The compassionate,

The merciful.

Now,

Whether you call it God,

Timeless awareness,

Whatever you call that which has no name,

It has quality of vast compassion.

Why compassion?

Why not?

It is the path to happiness.

The Dalai Lama says,

If you want others to be happy,

Practice compassion.

If you want to be happy,

Practice compassion.

Practice compassion.

Compassion for others is the path to happiness,

To health and well-being.

Compassion broadens our perspective beyond ourselves.

Again,

Research shows that depression and anxiety are linked to states of self-focus,

A preoccupation with me,

Myself and I.

Does that sound familiar?

Me,

Myself and I,

Me,

Mine,

I,

Self,

Self,

Self.

Now,

Do something for someone else.

And the state of self-focus,

If it changes to a state of other focus,

If you are feeling down,

And suddenly,

Say,

A close friend or relative calls you for urgent help with a problem,

Your mood is likely to lift as your attention shifts to helping them.

Instead of feeling blue,

You will be energized to help them because that helps you,

That compassion helps you gain some perspective on your own situation.

So if you want to be happy,

Practice compassion.

Compassion is the path to freedom.

I want to quote one of my favorite mystics,

Albert Einstein.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

Isn't that lovely?

That's what we're doing in compassion meditation,

The concentric circles.

By widening our circle of compassion,

Again,

I read it again,

Our task must be to free ourselves,

To free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

Compassion is like the salve that eases life for ourselves and others.

It is the appropriate response to suffering.

Compassion is our birthright.

We all have it.

We all have it.

We all have it.

Watch your mind if your mind protests at any point,

Says,

No,

I'm not compassionate enough,

I don't have it,

I don't know how to do it.

If I asked you if right now as you were sitting,

And the child,

A child who was hurt,

Was really hurting,

If the child walked up to you right now,

What would you do?

Most people's response is some variation of comfort the child,

Lift up the child,

Hold the child,

Some variation.

That right there is the movement of the heart,

Compassion,

Feeling the suffering,

Feeling the suffering of the child,

And the wish that comes that wants to alleviate it.

I do want to tell you about one more experiment.

It's too much fun.

It's a rat experiment.

There was an experiment done at the University of Chicago with rats.

This is good.

The experiment was designed to,

Well,

Actually it's two parts.

There are two cage mates that are transferred to a new cage where one rat was put into a restrainer device,

A closed tube with a door that can be nudged open from the side.

The second rat roamed free in the cage around the restrainer,

Able to see and hear the trapped cage mate,

But not required to take any action.

There are videos on this site,

And it's really interesting to see.

Maybe after the retreat,

I can give you the website.

You can see the rat that's free tries and tries and tries to open to help the restrained rat that's screaming for help.

When it succeeds to open the cage door,

The two of them play and do a little victory dance and run around.

It's really cute.

The second part of the experiment gets even better.

Another experiment was designed to give the free rat a choice,

Free their companion or feast on chocolate.

That's a tough choice for a rat.

They love chocolate,

Apparently.

The two restrainers were placed in the cage,

One with the rat and the other one containing the cage mate.

I'm sorry,

One containing the cage mate and the other one containing the pile of chocolate chips.

Though the free rat had the option of eating all the chocolate before freeing its companion,

The rat was equally likely to open the restrainer containing the cage mate before opening the chocolate container.

This is what the researcher has to say.

Professor of neurobiology,

Dr.

Mason.

That was very compelling.

It said to us that essentially helping their cage mate is on par with chocolate.

He can hog the entire chocolate stash if he wanted to,

And he does not.

We were shocked.

Mason concludes the press release,

If humans would listen and act on their biological inheritance more often,

We would be better off.

I think we share 98% of our genes with rats,

So we have the same biological inheritance.

What helps compassion flow?

What helps compassion flow?

This birthright,

This biological inheritance that we all have,

Just like the rats.

It is realizing,

It is considering our common humanity,

Our interconnectedness.

Thich Nhat Hanh calls it interbeing,

Or simply,

Just like me,

Just like me.

It is this realization that we are not so different.

We are not different,

Any of us.

We all have sorrow and suffering in our life.

We have had them.

We have had loss,

We have lost people we love,

Or if we haven't,

We will.

We have all had illness or will,

We will all age and die.

We are not so different.

We have all been scared,

We have all had disappointments,

Losses,

Humiliation,

The worldly wins,

We have all had them,

Every single one of us.

We have all had body dukkha,

Pain,

Because we all have a body.

We are not so different,

Every single one of us.

Every single one of us.

Years ago,

I was here at Spread Rock and meditating.

I remember going down,

Walking down to the dining hall.

I think I was contemplating,

At the time,

I was contemplating common humanity.

I remember all of a sudden,

Sitting as I was sitting,

And I was watching one other yogi in the dining hall.

All of a sudden,

It feels like my heart broke,

As if I didn't know her,

But I could all of a sudden imagine,

See.

Or I could,

Or the seeing was,

I could imagine all the sorrow she had,

Maybe she looked sad that day,

But my heart broke,

I didn't know her story,

But it felt that she too had sorrows.

And then I started to look around at everyone in the dining hall.

And it was clear to me,

I may not know their stories,

I didn't know their stories,

I didn't know their lives.

But my heart broke for every single one of them.

I remember weeping.

And that hasn't quite left me.

And even sitting here today,

It's interesting,

It feels tender,

Because I sit in this room with you,

And I don't know your full story.

Some of you I have the privilege to listen to and hold,

Many of you I don't.

And we all suffer together,

We are in this boat of humanity together.

We are not so different,

None of us.

That bond of suffering,

That bond of humanity.

We are sisters and brothers,

We are not so different.

We all suffer in our own ways,

In our own minds,

In our own bodies.

I would like to share a poem by the Palestinian-American poet,

Naomi Shihab Nye,

Called Kindness.

Many of you have heard it,

I've shared it many times,

And every time it still moves me,

So I will share it again.

It's a good read.

It touches beautifully into the idea of common humanity,

Sorrow and kindness,

How they are really interlinked together.

Kindness,

Before you know what kindness really is,

You must lose things.

Feel the future dissolve in a moment,

Like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

What you counted and carefully saved,

All this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride,

Thinking the bus will never stop,

The passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out of the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

You must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

How he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow,

You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

Only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,

Only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say,

It is I you have been looking for.

And then it goes with you everywhere,

Like a shadow or a friend.

I'd like to end with words from the Dalai Lama,

Love and compassion are necessities,

Not luxuries.

Without them humanity cannot survive.

Let's just sit together and let the words drift away.

It is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

Only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,

Only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say,

It is I you have been looking for.

And then it goes with you everywhere,

Like a shadow or a friend.

Thank you.

I hope these words have been of some service on your path.

Reviews

Wonderfully lucid, insightful and the Farsi reading of Rumi was a particular treat.

That was something. Thank you for sharing!

Beautifully delivered messages full of warmth, kindness and compassion. One to keep and return to. 🙏❤️❤️❤️

Your translation from Farsi of the Rumi poem was so beautiful. It’s given me an image of self-compassion that feels empowered in a way that is new for me. Thank you!

🙏 you have helped clarify a lot for me 💜🌾