Tara Brach - Cultivating Compassion

Episode Date: June 6, 2012

2012-06-06 - Cultivating Compassion - We each have the potential to live with a compassionate, open heart. In this talk we explore the conditioning that closes us off to authentic caring, and the ways of deepening our attention that help us live to include widening circles of beings in our heart. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!

This talk tonight is part of a four-week series. I began last week with love, loving kindness, loving presence. The four together are sometimes described as the divine abodes. And they are love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. So tonight is about compassion. And it's really the inquiry that a lot of us have. you know, what helps us to awaken our heart? What helps to cultivate a compassionate heart?

And part of what I'm finding really interesting is that in the last maybe five years, that inquiry has moved from the, you know, just the spiritual and religious communities into the larger culture in a very active and immediate way. It's become a real secular kind of inquiry and I'm aware of it in, I have many, friends that are involved with conflict resolution, with mediation, how alive it is there on

how the criticalness of having this capacity for empathy and compassion. And of course it's in so much communications, nonviolent communications in education and psychotherapy, as you know. I mean, in psychotherapy, if you look at what's really going on with ourselves in the world, there's no healing there's no healing without this capacity to soften and widen a heart

make it more inclusive I sometimes think of that there's a Gary Larson cartoon and there's two women that are hiding behind a locked door and they're kind of peering out through a window and one of them is saying to the other calm down Edna yes

it is a giant hideous insect but it might be a giant hideous insect in need of help, you know. And there's some sense that, you know, if we can see past the initial presentation of ourselves, of each other, and get that whenever somebody is behaving in a way that doesn't appeal to us, it usually has to do with an unmet need, that there's some cry for help.

So we're seeing, as I mentioned, in the secular world, there's research labs at tons and tons of major institutions. I'm thinking right now of Harvard and University of Wisconsin and at Stanford. I'll give you an example. There's a research lab there, but there's also, here's a course that they offer. Stanford's Compassion Training Class is a nine-week course

designed to develop the qualities of compassion, empathy, and kindness for oneself and for others. CTC integrates traditional contemplative practices with contemporary psychology and scientific research on compassion. It's two locations, Stanford University and UC Berkeley. How many of you want to attend that? Sounds good, yeah. But it's in the culture. You can feel it. And of course, the word compassion has been, it can be a messy word.

It's in the political parliance. And sometimes with fear-based politics, compassion is equated with something, you know, soft or naive. But in a way, when we look at real leadership, that the nature of it is a compassionate heart. Probably a good number of you in some way either listened to Vice President Biden or read about his talk that was right before Memorial Day, and he gave it to a group of military people that were grieving for lost ones. And when he gave it, he spoke of his own grief, and he has had huge loss.

His first wife and his daughter were killed in an automobile accident when he was 30 years old. And he, in this talk, he described, how he considered suicide. He was devastated, he considered suicide. And I was thinking about how there's, I think there's like 8 million people a year in this country that seriously consider suicide, probably more.

And the kind of empathy and feeling of, oh, okay, I'm not alone in this, that the Vice President of the United States considered suicide. It just hit me, you know, that, and this is what, I want to just read you a little, a sentence or two. He said, there will come a day, I promise you, when the thought of your son or daughter of your husband,

our wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings it to your eye, it will happen. Now, he can speak from that place. He really knows it from the inside. That there is a thing that happens with time, that there's still a sorrow, but that we're able to sense the love and the sweetness too in a very immediate way. So this is a speech that came from empathy.

I think it's really a mark of a leader. So we know from research that the same neural circuitry that allows us to be kind towards ourselves and present to our own body and heart are what allow us to be that way with others. we can't separate how we relate to our inner life to how we relate to others and I'll speak a little more about

that when we talk about developing compassion we're talking about on the ground level compassion for the life that's right here same parts of the brain same parts of the brain so I wanted to really start with this flavor of the larger culture because my sense is that when we consciously set out to cultivate compassion,

we're part of a kind of evolutionary unfolding of consciousness. It's like we have this capacity in our brain. It's there. It was there in order initially to help us with child rearing and with bonding with our immediate family, but it has the capacity to widen and widen and widen to be all-inclusive. these mirror neurons and the circuitry to really feel how others are feeling.

We have this capacity. And the fact that we then take on a practice to cultivate it, that we have the mindfulness and consciousness to say, I want to cultivate this, that we bring our energy and intelligence to waking it up, is what furthers our human evolution. That this evolution of consciousness comes because of that. Now, tonight, and when I speak about this in general,

the key to it really is our intention, that there's a lot of conditioning in our body, in our nervous system that keeps us from, manifesting compassion. And so it takes practice. It takes intentionality. It's part in the Buddhist tradition, the image of the bodhisattva, is the awakened being, is really an expression of a being that has recognized how much it matters to fulfill what we can be, to be who we can be, and is committed to compassion. And every one of us has that possibility. So just to look for a little bit about what blocks compassion, because really that's our starting place, is this honest recognition that, well, how many moments do we spend in our day where there's an active sense of being touched, very tenderly touched by the plight of ourselves or others, and a movement to respond?

Because compassion is both. Compassion is both that sense of that empathy or tenderness of feeling really the pain of suffering and it's a reaching out to help. It's got that inclination. The part of the brain that's involved with the compassion response includes the motor cortex, action. So we look and say, well, how many moments of the day

was that circuitry alive for me? It was my heart feeling that tenderness, that resonance. And what we start discovering is that when we're in the grip of stress, and by stress I mean when we're in some form of fight-flight, when we're feeling our lives as time-pressured, that we're having to do more to be okay, if there's a sense of failure, if we feel misunderstood, if we feel rejected, if there's pressure like that, if there's stress, then what happens is our biochemistry is in fight-flight. And rather than the parts of the brain that really get activated with compassion,

our limbic system is dominating. And we're somewhat cut off from compassion and empathy. So we can see it in an obvious way. I mean, this is not, you know, high science. We can see. Let's say you're in traffic and you have an appointment. Right? Okay. Well, one friend of mine describes it perfectly. When we're in traffic, everybody else's traffic. We don't think we're the traffic. You know? It's like everybody else's traffic. But there's this self-other thing. And the self feels kind of small, kind of separate, either oppressed or victimized or aggressive or whatever. But there's a complaint. And there's not that open-hearted quality that goes with compassion. You know, we can see it in the moments that we're anxious about an upcoming event or about performing well.

It's very hard to pay attention to the people we're with and really be there, like be in that receptive place where we can actually tune in and sense, okay, this person has an unmet need or something going on. We don't pay attention. You know, we can see it in the moments that we feel criticized, how much we close up. Stress shuts us down, it disconnects us. And then of course in our social institutions, you know, our schools and our businesses,

because there's a stress of performing, because we have an economy that's asking that we continually produce more, we're having to go faster and faster and do more and more, that does not make a conducive atmosphere to looking at each other and seeing who's there and being loving and being compassionate. You know, instead of that, here we are together feeling, there's usually a pecking order, a hierarchy that appears. There's cliques and there's a pecking order.

And what we find is that many people we categorize as below us or above us. And I just invite you to kind of look, because there's some sense of a, you know, who has more, power, who needs more from the other. There's a kind of an imbalance thing. And it's very hard to register when we have somebody above us or below us, their realness and what they're living with. Somebody sent me recently this story of Pope. The Pope had just finished a tour of the East Coast and was taking a limousine to the airport. Having never driven a limo, he asked a chauffeur if he could drive for a while. Well, the chauffeur didn't have much of a choice. So he

climbs in the back of the limo and the pope takes the wheel. Okay, so the Pope's approaching Highway 95 and he starts accelerating to see what kind of power this limo has, you know, and suddenly he sees the blue lights of a state patrolman in the mirror. So he pulls over, the trooper comes to the window and the trooper sees who it is and says, just a moment, sir, I need to call in. So he's, you know, calling in and he's pretty shaken. He's talking to the chief. He says the chief, he's got a really, really important person pulled over and how do I handle this. It's not Ted Kennedy again as it replies the chief. No, sir, replied the trooper. This guy's more important. Is it the governor? More important than that, replies the trooper. Is it the president? replied the chief. No,

even more important replies the trooper. Well, who in the heck is it screams the chief? I don't know, sir, replies the trooper, but he's got the pope as. his chauffeur. I was looking for something that showed hierarchy. It was the best I could find. Okay, so let's check this one out in our own lives. Let me ask you to just close your eyes for a moment. For this particular reflection, first as we often do, just take a moment to get here. In other words, just sense, here I am, this body, this aliveness, this breath. So try now to bring to mind somebody you want to something from, you know, you want either approval or money, our help, security, maybe a job promotion.

If somebody in some way has something that you want, most of us have somebody we want approval from that we really respect. And just notice how this person appears in your mind. I mean, do you focus on a particular visual image or maybe a conversation? her mood. So what's your way of just landing on this person in your mind? What do you notice about this person? Take a moment to imagine now some parts or some particulars of this person's life. Just imagine what she or he loves. Imagine how this person might fear falling short and what brings delight, what might make this person anxious, see. See if you can imagine how this person might be touched by kindness or hurt by criticism.

Just pausing again. Just ask yourself whether anything shifted in your perspective. Has this object of something you really wanted? Or perhaps some fear or some difference, become... ...shifted some. Is this person more human? More real?

So opening your eyes. For most of us, because we have stereotypes and because we don't always really notice what's going on for others, and because we operate off our wants and fears a lot of the time, cultivating compassion is this conscious decision to deepen attention. We have to look more closely. Now, sometimes, you know, because we're really doing, we're widening the space of heart and presence,

to really include another, to not have that other in the kind of unreal other category. Now, it's easiest to begin to sense into who's there. When we, in some way, share something, we have a similar way that we suffer. That makes it easier. I had dinner with a friend a few nights ago and her dad's dying. And they had a very, very close relationship. She's in deep mourning. anything that she hears about,

anybody else that's having a loss, she's so right there. We talked about the community of loss. How many of us know what that's like to have that kind of bottomless grief where it just feels like we've lost a part of ourselves. So it's easier when we have that kind of a link. You know, it's easier if we've, you know,

know what it's like to lose a job or feel ashamed or feel really discouraged that we can't find our niche. when we run into someone else like that. It's like our heart can open to it if we've been present with it in ourselves. That's the key. You have to have been present with it

within your own being. We know what it's like if somebody struggle with an addiction. It's what this 12 stuff groups are wonderful because there's so much compassion there because so many people know what it's like to suffer in that way. Part of the healing is being held

in that field of compassion. And then of course, course for many of us that have struggled with illness, you know, just to feel at the mercy of your body or at the mercy of the medical system. I was talking about this to one person, and this is what she sent me. This is an email. A woman brought in a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she later pet on the table, the vet pulled out his deathoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment to the vet shook his head and sadly said, I'm sorry, your duck cuddles has passed away.

The distressed woman wailed. Are you sure? Yes, I am sure. Your duck is dead, replied the vet. How can you be so sure, she protested? I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something. The vet rolled his eyes, turned around, left the room.

He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table, and sniff the duck from top to bottom. He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog and then took it out of the room. A few minutes later, he turned with a cat. A cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to toe, head to foot.

The cat sat back and its haunched shook his head and me out softly and strolled out of the room. The vet looked at the woman and said, I'm sorry. But as I said, this is most definitely 100% certifiably a dead duck. The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman. The duck's owner, in shock, took the bill. $150, she cried, $150 to tell me my duck is dead? The vet shrugged. I'm sorry, if you had just taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20.

but with the lab report and the cat scan, it's now 150. Some of you are thinking these are getting worse and worse, I know, scratching bottom here. So our entry to compassion, we have to deepen attention regardless of the situation because we're usually in fight-flight. It's easier when someone has something that we have been through. But in a deeper way, when we can slow down and register the basic realness of someone, that this is a sentient being, it's like the Dalai Lama says, everyone wants to be happy. Nobody wants to suffer. And that includes all beings, all beings.

There's a touching Sikh story that I've always loved. We're an age spiritual master calls two of his most devoted disciples in front of his hot and he gravely gives one a chicken and he instructs each one a chicken instructs them go to where no one can see and kill the chicken one of the men immediately goes behind his shed picks the axe and chops off the chicken's head the other one wanders around for hours and finally returns to his master the chicken still alive in his hand well what happened the teacher asked the disciple responds I can't find a place to kill the chicken where no one can see me. Everywhere I go, the chicken sees. It takes slowing down

and getting quiet to perceive the sentience, the consciousness, the awakeness, the beingness that lives through all creatures. If we really do that, we can't cause harm. We feel there we're part of each other. There's a reflection that I often do. Again, you might just for a moment, close your eyes. This is similar to what you just did a moment ago. But this time, just pick a person that you know well, the person you know well and that you like. Be aware of what comes to mind when you bring them into your awareness. Again, whether you have an image, a visual image, whether you're reviewing or time you've been with this person, a particular event, whatever you know about them, just whatever comes to mind that you know about this person.

And then take a moment to shift your attention and just be aware of the present moment, what's right here. Be aware of whatever you're experiencing, feelings in your body, sounds. Be aware of your own presence that that which is aware. just this knowing quality. And consider that the person you are just reflecting on is more like this, this sentience, this experiencing, this subjectivity. That's more the truth of who that person is in any image or idea we might carry about them. The same sentience.

It's basic aliveness, awareness. Added onto that, a lot of shared DNA, the basic equipment of five emotions, fear, happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, the same pain at failure, same insecurity of just being alive. It says, George Washington Carver says, how far you go in life. Depends on you're being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong because someday you will have been all of these. So please open your eyes. So just a moment on saying what compassion is not

because sometimes there's a sense of compassion is going to be dangerous or we're going to be opening the door to get hurt if we're compassionate towards somebody. So first I want to say that compassion is not indulgence. it's not permission giving somebody permission to act in hurtful ways to themselves or to you or to others

there's a phrase in a Tibetan tradition called idiot compassion which is really compassion without wisdom and that is indulgent there's a story I read a dinner party two couples one wife is talking about her evolving relationship with her husband where they're both getting more compassion and tolerant

She says, Jack and I have learned to accept each other's idiosyncrasies, like my passion for cashew brittle, and his going out every night not coming home until dawn. You get the idea, right? So compassion does not mean that we drop our boundaries, that we lose our wise discrimination. It's a quality of heart that recognizes suffering and responds to suffering.

The second thing is, that that quality of heart that recognizes suffering is not putting the suffering out there as a poor pathetic person different from me. It's not pity. There's not a sense of distancing. In fact, in the Buddhist tradition, with every one of the qualities like love or like compassion,

there's a near enemy, and the near enemy of compassion is pity. It's not real compassion. It's saying it's a slight superiority. It's like I'm puffed up and oh, poor you, and I'll be charitable towards you. That's not compassion. Compassion isn't feeling sorry for the less fortunate. It's recognizing our common shared suffering.

We might have different expressions of it and knowing that you are part of me. I'm part of you. We belong. And there's this naturalness of extending to be helpful. So when we sense that, then we look, okay, so what cultivates authentic compassion? What's the alchemy of it? The real training in cultivating compassion has kind of two pieces that I've been referring to.

And one piece requires being very embodied in our senses and paying attention deeply enough to sense the suffering that's here. It's basically sensing truth. It's being here for the truth of our own and each other's. suffering. That the Buddha thought that this is the first noble truth that everybody, all of existence, all created form has a sense of dissatisfaction. There's a sense that we know our impermanence, we hold on to this separate selfness, we grasp, we avoid, we're living in fear that something's around the corner and it's going to go wrong and we're not going to

able to handle it. Does that make sense? That we live with that? There's this kind of protectiveness. So there's suffering and it keeps us from that kind of open-heartedness and aliveness. It keeps us from intimacy. We can't really be tender and open and intimate if we're defending against something in the future. So compassion is starting to see that and compassion as being able to sense that suffering and out of our sense of the heart resonating with it, we naturally in some way act with our prayer, with our words, with our physical activity,

to be of benefit. Now, in order to feel it, in order for me to be with you and for me to sense, oh, okay, I get it, for you to feel felt, because that's such a gift, to feel felt by somebody else, I have to have felt that within my own being. I have to be connected to my own body and vulnerability.

If I've never had the courage to be present with my own suffering, I cannot, in an embodied, authentic way, be present with yours. Share with you a story that touched me a lot. As many of you know, we have a lot of activity now going on in teaching in some of the prisons in this area and also our sister community in Charlottesville. A lot of work with the inmates down there. Well, one friend who was teaching described

working with a woman, I'll call her Vanessa for now. She was over six feet tall, large woman with bright dyed red hair, tattoos all over her body. And so this one was teaching in the prisons and Vanessa was part of the group of inmates that was taking this, I think, six-week mindfulness course. Okay. Now, she was known in her ward as a bully. She protected some women and she relentlessly would insult and intimidate others. And during the meditation classes, while everybody was having discussions, she would sit there scowling. She was a bit of a presence there, real silent. But she never missed one of them. She never missed a session. So at the final class, each person shared what they got.

And she spoke last and what she said was, well, I really like the poem about the pirate. Now the poem she was referring to, it's called Call Me by My True Names. It's a poem by Ticknut Han and has a lot of the same sense of that quote I read you about, you'll have been all of these things someday. It's a poem that really teaches about how every part of this world is in us. All the tendencies towards violence, towards loving beauty, towards confusion, towards incredible sanity. It's all within us. So I'll read you a couple of verses from it. Tickna Hahn writes, I'm the frog swimming happily in the clear pond. And I'm also the grass snake

who approaching in silence feeds itself on the frog. I'm the 12-year-old girl refugee on a small boat who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I'm the pirate, my heart, not yet capable of seeing and loving. Please, call me by my true names so I can wake up. And so the door of my heart can be left open,

the door of compassion. So this is the poem that Vanessa was talking about, the poem about the pirate. And she said, well, that got me thinking. that got me to know something. Then she spoke really softly, so everybody had a kind of strain to hear. She said, all my life, I was the bad one.

I was the problem one. Now I know I'm suffering too. The group was really quiet and still, and Vanessa had tears in her eyes, but most everyone was looking at the floor just respecting her words. Now, after that group graduated, my friend continued to teach courses.

And the word of mouth was that Vanessa had really changed in a deep way. And she was no longer a bully. I mean, she was a sadder, much quieter person. And she was slowly coming to terms with the realness of her own suffering. That is a key part of us waking up. This capacity to say, this is real. This hurts. and not in some way add on

I deserve it it's not as bad as what other people feel in some way that we diminish or separate ourselves from the reality just to get it this is suffering it's very very powerful to be able to say in some way I'm part of this suffering world

this body mind has the conditioning to feel hurt to feel insecure to feel like failure just to have that conditioning It's just like the trees get blown by the wind. This tree gets blown around too. So, you know, there's an African-American spiritual that I've always loved,

and there's a line in it that says, God looks beyond our faults and sees our need. We stay with ourselves. We have to kind of, our tendency when we're suffering is to blame ourselves for some part of that. It's really deep in us. I often call, describe this as a second arrow. the first arrows that we're suffering.

The second is it's my fault. I'm bad. We have to enter that consciousness of the divine and see beyond these imperfections just the truth. There's an unmet need. When they're suffering, there's an unmet need. To feel love.

To feel safe. To feel belonging. So we'll practice for a moment because this feels like a real important juncture. This is the ground of, compassion for others is the simplicity of getting okay this is suffering here just practice a little bit and again I invite you in this pause to get in touch with your senses you can't wake up the heart if you're not in your body so you might just let yourself open to the sounds that are here

open to the sensations and the body just the state of your heart right now just listen just to remember the alchemy of self-compassion is to honestly contact, okay, this is suffering, and to be able to offer kindness. So just to bring up perhaps some place in your life where you know there's a struggle and not to go for somewhere where there's really deep trauma because we don't have the time or space to really honor something that's really intense. But just to pick somewhere that you know you're struggling, someplace that brings up perhaps self-aversion where you get down on yourself

or fear, hurt, maybe just the clutch of anxiety about something. It doesn't have to be huge. But just recognize how, whatever this is, how it contracts you in some way, that you're not so free, that your heart's not free.

And see if in a, very simple way you can just, that honesty of saying, this is suffering. This is the duca, and we all suffer. Others feel this too. See if you can just offer that recognition to yourself and sense this as an opportunity to be kind to cultivate this heart of compassion. May I be kind? And may we all be kind? So sense your intention and then we deepen our attention on. And this is often the Tonglin meditation can help us in this.

Or just feel where the most difficult part of this is for you. You feel in your body where you're most tight or vulnerable. And maybe that there's some belief about failing or about not being loved or something wrong with you or the world.

Just let the feeling of that all be in your awareness. And with Tongue, when we breathe in and let ourselves really feel what's here, this is suffering, feeling it, contacting it. It's as if you're breathing right into your throat or chest or belly, right where you feel things, sensing the unmet need, maybe to feel safe or loved. And with the out breath, it's like you let it be held in loving presence. It's like you let it be held in something larger, this place that's vulnerable. So if you breathe in and touch it, and you breathe out and just say,

let me, in some way offered a prayer of care, may I be happy, may I be free? These are the two elements that make up the alchemy of compassion, contacting the suffering, and offering care in some way. It looks beyond fault to see our need. be that space of compassionate presence. You can put your hand on your heart if you'd like. Just offer whatever message you feel that vulnerable place in you might most appreciate, might most be touched by.

Compassion takes practice. So this is a good time to bring to mind another person now that's struggling. We start with compassion for ourselves and then we just open our attention some. Maybe you know somebody, a friend or in the family that is having a hard time. And since this is an opportunity to awaken your heart for somebody else. So look closely as if you could almost step inside that person and sense, well, what's it really like for you? And this is the key part.

What do you need? What's it really like being you? What's it like looking through this person's eyes? what's this person afraid of? How's this person feeling about himself or herself? So you begin to breathe in for that person as if you're breathing and saying, yes, I'm willing to contact the realness of this suffering.

You're letting that person be inside your heart and you're breathing out and sensing your prayer, your wish for that person, you're offering care. May you trust yourself. May you love your own being. May you feel held in loving presence. the need is, sense that you could offer that person, a message. You might touch your own heart

and sense that you're touching that person's heart. It's a very beautiful practice, just a sense that in some way you're sending a message with your touch, with your heart, only using the breathing of it helps. Sometimes if you breathe in and keep connected with the realness of the vulnerability. Breathe out and sense the space of compassion. You're continuing to be. You're continuing to pay attention, widening the field and sensing all those that are suffering this way, all the beings that you can breathe in for and out for that might be struggling in the same way. Sometimes we're afraid to imagine taking in the suffering of this world because we think it's going to overwhelm us. And if we think of it as an individual self

taking it in, of course it's overwhelming. Sense your heart as vast, as wide as the world, and you're breathing into this boundless heart, the suffering of this world, and you're breathing out and sensing in a boundless tenderness of care that can hold this floating world. The power and gift of awakening compassion is it reveals who we are. It's not as self-being compassionate. When we really open to that tenderness, we open beyond any story of self,

to this vast awareness that's most basic expression is love and nothing is excluded from our heart. This whole world, including the personal self we perceive, as who we are. This whole world is living in this heart. In a very gentle way, just feel yourself sitting here and breathing, sensing your own sincerity, about awakening this heart of compassion,

sensing how it starts with the life that's within us, this commitment to sense our own suffering, and just say, this is suffering. May I be kind? Others experience this too. We're with each other, looking a little more deeply. It says, the poet Hafez says, What if we said to ourselves,

we brought to mind a dear one struggling, we said, how can I be more loving to you? How can I be more kind? If we move into our worlds with this intention, we become part of the evolution of consciousness, the awakening of the world's heart of compassion. I'd like to end as we began, bring our palms together, and we'll just chant the mantra, ah,

feeling your heart and expressing your heart and feeling freedom to harmonize as you'd like, inhaling deeply. The talk you just listened to has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation, learn more about my schedule or about programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit either my website, which is tarabrock.com, our IMCW site, which is IMCW.org. Thank you very much. Thank you.