Guided Meditation Seeing Compassion As A Skill To Develop

Join Venerable Sangye Khadro in a meditation that begins with the four immeasurable thoughts – love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Following this motivation, breathing meditation and analysis of personal experiences of compassion follow. Think of times when you’ve practiced compassion successfully, and also missed the mark.

Eventually, we can see compassion as a skill to develop, based on our natural tendency to be caring towards others.

Transcript

So,

Good morning everyone.

So,

We'll have a period of silent meditation on the breathing,

Which is very helpful to settle down our mind.

It's not easy to do that.

Our mind by nature is very busy and it's hard to stop all the thoughts coming and going.

But we can at least learn to step back from them and not get so caught up in them and find a more spacious state of mind.

And then halfway through we'll switch to a different kind of meditation,

A contemplative meditation which I'll guide.

So I'll do a bit more talking.

The meditation will be on compassion.

So in our tradition of Buddhism,

We are advised to always have a positive motivation for the things that we do.

And this is especially true when it comes to spiritual activities like meditation and so on.

So the best motivation that we could have is altruism,

Which means caring about others,

Wanting to benefit others.

So one of the prayers,

Which is called Prayer of the Four Immeasurables,

This contains four very positive beneficial thoughts.

So let's just spend a few more moments meditating on those thoughts and see if we can align our mind with them and bring those thoughts and attitudes into our mind as our reason,

Our motivation for being here and participating in these activities today.

The first immeasurable thought is immeasurable love.

Love is the wish for others to have happiness.

Just see if you can bring that thought into your mind,

How wonderful it would be if everyone could have happiness,

Could have everything they need,

Everything they wish for in order to be happy.

The second is immeasurable compassion.

Compassion is wishing everyone to be free of suffering and problems.

So again,

See if you can bring that attitude into your mind,

Just feeling how wonderful it would be if all people and all beings could be free of all suffering,

Both physical suffering and mental suffering,

The causes of suffering,

If all suffering could completely disappear and become non-existent.

The third is immeasurable joy.

Joy is sharing in the happiness of others and also wishing them to always have happiness in the future,

And not just ordinary happiness,

But spiritual happiness up to the highest happiness of enlightenment.

See if you can bring that wish into your mind.

The fourth is immeasurable equanimity.

This means having a state of mind that's free of strong bias,

Prejudice,

Where we care about some people and don't care about others,

And even have negative feelings,

Anger,

Aversion towards others,

And instead have a completely open,

Balanced mind where we're able to respect and be considerate of and caring towards everyone,

Towards all beings.

So may we and all other people and all beings have that state of mind of equanimity.

And then,

Connecting that with what we're doing here today,

Feel the wish that these activities we're doing,

Meditation,

Listening to the Dharma talk,

And discussing,

And so on,

May these bring about these wishes for all beings to have happiness,

To be free of suffering,

And so on.

Now,

To begin the meditation,

It's good to take a few minutes to relax,

Make sure that we are as relaxed as possible in our body and mind,

Because that will enable us to have a better experience during meditation.

So let's start with the body.

I'm going to lead you through a quick scan of your body.

And as you go through your body,

Paying attention to different experiences in your body,

Be on the lookout for tension,

If there's tightness or tension anywhere in your body.

And then do what you can to release that tension.

Sometimes it's enough just to say to ourselves,

Relax,

Or let go.

Or you can imagine the tension melting and then flowing out of you,

Sinking into the ground beneath.

So do the best you can to let go of tension.

You may not be able to let go of all tension,

But just try to let go of as much as you can so that you can be more relaxed.

So put your attention at the top of your head.

Be aware of any sensations you may have there.

If you notice tension,

See if you can let it go,

Relax it.

And then let your awareness move down slowly through your head,

Including your face,

Muscles in your face,

Your jaw,

And inside of your head.

And if you notice tension anywhere in your head,

See if you can relax it,

Let it go.

And then let your awareness move down into your neck and shoulders.

Those are areas where we sometimes have tightness,

Tension.

If there is,

Then see if you can let it go,

Let it disappear.

Let your awareness continue moving down through your back.

And again,

If there's tension,

Tightness anywhere,

Let it go,

Let it melt,

Flow away,

Sink into the earth.

Then move your awareness to the front part of your body,

Relax your chest.

And then the middle part of your body,

Diaphragm,

Abdomen.

There's a lot of organs in those areas,

And sometimes they can be tight and tense.

Again,

If you notice any tension,

Let it go,

Let it drift away,

Disappear.

And then relax the area around your hips and pelvic area,

Buttocks.

Again,

Any tightness,

Any tension,

Let it go,

Let it disappear.

And then relax the upper parts of your legs,

The thighs.

Relax the lower parts of your legs,

Your calves.

Relax your feet,

Including the ankles and the toes.

And then relax your arms,

Starting with the upper parts of the arms,

And then the lower parts of the arms.

And finally,

Your hands and fingers.

So do your best to keep your body relaxed for the remaining time of the meditation.

And take a look at your breathing.

Let your breath be natural.

Let your body breathe in a natural way without you trying to control it or manipulate it.

Allow the breath to flow in and out in a natural way.

So we're going to use the breath as the focal object of the meditation for this first part of the session.

And there's different ways that you can be aware of your breathing.

Some people pay attention at the area of the nostrils.

That's like the doorway where the air,

The breath is coming in and going out.

You might be able to feel a slight sensation around the nostrils as the air is passing through or on the upper lip.

So that's one place,

One possibility.

Another one is the abdomen,

Which is moving in and out a little bit with each breath.

But you can also just pay attention to whatever place in your body you are able to feel the breathing most clearly.

So feel free to choose the place,

The way in which you watch your breathing.

And what that means is just with your mind,

Your awareness,

Paying attention as the breath is coming in and as it's going out.

And there's usually pauses.

After breathing in,

There's maybe a pause.

And after breathing out,

Another pause.

So just try to be fully aware,

Fully attentive to the full inhalation and exhalation of each breath as well as the pauses in between.

And this is not so easy to do because our mind gets distracted by sounds or thoughts that come up,

Remembering things we did earlier today or any time in the past,

Or remembering plans we have for later today,

Tomorrow,

Next week,

And so on.

So it's normal that these thoughts will pop up in your mind.

Don't be surprised.

Don't be upset.

Just accept that it's normal.

But what we need to do is just notice that these are thoughts and they're distractions.

And we do have a choice.

We don't have to get caught up in them,

Follow them,

Get all involved in them.

So we can just notice them and then let them go,

Put them aside,

And then come back to the breathing.

So in a way,

The breath is a bit like an anchor of a ship that keeps the ship in one place so it doesn't float away.

So paying attention to our breathing can anchor us in the present,

Right here,

Right now.

And so it's a place to come back to when our mind drifts away to the past or the future or other places.

So whenever you do notice your mind has drifted away,

Just gently,

Patiently bring it back to the breathing.

And one more thing,

Too,

That can be helpful is to count your breathing.

It's optional,

But you might find it helpful.

And one way of counting is just to say to yourself,

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

One,

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

Two,

And then count up to five if you're new to meditation or up to 10 if you're more experienced.

And then keep going back to one whenever you reach that number.

Okay,

So now we'll switch to a somewhat different type of meditation that's more contemplative,

Contemplating different points that I will introduce and then give you some time to think about.

And one other thing,

Too,

If you find yourself feeling sleepy during meditation,

It can help to open your eyes a little bit,

Just enough so there's some light coming in and look down on the floor in front of you.

So having that light coming in can help you to stay awake and alert.

The theme of our Sharing the Dharma Day meditations and talks has been compassion.

So in Buddhism,

Compassion is explained as the wish for another person or other people,

Other beings to not suffer.

So it's what arises in our mind when we do become aware that somebody is suffering,

Either physically or mentally or both.

So let's start by getting in touch with that feeling of compassion.

We all do feel it sometimes.

So try to recall a time when you felt compassion.

You may have observed someone who was going through difficulties.

Maybe they were in pain,

Sick,

Injured,

Or experiencing emotional distress,

Unhappiness,

Anxiety,

Whatever.

And observing that other person's suffering,

Your heart felt moved.

You were touched and felt this wish to help them in whatever way you can to relieve their suffering or even just wishing that they could be free of suffering.

See if you can recall such experience that you had in the past.

And if you have difficulty remembering your own experience of compassion,

Another thing that can help is to recall a time when you observed someone else being compassionate.

If you saw someone else who was moved by compassion and helping someone who was suffering or helping you when you were experiencing some kind of suffering.

So according to Buddhism,

Compassion is a very positive,

Beneficial state of mind.

It's good for us,

It's good for others,

It's good for the world.

And also in recent years,

In recent decades,

Scientists have been studying compassion and also finding that it does have beneficial effects,

For example,

On people's health and their well-being,

Their ability to connect with others.

So check to see if that is something you can agree with.

Can you recognize that compassion is a good state of mind and that it's something you would like to have more of?

And so if you do accept compassion as a good state of mind,

And you'd like to increase it,

It's definitely possible.

There are ways we can cultivate our compassion,

Grow our compassion,

Have more compassion in our mind and our heart and our way of living.

But in addition to working on developing compassion,

There's other things we need to do to ensure that our attempts to be compassionate will be successful.

Because sometimes we try to help somebody who is in need,

And it doesn't go well.

Like we may try to help somebody and they react negatively,

They don't want our help,

They may even get angry at us.

Or we do try to help somebody,

But what we do doesn't really help.

It may just not be effective or may even make things worse.

See if you can recall having an experience like that,

Where you felt compassion and tried to help somebody,

But it didn't go well.

So having experiences like that could make us discouraged and hesitant to try and help somebody.

And hesitant to try again in the future to help somebody.

But if we can understand why things go wrong,

Then we can more easily avoid such problems happening again.

So one reason things can go wrong is because we lack wisdom,

Conventional wisdom.

Just knowing how to help people,

What is helpful and what is not helpful.

That's something we can learn through experience,

Like trial and error.

You try something and it doesn't work,

And you can try something else.

And eventually we can develop greater skills,

Greater wisdom,

And effectively helping others But another reason things can go wrong is because of inner factors,

Like hidden agendas in our own mind.

Our reasons,

Our motivations for trying to help someone may not always be totally altruistic.

We may sometimes be at least partially motivated by wanting them to like us,

Wanting to look good,

Wanting approval,

Wanting to fulfill our own needs.

So just check to see if that is possible in your own case.

If sometimes your attempts to help others might be partly motivated by your own Maybe wanting this person to be grateful,

To show gratitude and appreciation,

And then you can feel good about yourself.

Has that ever happened to you?

So a remedy to this is to cultivate mindfulness and introspective thinking.

So these are two qualities that we talk about in Buddhism and we can cultivate them.

And they enable us to be more aware of our inner world,

What's going on in our own mind,

And be able to detect if there are attitudes in ourself that are not helpful and maybe even counterproductive or even harmful.

And then we can work on those.

They're definitely possible to decrease and overcome so we're not driven by them.

And we can also recognize aspects of our mind that are truly skillful,

Helpful,

Beneficial,

And cultivate those so that they are more present in our mind,

In our life,

In our interactions with others,

And so on.

So the talk that will be given today deals with this issue.

It helps us recognize some of the attitudes that we may have in our mind that might be operating,

Motivating us in some of our behavior and our actions.

So hearing about these can help us to be more aware of them in ourself and more quick to recognize them if they are present in our mind and driving our behavior.

So then gradually we can learn to be less under the control of those kind of attitudes and be more aware of them.

And then we can also be more aware of our own actions.

And then this way,

We'll be less likely to feel discouraged about compassion and trying to help others and see it more as a skill that we can develop with time and practice.

We can learn to become more compassionate and more compassionate to others.

And then we can also be more aware of our own actions.

Time and practice.

We can learn to become more compassionate in a wise and skillful way so that our attempts to help others will be more successful.

And then we'll feel more satisfied with ourselves and more encouraged to continue behaving in that way.

So let's just conclude this part of the session,

This meditation,

With a mental dedication.

By doing this meditation and whatever we've gained from it,

May it contribute to the happiness and well-being of all beings and to their ultimate attainment of enlightenment,

The fulfillment of their desire to be happy.