Developing Genuine,
Deep and Vast Compassion This is part 2.
After considering some of the benefits of developing compassion in part 1 and the dangers of neglecting this practice,
Having set the strong intention and resolve,
We will now dive in more deeply.
What are some of the things to watch out for in our cultivation and how do we learn to include the difficult people and eventually all beings in the heart of compassion?
Near and Far Enemies Lord Buddha explains that all of the brahma-viharas have enemies to their successful cultivation,
Which we must guard against.
The far enemy of compassion is in fact cruelty.
This makes it clear that if we continue to harbor ill will towards a mean or unskillful being,
Our compassion simply will not develop.
The near enemy is a sense of pity.
With pity,
We feel sorry for others while holding ourselves somehow above or aloof from it all.
True compassion melts the boundaries and we truly feel for those who suffer.
It is helpful to understand that until we have accomplished complete liberation,
We are not actually free from such experience as ourselves.
We are not in a position to be proud or haughty.
Recognizing our precarious predicament should make us quite humble,
For as Tanarjuna Nan,
A close senior disciple of Ajahn Chah and one of my primary teachers has said,
As long as we still have the chilesa in our minds,
We are literally capable of doing anything.
If our own circumstances changed for the worse,
Our latent negative traits could rear their head and we might ourselves become a mean or nasty being.
Considering this,
We are definitely not in a position to judge.
We also don't know what terrible karmas we may have made in the past that might strike us down at any moment,
And then it could be us that inspires pity in others.
If we are down and out,
We would definitely prefer compassion than pity.
All of these considerations are helpful.
Many people will be able to remember rough patches in this lifetime where you might have been contentious and mean.
Others may have had difficult experiences that were quite literally pitiful.
So understanding that people and circumstances both change,
We try to have a patient heart that looks at the big picture.
In the monk's life,
Most of the time we eat in our balls and in the monastery,
It is quite a formal affair with little talking.
But sometimes when I am visiting family or teaching,
It is more practical to eat in a restaurant so some of my students may take me out for lunch.
Over the course of a meal,
I usually wind up asking the waiter or waitress what religion they are,
How many siblings they have,
Whether they are studying and any number of other nosy things.
Sometimes my confused students ask me,
Ajahn,
Why are you asking so many personal questions,
And I reply,
I used to be a waiter,
And I remember how much I hated it when people just wanted food and drinks without the slightest interest or courtesy towards the person serving it,
And how rude they were when they were in a hurry.
Waiters are people and they like to be seen and acknowledged.
It's been 25 years since I was a waiter,
Wondering what to do with my life,
And I still make a point to remember.
Similarly,
Sometimes in India,
The beggars can be very rude and aggressive.
Then if you give something to one,
A nearby one often yells at you for neglecting them.
Even so,
I still insist sometimes upon giving something even to the really rude ones.
So then I have to ask a reluctant steward,
Please give something to this beggar.
One student asked,
Aren't you encouraging this poor behaviour,
Ajahn?
My reply,
No,
I am responding to the fact that this person needs some money in order to eat.
They continued with their enquiry,
But do you really think that there is any merit in you giving to such aggressive and ungrateful people?
My response,
Would you ever wish to be born in the circumstances that this person is in now?
Of course not.
Well I'll tell you something that I have great confidence and faith in.
If I am generous to every class of being,
The nice ones and the horrible ones,
The polite ones and the mean ones,
There is absolutely no way that I could ever fall to that state.
So this gift to them is a gift to me too.
My student scratched his head and then rubbed his chin.
I continued further.
Do you think if you were very very poor and you saw wealthy people walk past you indifferently for the most part,
Day after day after day for decades,
Do you think you might become a little impatient and rude?
My pilgrimage groups make a point of giving to trustworthy charities,
Clinics and schools as well,
But giving to the occasional mean,
Dirty and rude beggar is useful in a different way.
We train ourselves to be less conditional without giving.
In terms of challenging our deep habits with wisdom,
We need to apply elements of skillful view.
I for one certainly do believe that if someone causes me harm,
It is because I have either harmed this person or another in a similar way in the past.
It is flowing back as that past karma ripens.
So who is really the actual victim in such a scenario?
Okay,
So maybe I am now,
But the person who is being unkind currently was the victim before,
And if this is the case for me,
Then this universal law must apply to all beings.
We must not however use the recollection of karma as an excuse to become indifferent.
For those interested,
Indifference is the near enemy of equanimity brahmanvihara.
Giving thoughts such as,
Well it's just their karma anyway,
Which absolves us from needing to care.
Understanding the law of karma deeply will indeed make us truly equanimous,
But equanimity is a serene state of balance and equipoise,
Not a hard and dry,
Callous indifference.
Seeing the way that beings are caught in this deadly will of harming each other and then being harmed is actually quite terrifying.
When we consider this subject both deeply and carefully,
We will come to feel compassion for both the being receiving the fruits of past unskillful deeds as well as the one performing harmful deeds in the present.
We can literally see that the positions will be reversed and the abuser will soon be being abused.
Don't delight in thoughts of retribution and punishment.
On the subject of this law of karma,
There are skillful and unskillful ways to hold this view as well.
It is only a skillful view if we understand it correctly.
For example,
How many of us,
If we are honest,
Actually feel happy when we think of a harmful person receiving the fruits of their bad deeds?
I must admit that I fall into this habit sometimes myself.
I try to catch it very quickly though.
As seductive as it is,
This is actually cruelty affecting our minds once again,
And we need to recognize that it is the enemy of compassion.
We have to keep challenging our fixed perceptions and dropping all forms of ill will.
Somehow we imagine that this very same nasty being will be the one being punished.
I would like to suggest that you try imagining it in a different way.
See this person as a young child in a future life,
With no recollection of the harmful things done in the past.
Now see that young innocent looking child being harmed and abused and crying out for a caring elder to help,
And no one comes.
This is in fact the likely outcome,
Possibly for many lives,
For people who cause terrible harm.
When we consider it in this way,
In the bigger picture,
Over a longer time span,
Our heart will melt and we will be able to wish with full sincerity,
May all beings be free from suffering.
With frequent wise reflection,
Our understanding of the validity and appropriateness of compassion as a beautiful and skillful response to all beings will become an attitude and outlook that we carry with us in life.
Seeing the value,
Now how do we actually train?
As far as I am aware,
Lord Buddha does not actually give detailed instruction on how to go about cultivating compassion in the suttas.
Rather,
He simply instructs the bhikkhus repeatedly that they have a duty to radiate all four of the brahmoviharas each day.
The instructions go as follows.
After alms round,
The bhikkhu should radiate loving kindness towards the people of the village upon which he is dependent upon for alms food.
Then radiate loving kindness in the northern direction,
The eastern direction,
The southern direction,
The western direction.
After this,
Radiate loving kindness in the northeastern direction,
The southeastern direction,
The southwestern direction and the northwestern direction.
Then above and below,
Around and everywhere,
And to all as to oneself.
Then after this,
Similarly with compassion,
Then appreciative joy,
Then finally equanimity.
Clearly,
Most of the bhikkhus and bhikkhunis in the time of the Buddha were very gifted meditators,
So Lord Buddha could instruct in this way,
Just do it.
But the fact that he stated repeatedly that this was one of the daily duties of the renunciates illustrates that it is of central importance,
Something not to be neglected.
No doubt there were many benefits for the recipients of these metta and karuna blessings radiating from the minds of the ardently meditating sangha each day as well.
Imagine being a lay person in a village on the edge of a forest where the members of the sangha were mostly arahants.
But if one is not yet capable of radiating compassion in all directions,
Above and below,
And to all,
As to oneself,
Then one needs to actually train in stages.
Training in Stages When we come to cultivate compassion in a disciplined way through meditation,
Traditionally we would work our way through different classes of beings,
Those for whom it seems easy and natural to feel compassion towards,
Then the more neutral beings for whom we might normally feel indifferent.
And then we would work on to developing compassion for the difficult beings,
Those for whom an untrained mind would normally be repelled,
The murderers,
Rapists,
Child abusers,
Despots,
Tyrants,
Dictators,
Dishonest or compromised elected leaders of nations,
And psychopathic CEOs,
To name but a few.
We train ourselves to hold the attitude and energy of compassion in our heart and train it to become stronger and stronger,
Literally like a mental muscle,
Which can learn to take on the heavyweights over time.
Eventually we train ourselves to include all beings everywhere filling space.
What a wonderful goal and creative challenge.
Over a period of time,
After becoming skilled at holding the energy and attitude of compassion in the heart towards oneself and for people for whom it is easy to feel a caring attitude towards,
We practice radiating compassion to more neutral people,
And then include greater and greater numbers of these,
In order to train in developing a strength of evenness and impartiality,
A breadth and depth to the practice.
And also so that the compassion in our hearts gains enough power and conviction to be able to move on and include the more difficult ones.
The guided meditation that I have also prepared and recorded follows this progression.
Learning to care for the difficult types.
There are many ways to soften the heart towards these so-called difficult beings,
Through skillful reflection.
For example,
It can be good to ask,
How many people who become cruel as adults suffered cruelty when they were young?
The answer is,
Probably most.
In my own efforts to develop compassion for this category of difficult people,
I have sometimes watched documentaries where prisoners from high security facilities are being interviewed.
In the overwhelming majority of cases,
These hard and mean-seeming people were abused as children and came from homes where drug and alcohol abuse was a serious issue.
Oftentimes they had no positive role models at all.
The people who might have protected them were the ones harming them.
Seeing this gave rise to genuine compassion.
It is difficult not to shed tears when hearing the sad stories of the difficult ones,
If we take the time to inquire and to listen.
In one fascinating documentary I watched about prison reform in the United States,
An experimental program was conducted where a group of prisoners who used to be in solitary confinement because of their dangerous status were enrolled in an intensive program designed to teach them empathy,
A quality which many were completely lacking.
Social workers and members of the clergy,
As well as many other volunteers,
Arose to the occasion to teach these prisoners listening skills,
As they shared the stories of their lives with one another in a controlled environment.
They also had acting and singing classes as a skillful way to spend their time and channel various energies.
Another very important component of the program was that some of the relatives of the victims of these people actually came to visit them,
To tell them that they had forgiven them.
The program coordinators did require that the inmate listen to the experience of loss as a part of this exchange.
Both sides benefited from the exchange.
The relatives of the victims learned how these people had become so cruel,
Indifferent or compulsive.
While the prisoners learned both about the pain their actions caused,
As well as how it felt to be forgiven.
When other people demonstrated that they cared for them and forgave them,
They felt as though they had been given another chance.
They subsequently resolved to be good people.
Curiously,
Most of these inmates became completely nonviolent and genuinely empathic human beings within a period of just a few months.
Quite nice people,
In fact.
A small percentage did not respond well,
Perhaps due to the weight of the karma they were experiencing or the extent of the trauma in their past.
But most responded exceedingly well.
It was a very educational documentary for me that affirmed the Buddha's teaching that at heart,
All beings have the potential for goodness and no being is inherently or permanently evil.
It is very heartening to consider this.
In fact,
It is a relief to know.
The difficult ones are the real treasures.
Although this following reflection will not be relevant to all of my listeners,
It will be relevant to some and it is an interesting consideration.
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition,
Where all monastic practitioners take a bodhisattva vow as a part of their ordination,
Naturally great emphasis is placed upon the cultivation of compassion.
For it is not possible to develop the requisite quality of boundless and impartial loving kindness and compassion that would qualify one for Buddhahood without learning to include all beings everywhere,
Without exception.
Given this,
Some great masters of that tradition have trained their students to learn to see the very negative and difficult people as being like treasure,
A special opportunity to test and stretch one's abilities.
They train to see these people as their teacher,
Helping them to develop the requisite quality of compassion and vast merit that will help to ensure their Buddhahood.
The following two verses from a text composed by Geshe Langre Thangpa,
An 11th century lama,
Are interesting examples.
Whenever I meet a person of bad nature,
Who is overwhelmed by negative energy and intense suffering,
I will hold such a rare one dear,
As if I had found a precious treasure.
The next,
When someone I have benefited and in whom I have placed great trust,
Hurts me very badly,
I will practice seeing that person as my supreme teacher.
It is the difficult people and challenging circumstances in life that give us our real opportunities to develop wisdom,
Patience,
Forbearance,
Forgiveness and compassion.
Whether you aspire to complete Buddhahood or not,
Training to see the difficult people and situations as a good opportunity for one to grow and to develop noble qualities is very skillful,
And will no doubt help along the path to attain arahantship as well,
As it weakens our attachment to aversion.
Firm conviction in the fact of nibbana can inspire us to be spiritually bold.
Thinking of all the good reasons to develop and embody compassion,
It strikes me as seeming quite sad that so many human beings live their lives with such a limited understanding of their incredible potential,
And subsequently do little to truly cultivate that amazing potential.
We roll over too easily in the face of delusion and chilesa,
And we really ought to put up more of a fight.
This is one of the main reasons why I personally really appreciate compassion-based contemplations and practices,
Because they can empower and embolden us,
And we need this to care more,
To do more,
And to put up a noble fight.
Another very empowering contemplation is to recollect the existence of enlightenment potential in all beings,
And the fact of the enlightened state.
So I'd like to ask a few more questions to help get you in touch with this here.
Do you believe that Lord Buddha was actually enlightened?
I'm confident that 99% of people listening will have answered yes.
So we need to consider deeply here what is enlightenment,
And what does it mean?
Enlightenment here means penetrating into a deeper truth,
A deeper reality.
This causes the deluded way of perceiving and experiencing life and the world in the mind to completely fall away.
As delusion fell away and ignorance was uprooted irreversibly,
The Buddha's mind experienced a new reality,
The liberated and enlightened state,
Which we call nirvana,
Or nirvana.
This has been described by the Buddha as spotless,
Immaculate,
Devoid of all suffering,
Unconditioned,
Deathless,
And is experienced as unshakable peace.
Okay,
Now if this was just the Buddha's experience and no one else ever had this realization,
We might simply feel awe in relation to the Buddha and feel happy for him.
However,
The Buddha saw that this was the potential of all beings,
And that a certain number of beings in the world did have developed enough spiritual faculties to be able to realize exactly what he had.
And so he set about formulating ways of teaching,
And subsequently he did wander and teach for 45 years.
So when he taught the first sermon,
And Anya Kondhanya penetrated to stream entry,
In the first stage of enlightenment,
Lord Buddha exclaimed,
Kondhanya knows,
Anya Kondhanya knows.
After this,
Lord Buddha taught the sermon on not-self to all five of the ascetics in the Deer Park,
And each of them realized,
Through listening,
Contemplating,
And then through direct penetrative insight,
Complete liberation.
This demonstrates something fundamentally simple,
Basic,
And important.
Unfortunately,
We skip over it way too quickly.
This demonstrated that the realization of Nibbana is indeed the potential of beings,
If they train themselves in the appropriate and necessary way.
As if to prove this point,
In case we were thinking,
Yeah,
But only superhero-like Olympic-grade austere ascetics can penetrate this deeper reality,
A couple of days later,
Yasa,
The merchant's son,
Wandered into the Deer Park in his gold slippers.
He was an especially delicate prince-like person,
And he had come wandering into the park after seeing dribbling,
Drooling courtesans for the first time.
Having awoken before them,
He was horrified.
It's awful,
He kept saying,
So awful.
Lord Buddha called him by name,
Which impressed him,
As it would anyone,
And said,
Come here,
Yasa,
And I'll tell you,
Show you something which is not awful.
After teaching him the gradual training in generosity,
Virtuous conduct,
And mental cultivation,
Yasa,
The merchant's son,
Also attained stream-entry,
The first stage of liberation.
In a later teaching,
He also attained complete liberation as an arahant.
I really love the way the first few days of the Buddha's teaching career panned out,
Because it is so wonderfully illustrative of the point I'm trying to make.
Yasa's wife and mother loved him very,
Very dearly.
Lord Buddha saw the distress that it would cause them to find that their princely Yasa could never return to the sensuality of the householder's life now.
So the Buddha accepted an invitation to a meal in their home.
At this meal,
He taught them both,
And they too attained to stream-entry.
One can witness the Buddha's decency and compassion here.
After this,
They had glimpsed Nibbana for themselves,
And had unshakable faith in the Buddha and the Dharma which he proclaimed.
Naturally,
They then supported Yasa in living the holy life,
As their own deeper happiness now came from their own mind's realization,
And was no longer dependent upon a loving husband or son.
I forgot to mention that of course,
Yasa's father became a stream-enterer along the way as well.
Obviously these people had practiced very well in past lives and had very ripe spiritual faculties and close karmic ties to Lord Buddha,
But the point is valid just the same.
At the heart of the matter,
All of the suffering which is a result of craving based upon ignorance and delusion can be completely eradicated from a being's mind,
After which the purified and liberated mind experiences unshakable peace.
So how does this tie in with our main theme here of compassion?
Well,
We should understand and recognize that this wonderful,
Beautiful and precious compassionate wish,
May I be free from suffering,
Is actually something that can be accomplished and realized,
To be experienced individually by the wise.
It is valid,
It is tenable,
Logical,
Reasonable,
A scientific fact,
And whatever other adjective you'd like to add here which means real and achievable.
We need to meditate upon this until we get it on a very deep level with a lot of conviction,
Because this will act as a tremendous source of confidence and courage.
We shouldn't roll over easily in the face of delusion and the chilesas.
We should put up a good fight in the manner of a true spiritual warrior and be determined to realize the truth of no more suffering,
Because the potential of the mind is superior to that which deludes it.
Delusion has to fall away eventually.
In doing so,
At the very least our suffering will gradually decrease and the moment of liberation will have come closer.
So when we make this wish for ourselves in the compassion meditation practice,
May I be free from suffering,
Remember that this is your potential and that it is certainly possible,
And mean it as sincerely as you can.
Stare the darkness of delusion in the face and say,
It might take some time but I am definitely kicking you out.
Of course there will be no one doing the kicking out when that time actually comes,
But during the process the conventional being does have to have the intention to uproot and eradicate the causes of suffering.
The Eightfold Path is a path of laying the karmic conditions that lead to the unconditioned,
Which is beyond karma,
But we must rely upon the wholesome and skillful spectrum of conditions so that this conventional being can realize non-being and the unconditioned.
When we wish ourselves well and to be free from suffering,
We are blessing our mind stream with the very best influence that we can possibly suggest to realize liberating truth,
For this is what will release us.
Further to this,
In recognizing that we really can be free from suffering,
That all of this misery,
These challenging experiences,
Pain and confusion is not necessary,
We sincerely wish this for everyone else as well.
A deep conviction in the wonderful,
Utterly harmless and deeper potential of all beings will give us the confidence and courage to bring them to mind and to sincerely wish that they may be free,
Simply because they truly can be.
May all beings be free from suffering.
As we wish for the eradication of our own suffering,
Why not wish for the eradication of every being suffering?
It is an incredibly heart-expanding and mind-expanding thing to do,
To stop discriminating,
Good being,
Nice being,
Alright being,
Horrible being,
Nasty being,
Scary being,
And just see a potentially free being and wish them complete freedom.
It is such a wonderful thing to offer yourself and others,
At least in moments,
Hopefully in many,
Many moments,
As we train ourselves in this practice.
Harkening back to the image of the great disciple Sariputta,
Meditating upon his realization of voidness,
And then with tens of thousands of Brahma-Devas coming to pay him honor,
Just imagine all beings experiencing blissful voidness,
And imagine that radiance completely destroying and eradicating the darkness of ignorance and delusion everywhere.
It is great to imagine and envision this sometimes,
For although it might not be likely anytime soon,
It is encouraging to comprehend that at least there is the potential.
Training the meditation to include everyone.
This shared nature and potential that we all have is one of the reasons why we train in developing compassion in a systematic way over a long period of time,
To include everybody.
The easy-to-care-for beings initially,
Then larger numbers of neutral beings,
Adding the challenging ones once we feel strong enough,
And finally we include all beings everywhere.
Related to these considerations,
Bringing to mind once again the difficult types,
For whom it can be hard at first to care for,
When we understand that through realizing deeper truth,
All of the greed,
Hatred and delusion would fall away,
And subsequently all of the terrible behavior would cease,
How much more sincerely will we be able to wish for these difficult beings to realize liberating truth?
May all beings,
Especially the difficult ones,
Be liberated through realizing the wonderful Dhamma.
Thinking of the example of Angulimala,
A mass murderer who was stringing together the fingers of the people who he killed,
Lord Buddha made the effort to go and teach him,
And not only did he give up his bad behavior,
He realized Dhamma.
Clearly he had practiced a lot in past lives,
But his example illustrates a wonderful truth.
Mean,
Harmful,
Angry beings can be transformed through realizing truth,
And then their behavior becomes saint-like.
So a belief in karma and rebirth,
Combined with the understanding that ignorance and delusion on all of the ills that stem from this,
No matter how horrible,
Are temporary phenomena obscuring a fundamental goodness at the core of beings,
The Buddha nature or Buddha potential that we all possess,
Whether aware of it or not,
Are helpful for cutting through our tendency to grasp and react to current appearances.
Over time,
And with training,
We learn to look to something much deeper,
And with a much bigger picture in mind.
The good news is that the big picture is a bright one,
The beautiful potential that we all share.
Hopefully,
My deep faith and passionate feelings about the wonderfulness of Nibbana,
And our stunning opportunity to actualize a realization of it,
Will have aroused some deep interest and courage in you all,
To diligently lay the causes for such realization.
I sincerely hope so.
Compassion towards the suffering present in the moment for the harmful beings Bringing things back to our practice of being mindful of suffering and its causes in the present moment,
There are other present moment-based considerations that can help us to have more impartiality in relation to compassion.
Obviously,
It is easier to feel compassion for someone who appears to be the victim in any given scenario than it is for the person demonstrating negative speech or actions.
But when we contemplate the actual felt experience of both parties in such a scenario more deeply,
We can understand that both are suffering,
One from being abused,
The other from afflictive and oppressive mind states that have deluded them to such a degree that they are acting out.
It is fine and good to feel compassion for someone on the receiving end of abusive behavior or neglect,
But if we are to restrain ourselves from generating negativity towards the perpetrator,
We must develop compassion for that person as well.
So try to take some time to consider deeply how a very upset,
Mean or cruel person actually feels inside.
It is true that some people seem to enjoy being sadistic and cruel,
But I am absolutely certain that a mind which is overwhelmed with such dark forces is actually in a lot of pain.
Oftentimes,
These people are causing pain to others in a neurotic and misguided attempt to try and get away from their own.
Keeping in mind that if we are able to develop a more broad,
Inclusive and impartial attitude of compassion,
This will serve us in our own aspiration to be free from suffering as well.
For while it is still possible to use our wise discriminating faculty to recognize when actions are unskillful,
We can at the same time prevent the arising of negative and unwholesome mind states such as self-righteous anger,
Rage and the desire to take revenge.
Even though we might feel appalled by the degree of unskillfulness we can observe at times,
We do not fall into hating those demonstrating appalling behavior.
This more wise and skillful manner of perceiving such fraught dynamics will weaken the strength of the aversion-based chelesa in our minds over time as well.
In this regard,
The difficult beings can be the very object which helps us to weaken our own attachment to afflictive emotions.
Also,
Obviously,
The less reactive we are,
The less pain and suffering we will experience.
In order to set up the kind of resolve necessary to truly develop compassion,
We have to think long and hard about the negative qualities and attitudes that currently affect our mind,
And we have to sincerely wish to overcome them.
The compassionate attitude and response will serve us well here.
This sincere aspiration must be ready to be put to work on a moment-to-moment basis.
We have to catch our reactions quickly,
And if we can't,
Then we must let go of them as quickly as possible.
So rather than justify the ways that habitual attitudes of meanness and cynicism can instantly close down our heart towards cruel or unskillfully behaving beings,
We must be ready and prepared to ask ourselves at such times,
Is this particular reaction skillful?
Is this beautiful?
If we are truthful,
We can see that it is not.
In fact,
Our own mind at these times is falling into negativity in reaction to the negativity of others.
Lord Buddha talks about the Dhamma as being a path leading onwards,
Is closing the heart towards others,
No matter how tempting,
Ever going to be a way of moving truly onwards.
One of the phrases used to describe Lord Buddha is that although his mind was purified and liberated,
His heart quivered with compassion for all beings.
Given that this is a component of the final outcome,
It certainly suggests something about the unavoidability or necessity of cultivating this quality along the way,
For the Buddha is our Lord and Guide,
The teacher of Gods and humans.
Obviously,
Sometimes we need to avoid harmful people and learn to set clear boundaries in the process of caring properly for ourselves.
Sometimes we may even need to call the police,
And if they can't be trusted,
We may need to head for the hills.
But the point here is that we do not set these boundaries with or because of anger and hatred.
We set firm and skillful boundaries because we care.
You can avoid an unskillful person because you care for yourself,
And because you do not want that person to make any more bad karma in relationship to you.
But in our hearts,
We wish them well,
Sincerely.
In the Sutta on the Highest Blessings,
Taught at the request of a beautiful female deva whose radiance illuminated the entire Jaita Wana,
Jaita's Grove monastery,
Lord Buddha explains 38 practices which will bring the most auspicious blessings.
One of them is simply to be humble.
Whenever we do not wish to be kind,
But would rather harden the heart towards another,
At such times we can ask ourself,
Is there a strong sense of me and mine reacting to they and them present in the mind?
A big sense of self.
If it is so,
We must see this clearly and be truthful about the level of ignorance and delusion present in our mind,
To say nothing of the liking and disliking.
Knowing that the cause of rebirth in samsara is ignorance and delusion,
Fueled by craving and attachment,
If we continue to indulge these habits,
Will there ever be a way out of samsara?
Do good,
Avoid harm and purify the mind.
This is the teaching of all Buddhas.
There are many practices and recollections that we can utilize to empower this process.
Compassion is clearly a very powerful one.
So I have said many things here in this talk,
And I hope I have done this theme some justice.
In closing,
I offer these words as a brief summarization of all that has been said.
Compassion is an amazing quality.
This wholesome attitude,
Skillful response,
Divine emotion and pure form of concentration,
When cultivated sincerely,
Will transform your mind and transform the way you experience life,
Yourself,
Others and the world.
It will help you respond to pain and suffering with grace,
Courage,
Forgiveness and understanding.
It will also help weaken negative attachments,
Produce vast merits and lay a foundation of stability for deeper insights to grow.
You have a rough but very pure diamond right there in your heart,
And you have the polishing stone right here with this practice.
May we all grow in compassion and wisdom so that we may,
In time,
Become like the Buddha,
Absolutely pure,
With ocean-like compassion,
Seeing all phenomena as transient and ultimately empty,
Yet responding with kindness.
I hope something that I have shared here has been useful to you.
Our progressive guided meditation has also been produced as a support to you while you grow in this important area.
I hope that you give it a try and that it proves to be helpful.
