Coping With Other's Suffering - A Buddhist Approach

Compassion vs Despair. This is a recording of an online workshop with David Oromith, exploring the Buddhist concepts of compassion and its ‘near enemy,’ despair. During this workshop, we explore how we attend to the suffering of others and our world, avoiding overwhelm, despair and feeling burdened. Sharing his own experience of compassion and despair, inspired by the teachings of Lama Alan Wallace, H.H. The Dalai Lama, and others, David explores why we cultivate compassion for the sufferings of the world in the first place, and how to work with this crippling feeling of despair amid the suffering of our world.

Transcript

Hello,

Hello.

Good evening,

Everyone.

I hope you're all well.

Thank you for joining this evening.

Can everybody hear me OK?

See me OK?

Good,

Good.

So,

I'm very thankful that you've decided to join this session,

This evening's topic,

Which I think is so important and so pertinent.

I think it kind of hits home for many of us.

Just as a practical note,

Before we talk about anything,

I just wanted to mention that we are recording this session,

But what we're recording is my camera and my microphone.

So,

We're not recording anything on Zoom,

So you won't be seen at all,

But it does pick up your voice.

If you speak,

It comes through my speakers and it does pick that up.

And so,

As we're going to upload this session to YouTube and share it with those who couldn't make it live,

And to keep what we share together private,

I'm hoping that we can keep our questions and our discussion more towards the end of the session in one space,

So that when I have the recording,

I can just cut that out and so we can all speak freely,

Knowing that it won't be shared.

So,

I hope that makes sense and I hope that's OK.

Of course,

If there's any burning questions in the meantime,

Feel free to interrupt,

But hopefully we can hold onto them to the end and are sharing.

So,

Yes,

Once again,

Thank you again for joining this workshop,

Looking at compassion and despair,

Which,

As I said,

I think is so important.

So,

I'm really delighted to be able to share this 90 minutes or so with you,

Explore some teaching inspired by both Lama Alan,

The Dalai Lama.

I have quite a bit of parts that I'll be reading out of books.

In the end,

As I was putting together some notes,

I thought I could just send the entire books,

Because they pretty much say everything better than I could.

So,

We'll share some teaching,

We'll practice some meditation together and then,

Of course,

Share our own experiences of this topic,

Because it's a topic that's not easy,

Really.

I'm sure most of us here,

We probably see the value in cultivating compassion,

Though we will talk a little bit about that.

But I think we see in our world there is so much that calls for our attention,

So much that calls for our compassion in our personal environment,

In our localised environment,

Our own communities,

But then in the wider environment in our world.

It's never been so easy or so accessible,

Really,

To find news of all the tragedies that are going on across the world.

And so there's so much that if you were to attend to it all,

And if we're not skilful,

It certainly can be very overwhelming,

Very consuming,

And then it's very heavy,

It's kind of a burden on our mind and on our emotions.

That doesn't have to be that we're thinking about lots of suffering,

But even caring for somebody who is suffering,

It may not be that we're attending to the world's suffering,

But maybe we are in a caring position,

Somebody in our life that we're caring for,

And that can be very consuming,

And we can become burdened by that as well.

I thought I would start by sharing something a little personal,

And that's just in case it might be helpful,

You know,

Sort of directly relates to this topic.

And so really it's how I ended up coming into a lot of Buddhist practice,

Or how it ended up becoming something very important in my life.

So my background,

I used to work in mental health services,

And I suppose I was always really interested in the kind of the question and the,

You know,

Why is it that we suffer?

Why do we experience mental distress?

I was always kind of interested in that.

So I ended up working in mental health hospitals,

And there was a particular time,

A particular period where I started to feel this overwhelming despair,

And this sort of overwhelming burden,

And it was because I was kind of faced with suffering from all angles in my life.

In work,

I was doing these 12-hour shifts,

Spending time witnessing the most intense mental suffering,

Really,

That we can imagine,

Right,

At the hands of somebody's own mind,

Somebody's own brain,

And this intense,

Intense suffering,

And it's hard not to take that kind of energy on,

You know,

When you're spending that time with them,

You're feeling that,

And there's nothing you can directly do to help.

And so I was doing these days,

These long days.

My mum had just gone through a breakdown,

And had been admitted to the ward next to the one that I was working on,

And so all my colleagues were looking after my mum.

My dad had had a heart attack and was dealing with his newfound limitations,

And you kind of,

You know,

When you're younger,

This was around when I was 18,

19,

And you're coming to the terms of the fact that your parents are not invincible,

Right?

You kind of have this feeling for a long time that,

You know,

They're a little bit invincible,

So there was this,

There was a death in the family.

And when I was looking at news,

All I could see was death,

Destruction,

Famine,

War.

When I was on social media,

It was dealing with fate,

With fear and hate.

And personally,

You know,

My life wasn't going too well.

I think I'd had a breakup.

I'd got rejected to go to university.

And so it was one of these moments where kind of everything in my world,

Everywhere I looked,

Every avenue,

It was just a big,

Big old wall of suffering.

And I was,

Growing up I always recognised that I was quite similar to my mum in sort of our way of thinking.

And I'd had depressive episodes.

And so seeing her go through another breakdown,

I kind of felt,

Well,

Is this,

Is this what my life is going to be?

Is this what it's going to be?

Just sort of,

You know,

One tragedy after another.

And the story gets sadder,

But essentially what I noticed was happening in me was this overwhelming sense of despair,

This overwhelming sense of just giving up.

Just,

I just don't want to be a part of this world.

What is the point?

I can't help.

I can't do anything.

What is the point?

And this feeling of despair here is what we're talking about this evening.

And I had this sense that I was just so,

I'd always been sensitive,

You know,

And I just had this sense that I'm just so acutely aware of the suffering that's going on around me.

You know,

It's just,

It's just this big sense of compassion,

And it felt like compassion at all this suffering that was going on.

But what I later came to realize,

And what,

You know,

Perhaps we've already realized or perhaps we'll see this evening,

Is I came to see and recognize that this was what in the Buddhist tradition we call grief or we call despair,

And it's a near enemy.

It's a false facsimile of compassion.

It looks like compassion,

But it isn't.

And it's something that isn't necessarily evil.

It's not necessarily malevolent,

But it is very much a mental burden.

And it's something that stops us from being able to help,

Because that's what I really recognized,

Was I wanted to be able to help,

But becoming so overwhelmed,

The worst part about it was that you're no longer useful.

You're no longer of any use to anyone.

So,

We're already here with,

So we're already talking about these two,

Compassion and despair,

Two which,

To the untrained eye,

You know,

If we don't know,

They seem very similar,

They seem all the same,

But they're qualitatively different,

They're experientially very different.

One is a very useful,

Healthy mind,

And the other is quite disabling.

The other one is something that stops us from being able,

From being a benefit,

From being able to help.

So,

Before we continue,

I'm just,

I'm feeling the need,

Let's take a moment just to return to stillness and set some intentions,

And then we can get into the topic.

So just closing your eyes if that feels comfortable,

If that feels right.

Becoming aware of our body,

Our immediate experience of our body.

And then bringing to mind our most meaningful intention for joining this session,

For sharing,

And practicing.

And so if this entails going for refuge,

Generating bodhicitta,

This is the invitation.

So,

What I thought would be most useful to begin would be to define compassion,

Of course,

I keep using this word,

And we may have all sorts of ideas of what it means,

But we're talking from the Buddhist perspective,

And so it's helpful to just define it.

And so,

Compassion,

One of the Brahmaviharas,

One of the four immeasurables,

Alongside love and kindness,

Empathetic joy,

And equanimity.

And compassion is defined simply as the wish,

The aspiration,

For ourselves,

For others,

To be free of suffering and its causes.

And so it's the wish,

The aspiration for the person you're attending to,

The sentient being you're attending to,

To be free of suffering and its causes.

And so it's said to be not,

It's not an emotion.

Empathy is the emotion that might precede compassion,

That's that feeling,

That suffering with others.

And,

Of course,

The more acutely we are aware of our own suffering,

The more we're able to have that empathy with others,

And that's the spark which ignites compassion.

And so just as,

You know,

You're aware of what it is like to stub your own toe,

Then when somebody else stubs their own toe,

You can sort of feel their pain if you like,

And you can have compassion for that.

And so,

It's not the emotion,

Empathy perhaps could be the emotion.

And we already have the desire,

We naturally have that desire to be free of suffering.

Otherwise we wouldn't join a session like this,

We wouldn't be practicing meditation,

We wouldn't have found the Buddhist path.

We found that because we have a natural desire to be free of suffering.

But as we see in the Buddhist tradition,

It's often a little bit misdirected.

One of Shantideva's famous quotes is where we're desiring to escape suffering,

We hasten right towards our own misery.

And this is about,

You know,

We want to be free of suffering,

But then the ways that we go about finding happiness in our world tend to bring us more stress and more frustration.

And so we kind of got a little bit mixed up.

And so this cultivating compassion kind of what's important,

Something we need to know,

Which we're not going to delve into too deep here this evening,

But it's the wider context.

And it's to be free of suffering and its causes.

And so we need to be clear what is meant by suffering and what is meant by the causes of suffering.

We're talking about the inner causes of suffering of course.

So we're talking about ignorance,

Attachment,

Aversion.

We're talking about our mental afflictions.

And we need to know how do we eliminate those causes.

So it's the Four Noble Truths isn't it?

Otherwise this compassionate wish,

May you be free of suffering and its causes,

Is words without any backup.

We're not sure what we're wishing them to be free of.

I just don't like to see you in pain.

And then it's a little bit shaky.

But if we know,

If we understand what are the causes of suffering,

What are they,

Then our compassionate wish has some sort of,

Has some grit to it.

And so there was a part from,

So the two books that I'll be drawing from this evening,

Just to mention them both,

Very very helpful.

The first one is by Lama Alan.

So this is the Four Immeasurables.

I don't know if you can see that.

Practices to Open the Heart.

And his section on Compassion in Here.

And the other book that I'll be drawing from is one of my favourite books by the Dalai Lama.

And it's called Beyond Religion,

Ethics for a Modern World,

Is it?

Ethics for a Whole World.

And this is just full of a lot of really good parts.

So firstly,

Looking at Lama Alan,

Talking about compassion.

So he says that compassion witnesses an individual in suffering,

Human or otherwise.

Recognising their suffering leads to the yearning for that individual to be free of that suffering.

There is a vision.

Compassion focuses on the fact that one doesn't need to suffer in that way.

That it is possible to find some serenity,

Some equanimity,

Some tranquility,

And the equilibrium of freedom.

Compassion wishes may you be free of suffering and the source of suffering.

It observes that suffering and the sources of suffering that are present.

And it holds forth the vision that this suffering is not indelibly interwoven into your experience.

You have the potential to be free.

May you be free.

And so it's recognising that there are causes to suffering.

And particularly those inner causes where we're wishing that they may find freedom from that.

So when we're talking about compassion,

All of this sort of context is built in here.

And so then we could think,

Well,

Why would I want to?

I'm sure most of us probably already have this question answered.

But it does beg the question,

Why would we want to?

Why cultivate this sense of may you be free of suffering?

What is the benefit?

What's the value?

Why have that sense of deep caring for the welfare of others?

And there was a quote from the Dalai Lama that I've been using recently that I don't know where it's from.

I saw it on his social media.

And he says,

So if you practice compassion,

Whether you believe in a religion or not,

You will come to realise the value of compassion for your own peace of mind.

The very atmosphere of your own life becomes happier,

Which promotes good health,

Perhaps even a longer life.

By developing a warm heart,

We can also transform others.

As we become nicer human beings,

Our neighbours,

Friends,

Parents,

Spouses and children experience less anger.

They will become more warm-hearted,

Compassionate and harmonious.

You will see the world around you change little by little.

Even a small act of compassion grants meaning and purpose to our lives.

So,

Here the Dalai Lama is talking about the benefits for our own peace of mind.

There's often this sense or this feeling that compassion is mostly good for others.

That's kind of the main benefit,

Not for ourselves.

That,

You know,

Compassion makes you act and help others,

And so they're the main beneficiary.

But this is false.

The first beneficiary of compassion is oneself.

And so this,

What the Dalai Lama was saying here,

It's directly to our own sense of well-being,

Our own sense of interconnectedness with others,

With all sentient beings.

Because it takes us away from being excessively insular,

Excessively self-focused,

Which is what,

When we are suffering ourselves,

Which tends to be what suffering does to us.

And I recognise that from my journey with depression and my journey with overwhelm,

It cuts you off and isolates you and you kind of feel like you're the only person going through any suffering at all.

And as we do that,

As we curl up a little bit and we become very insular,

We get cut off from the world.

And even if it's not through depression,

But just being,

Having this,

You know,

This,

As we see in the Mahayana tradition,

This self-cherishing,

This you know,

Having this focus for one's own happiness alone,

Then we find ourselves at odds with the rest of the world much of the time.

Because it's our priority is,

What about my well-being?

What about my happiness?

What about my job?

My car?

My family?

My friends?

And it's always about just I and mine rather than sort of ours.

And so I and mine become supremely important,

Far more important than others.

And then we're at odds with the world because everybody else has got the same focus of you know,

Them.

And so with that focus on the self,

What happens is we tend to find lots of anxiety,

Lots of worry,

Lots of frustration.

Because our life is revolving around fear.

Fear of not getting,

Fear of not being recognized,

Fear of not being respected,

Fear of not being praised,

Fear of not getting what I need.

And then even a small pain or inconvenience can become so hard to bear because we're just trying to protect us so much.

As I said,

That even a prick from a thorn can become too hard to bear.

Or a wonderful example I can think of is you know,

If we have this sort of self-focus,

Maybe you're spending a bit of time and you're doing your meditation or you're reading,

You know,

A bit of quiet time and outside you can hear,

You know,

Your neighbors are outside and they're talking and they're laughing.

They're having a good time.

It's interrupting your quiet meditation.

And you can find yourself getting a little bit upset.

I just wanted,

You know,

Ten minutes of peace just by meditation,

My one meditation of the day.

And you can hear all this and if you step back,

You look,

You know,

I'm getting upset because other people are having a good time.

You realize that's just how distorted this mind becomes,

But it's because of this sort of,

You know,

Self-focus just on my well-being alone.

We all have elements of that.

It's not to say that,

You know,

We're all inherently selfish,

But this sense is in there and this is what we work with in the Mahayana tradition.

And so,

Conversely though,

Instead of this self-focus,

When we open up our hearts,

When we open up our minds and we turn to others through the Four Immeasurables,

Through compassion,

We find a whole different quality of experience.

A unifying quality.

A connecting quality.

We're not alone.

Not insular.

As the Dalai Lama often says,

If I think of myself as Dalai Lama,

Then it's very lonely.

If I think of myself as human being,

Then I am one of eight billion.

Eight billion brothers and sisters.

That's not a lonely position to be in.

And so,

This opening up to others,

It feels naturally good because as humans,

Connection and community are important.

That's what's made the human race thrive.

And so,

Connection,

Community are important for our survival and that's why they feel good because you're more in line.

You're more aligned with what is natural.

And so compassion is not said to,

You know,

It's not the Dalai Lama makes the point in this book that it's not merely a spiritual or religious practice and it doesn't only bring benefit to others because that first beneficiary is ourself.

And so,

He says in the chapter on compassion in this book,

When compassion or warm-heartedness arises in us and shifts our focus away from our own narrow self-interest,

It is as if we open an inner door.

Compassion reduces our fear,

Boosts our confidence and brings us inner strength.

By reducing distrust,

It opens us to others and brings us a sense of connection with them and a sense of purpose and meaning in life.

Compassion also gives us respite from our own difficulties.

And this,

I remember a time back when I was really struggling with my own depression and this sort of overwhelm that I was talking about.

Struggling with the fear of others,

With all that was going on around me.

My heart had become contorted and twisted and I was feeling very burdened,

Feeling very isolated and I probably wasn't very useful at work.

And at this point I wasn't working in hospitals anymore,

I was working in community.

And I felt very alone in my struggles and it was at this point that I remember a particular instance where we were called to go and see this individual and at the time I was working,

It's kind of complicated to explain.

Let's just say,

So we were called to go and see an individual who had basically been forgotten by mental health services for many years.

A neighbour had called their local GP and said,

We're really worried about this individual,

We haven't seen them for several days,

They seem to be acting weirdly and the GP got in touch with the psychiatry team and said when did you last go and see this person?

And for whatever reason,

The system had forgotten about this individual.

And so me and a colleague went out to see them and the way they were living and the state that they were in and the state of their mind is something I will never ever forget.

It was sort of a real hoarding obsession and you couldn't get into basically any room.

The kitchen and the bathroom were just not accessible at all.

And this gentleman was living basically in one spot on this sofa in his living room.

He was eating there,

He was sleeping there and he was going to the toilet there right next to it as well.

And I say this not out of pity but just to sort of paint a picture.

And I remember speaking to this gentleman and noticing that when he was talking you could see that he didn't feel worthy of any different quality of life than the one that he had.

He kind of felt that this was what he deserved and this was it.

And his depression and his mind had twisted his view on life in such a way that he didn't deserve anything,

He didn't deserve anything better.

And as heartbreaking as it was to see a fellow human being just like me in this situation,

Somebody else with a mind,

With feelings,

Somebody who doesn't want to suffer,

Somebody who wants to be happy in this situation.

Through my efforts to help,

By thinking not only about this gentleman but many people all over the world who are feeling in a similar way,

Who suffer in similar ways,

My internal pain subsided.

I didn't realise it till afterwards.

But by attending to his suffering and wanting to help and doing what I could to help,

My own suffering had reduced.

My own problems,

My issues,

They were no longer centre stage,

They were no longer the biggest problem in the world that needs to be solved right now.

But they had taken,

It's not that they had vanished,

But they had taken on a greater context,

A wider context,

That it's not just my suffering that's happening but there's others.

And so my view had transformed a little bit,

Something inside me had shifted which switched those feelings of overwhelm,

That loneliness,

That grief,

That sadness changed into feelings of connection,

Of compassion,

Of confidence,

A sense of purpose,

A sense of meaning.

And so that uplifted me,

It lightened my burden instead of pulling me down,

Which you might think by being with somebody in such a situation it would burden you and pull you down further,

But the thought in my mind was,

How can I help?

And this is what compassion entails,

Compassion is an active mind,

It's not a passive mind,

It's an active mind,

How can I help?

Because if we'd imagined if I'd just become more overwhelmed,

I wouldn't have been able to help much,

You know,

I'd just pull up a chair,

I'll join you.

No good,

No good to him,

No good to me,

But luckily this natural arising of compassion,

I think there's a reason why passion is in the word compassion.

There was a passion to want to help a fellow sentient being who needed me,

And I couldn't just take away his suffering,

But I could do something,

Something to make it a little bit better.

The Dalai Lama gives a story here where he says,

Some time ago while visiting Bodhgaya,

An important Buddhist pilgrimage site in India,

I came down with severe gastrointestinal infection.

The pain was so intense that I was compelled to cancel the whole series of teachings I was scheduled to give there.

I was very sorry to disappoint the thousands of people who'd travelled to attend,

Many from far away,

But I had to get to hospital urgently,

And this meant driving through some of the poorest parts of rural India.

The comfort in my abdomen was acute.

Every time there was a bump on the road,

The pain threatened to overwhelm me.

Looking out the car window,

I saw scenes of widespread poverty,

Underfed children running around naked in the dirt.

I caught a glimpse of a very old man lying on a cot near the road.

He seemed to be alone,

And to have no one to care for him.

As the car continued on its way,

I couldn't stop thinking about the tragedy of poverty and human suffering.

Later,

I noticed that my thoughts had shifted away from my own suffering to contemplation of the hardships of others.

My own pain had subsided.

So,

We see that power of compassion,

Of that connection with others,

Rather than that insular view that even when we're in the most intense suffering of our own,

That it can help alleviate that and recognise I'm not alone in this.

He goes on to say here,

The observation that our concern for others contributes to our own wellbeing is also supported by scientific research.

There's increasing scientific evidence that love,

Kindness,

Trust and so on,

Not only have psychological benefits,

But also observable benefits to physical health.

And of course,

We know that negative emotions,

Anger,

Hate,

They erode away at our immune system and they exacerbate,

If not cause,

Many of our physical ailments.

So,

Beyond then,

Of course,

We're talking about the benefits of compassion.

I will move on.

But beyond the benefits to our own wellbeing,

Of course,

Compassion is quite clearly beneficial for others as well,

Because it drives us to help,

To be a change,

To be a force for positive change in the world,

Doesn't it?

To see things,

Not only from our own perspective,

But take multiple points of view.

So,

Then we can turn to this near enemy that we have been describing,

This grief or despair.

So,

I'm turning back to Lama Alan's book,

And he says there are also near and far enemies of compassion.

Grief,

So in this book he uses the term grief,

But later on he uses the word despair.

I don't know if it's a more updated translation.

I quite like despair as a term,

So I'm kind of just going to swap it.

I hope that's okay.

But in the original book here it says grief.

So,

Despair is the near enemy of compassion.

When compassion goes awry,

It succumbs to despair.

Despair has a heavy quality to it,

Unlike sadness,

Which may be fleeting.

There is so much in the world that calls for our compassion that if it goes awry,

An ongoing state of despair can settle in.

It may look like compassion,

But it's a near enemy.

It's not malevolent or evil,

But it's simply a mental burden.

And you may think this is compassion,

Caring so much for those who are in misery,

But in fact,

What has happened is that despair has disabled you.

You have fallen into a dark,

Bottomless ocean.

The object of your grief becomes your only reality,

All consuming and overwhelming.

There's hardly a fissure in your attention at all,

Hardly any light left over,

And it's utterly disempowering.

And I'm sure if this topic has sparked something in you,

I'm sure reading that as it did for me when I first read it kind of just says it all exactly,

Doesn't it?

It's this bottomless pit,

This,

Um,

This just sense of what is the point and what can I do?

There's nothing I can do.

And so,

When he goes on to say something from the Dalai Lama,

He says,

The Dalai Lama has many chances to deal with this kind of grief,

And he addresses it like a warrior.

You must deal with adversity,

He says,

But absolutely do not fall into despair.

That is the worst you can do.

Then the battle has been lost.

Then you're finished.

And this,

I think,

Is the key point about despair and is is the fact that it's so disabling,

The fact that it's so overwhelming,

You're looking at all of that suffering,

But you're just no longer able to help.

You're just no longer of any use to yourself or others.

I recognize when I was like that,

I couldn't help myself,

And I certainly couldn't,

You know,

Couldn't be of benefit to others.

It was easy just to say,

What's the point?

And I recognize now that part of the what is the point mindset was because I didn't understand the true causes of suffering.

I didn't understand that there were internal causes that we could work on.

And so when we talk about that wider context,

What are we wishing people to be free of?

There's a reason why we need to understand the suffering and the causes of suffering,

Because otherwise it's just,

What's the point?

What can I do?

As the Dalai Lama says,

Never lose hope.

Then the battle is lost.

So this response is just helpful to no one.

So we need to spend time contemplating and reflecting and recognizing the limitations of these responses.

The despair approach of the despair response is all emotion.

And as we know,

It doesn't help others.

The anger response,

Sometimes we get angry.

We're angry at the injustice and the pain that's going on in the world.

Can we recognize as well how useful that actually is?

Does it kind of just poison our own mind?

Do we just become emotional and lose most of our good judgment and sound reasoning?

What is it?

Psychology says we lose 85% of our good judgment when we become emotional and angry and hateful in that way.

That's not a fit mind to find any solutions or to be able to help.

And so we recognize how afflictive are those responses and what use is me getting all angry in my home or getting overwhelmed?

What good is that to the person who is suffering,

Which is the person we want to help?

And so Lama Alan encourages us in this book to think about if you were the one who was suffering,

What would you want from others?

What is it that you would most want from them?

And if I was suffering from some terrible illness and you were to call me up crying saying how sorry you were and how it's the worst thing to have ever happened,

I'm so sorry this has happened to you.

I don't think that would help.

I think that would make me feel worse.

I think it would make me feel more burdened than I'd be trying to comfort you in your emotions.

So it's far better to channel our energy to do what we can however small it may seem.

And there's a story that some of you probably know of the little girl and the starfish on the beach which I'm going to tell anyway even if you don't know it.

And the story goes that there was a storm overnight and thousands of starfish had washed up on the beach.

And there was this little girl and she was walking on the beach in the morning and she was picking up each starfish and she was throwing them into the water.

And these people were walking past and they could see what she was doing and somebody walked up to her and said look at this,

There are thousands and thousands of starfish on this beach you're not making any impact whatsoever,

You should go and do something useful,

You may as well not waste your time.

And she picked up the next starfish and said but it might be the most important thing to this starfish.

And then put it in and picked up the next one and says and it might be the most important thing for this starfish as well.

I've since been told that starfish don't survive very long out of water so I'm not sure how good this story is but maybe it just highlights that we need both wisdom and compassion.

But I like this story because it illustrates that it doesn't matter how small it is,

The act it's always worth doing if it can bring benefit.

And the point is that when we push ourselves to do something small then you're not sat in despair and overwhelm,

You're in the compassion part,

You're in the real compassion and you're working to do something and there's a sense of confidence,

There's that sense of connection,

There's that sense of meaning as the Dalai Lama was talking about because you're doing something no matter how small it is.

And so maybe we're out on a walk and maybe you see there's loads of litter,

Rubbish around and you think how awful all this is,

People just leaving their plastic everywhere and just leaving their rubbish all over the place,

All these people they just don't care about anything and they feel really bad for the state of the world.

The animals that might be harmed,

The pollution,

The degradation of the environment.

Far better than just getting all consumed in that is to pick up one piece of rubbish,

Pick up a few if you can,

Take a bag with you.

Even better if we could organise a litter pick up or something like that.

But far better than simply just thinking what is the point?

The world's gone to the dogs whatever you want to say.

But by picking up that one piece you may save one animal or fish from eating it,

From being strangled or trapped by it.

So the point is that doing something is far better than doing nothing and thinking well what's the point?

The whole world's gone to the dogs.

It's this sense of if I can alleviate the suffering of just one sentient being,

In even a small way,

Then my whole life has been worth it.

And no matter how small that act was and no matter how small that benefit was it is always worth doing something.

But there are many situations in which we feel like we can't do anything.

There's nothing we can do to impact that suffering.

And I think the very least that we can do is offer the gift of our attention.

Attending to the suffering,

Not turning away,

Not closing our heart.

As if I were struggling and obviously I don't know because I'm not in this position but this is how I think I would feel.

That if I was struggling,

If I was fleeing my home country,

If I was in some tragedy I would know that Deborah in Leeds can't do anything physically to help me in my situation but I would want her to know I would want her to look and I'd want her to elevate my voice if she could I'd want her to elevate my story,

To raise awareness to lobby her politicians I wouldn't want her to at the very least turn away and pretend like I'm not suffering pretend like I'm not there and so I often think that in those situations where there's nothing I can do to help the very least I can do is offer the gift of my attention and if I can raise their voices and if I can do something then I should.

And we can combine it with the compassionate wish.

May you find freedom from your suffering and just genuinely,

Wholeheartedly wish that for them and that aspiration for them practicing Tong Len,

If you're familiar with that practice,

That practicing of taking and giving,

Taking all of their suffering,

Imagining,

Visualizing,

Taking all of their suffering,

Extinguishing it at this light at your heart center that represents your own Buddha nature,

Your limitless potential you imagine breathing in their suffering extinguishing it there and offering all the good that you have all the skills,

The qualities,

The possessions every good that you can imagine you offer all of that far better to do that than to just do nothing or to turn away and say I can't and so I think this applies to suffering far but also near also close to us,

If there's somebody close to you that's suffering we don't need to get stuck on the fact that I want to take away their suffering and I can't immediately take away all of their suffering instead what can I do to help,

What might alleviate even in a small way offering our presence is often such a gift that we don't value enough we think that it's no good just being with somebody,

Just offering our presence but offering our presence is such a gift for many who are depressed or for many who are particularly more those who are grieving,

As an example they tend to become very isolated and in most cases it's not because they're isolating themselves but it's because the people around them find it difficult to be around them and they start drifting away,

They find it uncomfortable to be around somebody who's grieving and it's that self-cherishing mind again that kind of makes it about us it's not a good time for me it's not nice to be around them it's kind of uncomfortable around them,

It's painful to be around them and so we tend to shy away a little bit,

We have a natural tendency to shy away so if we know somebody who's struggling we offer them the gift of our time and our presence which can often make all the difference and be very comforting Dr.

Joanne Cacciatore,

The expert in traumatic grief her episode on our podcast,

One of the things she talks about,

She says that pets particularly dogs and horses are excellent grief partners because they will just be with you,

They're not expecting anything from you and they'll just be with you they'll rest their head against you and they won't expect anything from you,

They just offer their presence and that can be so comforting to somebody who's going through a really difficult time and that's often all they need you can't take away my suffering but that connection,

That kindness,

That presence can often be a massive difference so we can offer that but of course all of this is said with the context of being aware of our own levels of compassion,

Our own energy trying to attend to all the suffering at once in the world,

Trying to empathise with everything that's going on with no answers,

Can't do anything you need a really strong mind to do that,

Mind of the Dalai Lama,

To be able to attend to all of that suffering and not fall into grief and anger and pain and so like anything this needs the middle way doesn't it,

Not to ignore suffering,

Not to,

It's not happening,

But to recognise our limitations Is everybody still with me?

Am I making sense?

Yeah?

Okay,

So then we're talking about here we need to bring forth the fire of compassion and work on or be aware of the pit of despair and try to avoid falling into that pit but you know always have it as this fire of compassion and so this is about not staying or not dwelling in the level of empathy Empathy is important to spark the compassion but if we dwell there,

If we find ourselves lost in empathy for long periods of time and not turning into the compassionate wish,

That's where we run the risk of burning ourselves out,

Where we run the risk of falling apart,

Falling into despair and so on So I'm grabbing again from the Dalai Lama he says that some readers may still feel resistant to the idea of universal compassion while admiring such an outlook in others they may feel that adopting it in themselves would entail taking on the woes of the world and that they have no room for all this additional suffering in their lives In a limited sense,

It is true that caring for others involves sharing in hardships that are not our own However,

The discomfort that arises from sharing the pain of others is of a quite different order from the direct experience of our own suffering When you empathise with someone who is in distress you may initially feel some mental discomfort but having voluntarily chosen to open yourself to the difficulties of that other person shows courage and courage imparts confidence By contrast when the pain is your own you have no such freedom or choice,

The difference is clear Furthermore although compassion arises from empathy,

The two are not the same Empathy is characterised by a kind of emotional resonance,

Feeling with the other person whereas compassion,

In contrast,

Is not just sharing experience with others,

But it's wishing to see them relieved of their suffering Being compassionate does not mean remaining entirely at the level of feeling,

Which could be quite draining This is when we just get lost in empathy we're just lost in that feeling that's when it's very draining for us After all,

Compassionate doctors would not be very effective if they were always preoccupied with sharing their patient's pain Compassion means wanting to do something to relieve the hardship of others and this desire to help far from dragging us further into suffering ourselves,

Actually gives us the energy and a sense of purpose and direction When we act upon this motivation,

Both we and others,

Those around us benefit still more So,

I think this is a really important distinction,

Recognising the value and importance of empathy and that's this compassion first entails empathy for us to have compassion,

For us to feel motivated and compelled,

We need to feel the suffering of the other person but it need not stop there and that's where the danger is that discomfort that we initially feel when we empathise with somebody else's suffering,

Ideally should become the fuel for the fire of compassion In one of Lama Alan's books,

He talks about going to see this yogi and this yogi's advice is that empathy is supposed to combine with what Tibetans call,

Sarasuk,

The power of the heart and this empathy combines with that power of the heart and it ignites the flame,

The fire of compassion,

And then compassion focuses on solutions,

What can be done?

How can I help?

I feel like I've been reading a lot of excerpts here but there's so much wise advice here that says it's so much better than I can and so if you'll excuse me,

There's a long-ish one that I have here that I will send out to everybody,

All of these quotes I'll send out to everybody but this one is from Mathieu Ricard and it's an excerpt that I came across from Glenn Svensson but it's from Mathieu Ricard's book called Altruism,

The Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the World and so he says in 2007,

Along with Tanya Singer I was in a neuroscience laboratory as a collaborator in guinea pig in a research program on empathy Tanya would ask me to give rise to a powerful feeling of empathy by imagining people affected by great suffering now during a pause after a first series of periods of meditation Tanya asked me,

What are you doing?

It doesn't look at all like what we usually observe when people feel empathy for other's suffering I explained that I had meditated on unconditional compassion trying to feel a powerful feeling of love and kindness for people who were suffering,

And for all sentient beings when I engaged in meditation on altruistic love and compassion Tanya noted that the cerebral networks activated were very different in particular the network linked to negative emotions and distress was not activated during meditation on compassion while certain cerebral areas traditionally associated with positive feelings with the feeling of affiliation and maternal love for instance they were so we arrived at the idea that burnout was in fact a kind of empathy fatigue and not compassion fatigue these three dimensions love of the other,

Empathy which is resonance with another's suffering and compassion are naturally linked when altruistic love encounters suffering it manifests as compassion this transformation is triggered by empathy which alerts us to the fact that the other is suffering one may say that when altruistic love passes through the prism of empathy then it becomes compassion the person who feels compassion and kindness can develop the strength of mind and desire to come to the aid of the other compassion and altruistic love have a warm loving and positive aspect that stand alone empathy for the suffering of others does not have and he finishes by saying so it was clear from my perspective that if there was an empathy fatigue leading to the syndrome of emotional exhaustion there was no fatigue of love and compassion without the support of love and compassion empathy left to itself is like an electric pump through which no water circulates it will quickly overheat and burn which I quite like that imagery so empathy should take place within the much vaster space of altruistic love which is that love of loving kindness that love of compassion so I think I'd like to turn to a meditation and this meditation is inspired by a quote from one of my teachers a beautiful Rinpoche and it's one that we I think we first did last year some of us did and so this quote he says that it seems that compared to the wisdom cultures of old more and more people in today's modern culture focus only on the darkness of our world so he says please focus within and shine the light of your mind onto the world illuminating all that you encounter this is the way of a bodhisattva just as a candle lights another candle in times of darkness the illuminating qualities of a bodhisattva will inspire others to also turn within and so this meditation we're going to do is a visualization meditation that's taking this idea of cultivating this light of compassion and then spreading that out to others so please find a comfortable posture so just taking a moment a moment to get comfortable allowing our awareness to descend down into the body feeling contact of your body chair,

Cushion,

Ground,

Wherever you are using this contact with the ground to anchor ourself to this very moment and we can become aware of our breathing just for a short while focusing on the sensations of breath and see yourself as you are here today and imagine that you are represented as a single candle burning brightly in a very dark room and there's warm energy to the candle the flame dances gently it's warm inviting glow and this light and the warmth of this light symbolizes your good qualities your compassion your love,

Your care kindness,

Patience your own inner joy and we're acknowledging that while there is this light and warmth here emanating from this candle flame it is surrounded by a cold darkness I ask you to bring to mind the events,

The news,

The stories personally and in the world that weigh heavily on your heart and see them represented as this cold darkness this darkness representing the world's problems,

The overwhelming negativity the suffering and as you contemplate this suffering in the world allow that empathy to arise,

That connection feeling with those sentient beings and with your inhale imagine using this empathy to draw in strength to this candle,

Helping it to burn brighter breathing in the wish,

May I be a source of comfort for those in need of light as you're breathing in,

Turn this empathy into compassion which moves beyond feeling of suffering with others and turns into the wish may you be free of suffering and how can I help and as you exhale visualize that the warmth and light of your candle expands gently pushing away the cold,

Pushing away the dark,

Clearing space for more light breathing out the wish may all beings find freedom from their suffering and its causes we can recognize the feelings of despair and helplessness that can arise from focusing on all this suffering and instead of letting these feelings pull you down into the abyss visualizing them being transformed by your candle's flame into actionable,

Positive energy recognize ways you can make a difference no matter how small and whether that difference is to suffering that's happening far or near any difference to any being is worth it so we're just sticking with this visualization before continuing as we inhale we are using empathy to bring strength to this candle,

Helping it burn brighter breathing in the wish may I be a source of comfort may I be a benefit and with the out breath the light of the candle expands and breathe out that wish may all beings find freedom from their suffering and imagine your flame lights up other candles around you others who are also arising as sources of compassion and kindness in the world like each of us here sharing together feeling and recognizing the collective warmth and strength from these flames recognizing that each individual light no matter how small contributes to dispelling the darkness just as each one of us helping those near and far in however small ways we can each one of us contributes to dispelling the darkness in our world only with compassion not with despair and just as your candle lit up other candles around you see that each of these candles continues to light others this ripple effect dispelling all the darkness by nurturing your practice your well being your own inner qualities you can become a stronger source of light for others come to a determination to nurture the flame within ensuring it remains steady,

Strong brightly illuminating if you wish contemplating these aspirations in a world of much fear and hate may I always be courageous and compassionate in a world that can be so cruel may I always be kind and in a world that can be so selfish may I always be generous generous may each one of us here arise as a light for those in darkness we can gently bring our awareness back to our immediate surroundings reconnecting with that contact the chair,

The ground,

The cushion as we bring our meditation to a close thank you all from the bottom of my heart for joining this session I hope that something that we've shared here has been useful has provided some comfort in some way and it's an ongoing conversation isn't it it's a big topic,

It's a lot a lot to consider and it's ongoing work that we need to do but I know for me this just first hearing and recognizing this difference between compassion and despair was hugely beneficial for me and this focus,

Okay we'll just always do what is most beneficial,

Always help in some way,

And even if I can't help some tragedy that's going on far away perhaps I can do something to help others who are close to me and if I continue to do that and act and benefit in whatever way I can then I can feel that sense of meaning,

That sense of courage and so on that these great masters have spoken about so I hope many of us have success with that thank you all very very much look forward to seeing you again soon I hope see you soon thank you so much

Reviews

I needed to hear this so much. I felt so much love, it was transformative. Going from empathy to compassion, I feel hope instead of despair. There was so much in this, I'll need to listen to it several more times of course. Thank you. 🙏 🕉🤍

This talk was very comforting to me, it met my spirit. Soothing and reassuring. Gracias.

Thank you so much for sharing this message with me. I’m feeling the feeling of grief and overwhelmed by it and I didn’t know what I didn’t know until this meditation made me aware of it. Excellent work by you David.
Namaste 🙏