Ingrid Mattson – Compassion AM Heart of Compassion 2017
AI: Summary ©
The speakers stress the importance of compassion in their spiritual teachings and personal lives, emphasizing the need for a strong sense of purpose and the natural and universal nature of science. They stress the transformation of compassion and the importance of finding a place for it in one's life, with a focus on generating compassion for all beings. The speakers emphasize the need for constant practice, avoiding negative emotions, and generating compassion for all beings, not just for individual suffering.
AI: Summary ©
This is an incredible festival in an incredible
town
filled with incredible people. Thank you, Ozzly.
Thank you, Christie. Thank you, Mustafa. Thank you,
Sarah, and everyone else. Thank you, everyone, for
coming
and being part of this. Without you, it
wouldn't happen.
There were 2 questions that were raised
earlier in the weekend this morning, and I'd
like to, if we can,
in our panel, in our discussion time,
come back to these questions. The first one
was
impartiality
impartiality and compassion. Is it possible
to be impartial and yet be compassionate?
And the second question that was raised this
morning
was, is there another way to compassion
other than
through empathy?
In other words, maybe there's a way that
is maybe less painful.
And also there may be other corollaries
to cultivating compassion.
Things like skillful means,
things like wisdom.
So maybe we'll be able to address those
questions
and other things. We have an incredible
afternoon for you with some world class music
that I think will melt you.
And we have some incredible people that walk
the talk,
and we'll be talking from their heart
and are also incredibly accomplished.
Let me mention first, let me introduce first,
doctor Ingrid Matson,
who's a leading Muslim
religious and
scholar.
She's a professor of Islamic studies
and an expert on the Quran.
She was elected vice president and then president
of the Islamic Society of North America
and was the first women woman
to serve in each of those capacities.
And I believe that's one of the largest
groups
of,
of Muslims
around the world.
In that capacity,
a 2010
New York Times article called her the most
noticed
figure among American
Muslim
women.
She's also been called one of the 5
100 most
influential leading Muslims around the world.
As a professor at Hartford Seminary,
she's developed and directed the 1st Accomp accredited
excuse me, accredited
graduate program
for Muslim chaplains in America.
And currently,
Doctor. Matson teaches
at the Western University
of Ontario.
2nd, we have
Thuktang Jinpa,
who's been
twice
introduced, but I'd like to introduce him again.
He's a longtime friend.
He's the has been said, and I many
of you know the English translator for his
holiness, the Dalai Lama,
for about 30 years since I believe 9
1985.
He received his degree, and a degree comes
after 20 plus years of rigorous
study and debate, the Socratic
method in India at the
Gandhi
University in South India.
He also received his PhD in religious studies
from Cambridge University.
He's translated
and edited more than 10 books with his
holiness, the Dalai Lama,
including the New York Times bestseller
Ethics for a New Millennium.
He's authored many books
and his most recent one is called A
Fearless
Heart.
And it's about compassion.
He's founded and is the president and the
editor in chief
of the Institute of
Tibetan Classics,
where he with a team
that he's leading
is translating
32
of the most important
Buddhist texts throughout history since the time of
the Buddha.
He's chairman,
our chairman of the board of the Mind
and Life Institute, as you know, from this
morning.
And he's also provided content
for the Stanford CCARE,
the center for compassion, altruism, research and education
at Stanford University,
which is an ongoing
training compassion program.
And many, many people have come out of
that program and he designed the curriculum.
I'd like to thirdly introduce
Cynthia Bourgeault,
who's an Episcopalian
priest.
She spends much of her time in solitude,
abiding in a non dual mental state.
She didn't tell me that, but others did.
Actually, it was one of her publishers mentioned
that to me.
As a meditator, author, and retreat leader, she's
actively
recovering
the Christian contemplative path.
As an advocate of Centering Prayer,
she's worked closely with
father Thomas Keating.
Cynthia Bourgeault is a founding director of both
the Aspen
Wisdom School and the Contemplative
Society.
She's currently a core faculty member at the
living school for action and contemplation.
Her numerous books
include the best selling, Centering prayer and inner
awakening.
And now it's my great pleasure
to welcome Doctor. Ingrid Matson.
Good afternoon and greetings of peace.
Eharahmanarrahim.
In the name of God, the compassionate, the
most merciful.
I'm not saying that just for today. We
always begin with those those words as Muslims.
Apologies for being behind this big podium. I
wore yellow, so you can still find me,
see me where I am.
My
beloved daughter returned to
our creator
recently.
And so as many of you know,
that when you're in mourning,
a big part of your mind is so
preoccupied with that loss.
So these days so today, I said, you
know what? I'm gonna rely on
on a podium and a few cards just
to help remind me in case I start
to I love to to be with
her and and think of her, but I
need to be here with you. So out
of compassion for myself,
and I know you'll grant me that, I'm
giving myself these, these supports
and we all need some supports
at
different times. At the end of
kindergarten
in Canada, where I grew up,
we
didn't start school until we were 5 years
old.
I grew up in a family of 7
children,
between whom there was a 10 year age
difference. So
between the oldest and the youngest, there was
only 10 years.
I was the 6th child.
So you can imagine in that situation, even
with wonderful
parents and other family members, I sometimes felt
that I didn't quite get the attention
that
deserved.
So at the end of kindergarten,
on the last day, the teacher got up
at the front of the classroom and said,
we I'm going to announce who is the
girl of the year and who is the
boy of the year.
And
I won girl of the year.
And I was given this large
fragrant,
white gardenia. It was just beautiful, just full
of
full of this beautiful fragrance
and lovely and soft to the touch.
And she gave it to me, and I
held it, and I I felt very, you
know, very special, really.
And
after
that, I walked outside with the rest of
the class and I was standing there
feeling happy, holding this flower
when a classmate,
who I will,
call for the purposes
of
protecting her identity, I'll call her today Didi.
Didi came up.
She grabbed the flower. She threw it on
the ground. She stamped on it and said,
what makes you so special?
And I was a little bit afraid. I
wasn't sure if the violence was also going
to be transferred to me and I was
sad,
stomped on on the ground.
But behind all of that,
as I looked at her face, there was
a much stronger and more lasting emotion that
I can feel until today.
I'm 53. It was a long time ago.
And that was a deep sense of compassion
so small and skinny.
And
I realized that in her words when she
said, what makes you so special? What she
was saying is,
Why am I not special?
Why didn't anyone see that I'm special
the compassion that overrode
my
sadness,
my being upset
at the loss of the flower,
the fear that maybe she would become violent
with me.
I was only a child.
As a Muslim,
reflecting upon it over the last many years
and learning that
compassion, in fact,
is
what my teacher, doctor Omer Abdulla, calls the
stamp
of creation.
Other than the personal name Allah, which means
the God in Arabic,
the the next
name,
personal name of God is Ar Rahman,
the compassionate.
Sometimes people translate it as the merciful and
then the the word that's paired with it,
Ar Rahim, they translate as compassionate.
But I think I think Rahman really is
compassion and both words
come from the root Rahm, which is womb,
the womb by which
our mothers gave birth to us.
So Rahma,
compassion,
is our home.
That is where we are born.
And as Muslims, we believe that that our
souls come into being first in the presence
compassion
that we feel most at
home and we feel most whole. We feel
like we are where we should be.
Think of so many people when they're near
their deaths, even if they're very, very old,
they call out for their mother.
People who work with the dying know that
or they start talking a lot. You can
tell that someone might be close to death
as they're talking a lot about their mother.
So it is mother is that that metaphor
for that original first
primordial place
in which we're born.
So if that's our home, how do we
how do we wander away from home? How
do we get lost from that? How do
we get separated from that?
If I go back to Didi and I
think she too was a child,
like I was a child,
what happened?
And we've heard today,
for example, about the science of attachment and
what happens to us when we are
neglected,
when we're
not given the love and attention and care
we need.
Muslims believe that God created us with what
the Quran calls fitra,
which this
original whole
disposition, a sense of wholeness,
a sense of comfort in compassion,
and also an awareness,
a general awareness
of
basic right and wrong.
With compassion comes a sense of justice and
we think of them sometimes as opposites, but
they're two sides of the coin.
And so, honestly,
did you
I mean,
how to do that to all those children?
What what about it? You know, what made
me girl of the year? Perhaps
my parents
were more rigorous with good manners.
Maybe it's just because
I was born an introvert, so I wasn't
the person who was naturally running around the
room
and had all this extra
energy, you know, it wasn't I didn't do
anything
really to deserve it, and it was an
act of
injustice
to her. Certainly, she felt it.
So
when we've had our fitra, our sense of
wholeness, our sense of comfort in this compassionate
whole being
when it's been covered up.
And we've had to,
you know, follow a different path
because if you were raised by criminals
and you're told this is the way,
you know, to survive and you have to
do it or I'll hit you, then you
and you know what's wrong. And then you
have
to rationalize it to yourself and you get
in the habit of rationalization
and you feel broken. You don't feel right.
So
we all in smaller and larger parts go
away from it, but how do we return
to it? And this is what I find
really beautiful about our teachings is that it's
always there waiting to be uncovered.
It's always there as our home to return
to.
We can always,
maybe with a lot of work, a lot
of effort, and a lot of support, get
back to that
state. Now there are many kinds of people
in the world, and
if there are many kinds of people, introverts
and
and scientifically minded and creatively
minded,
if compassion indeed
is the stamp of creation,
then there must be many different ways to
get back to it.
And so,
exercising the intellect,
performing good deeds,
learning social norms and manners,
examining our conscience, cleaning and polishing our heart
of anger, envy, spite, and resentment,
and holding on to faith
that everyone
and everything is where it should be. This
is what we call in our faith,
a belief
that wherever we are is where we're supposed
to be, and that means
that even in the most difficult circumstances
and
circumstances
and how many of you, I wonder,
have gone to help people?
To help a person who out of an
act of compassion, you went to help them
because you felt so sorry for them for
their situation. You felt so empathetic,
and there
you found
that they acted so compassionately
towards you.
I've worked with refugees. I've worked with
ill people, and every time I went to
out of compassion to try to help someone,
I found them
even more compassionate
towards me.
Refugees
in a refugee camp
during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, who when
they found out that I was had just
got married and I didn't have any
Refugees in a refugee camp.
Then 2 weeks later said, we
we have a we're gonna have a wedding
party for you. And they threw me party
and they sewed me a dress and they
gave me gifts.
Wow.
So I think it's it's us. It's the
the privileged people who have the most difficult
time really having this this purity of compassion.
We need to get back to it because,
honestly, what makes us so special? We didn't,
you know, we didn't select the family that
we were born in. I didn't select my
genetic makeup.
You know, I didn't invent medicine in the
university that I went to and all of
these advantages,
yet how many of us think that we
are
self made
men,
people?
Selfishness
is the big block to compassion. And so
for the intellectual person
to go through
the simple facts that we have not made
ourselves, neither our bodies nor our genetic makeup
nor did we do anything to choose our
family.
This is an
intellectual exercise for those who may have a
slightly hardened heart
to look at the facts and might be
able to crack open
with that
factual intellectual exercise
a path for compassion.
For many spiritual practices
that are embodied, I demonstrated
prayer yesterday but things like fasting,
a It is a remembrance of my creator.
It is also that opportunity to truly experience
thirst and hunger
and that visceral
that visceral understanding
that can't come through
reading or someone telling you about it. You
may be able to see it, but to
experience it so different and that's another path.
Muhasaba,
taking account of myself and this is the
interior work if I do all of these
other things,
I need to do this
what is called a taking of account literally,
muhasaba in Arabic, where
I regularly during my prayers add that time
for
what is in my heart? Is there anger
in my heart? Is there envy in my
heart? Is there resentment in my heart? Because
all of these can be
barriers and roadblocks to compassion.
So clean our heart
to open it and get get rid of
those barriers.
There are so many things that we can
do
to open up paths of compassion and one
of them I think
is is something that we can do every
day
and at all places and all times
and comes from the teachings of the prophet
Muhammad, may god's peace and blessings be upon
him. And I think it's this,
we especially now, we live in a society
where we are told
that there are so many things we don't
have. We live in that culture of deprivation.
Even if we have much, we feel we
don't have much.
The prophetic teaching,
when you see someone who has more,
look to someone who has less and it
is the looking.
And the prophet Muhammad,
when he spoke to people and we'd looked
at people, he looked at them full face.
He didn't have his head, you know, his
body turned ready to go out the door
and looking.
It was the full face
look at people.
And we know when we see the face
of others and we're face to face, there
is something very instinctive
that opens up within us and opens up
that path to compassion,
and all of us can do that wherever
we are.
So in conclusion,
I wanna say there are so
many avenues to explore. Sometimes people are are
a little bit nervous when they hear, you
know, words like compassion. They think, well, I
don't, you know, I don't really like meditating
or I'm not that kind of person or
they feel that they they're going to be
forced
to conform to a certain way
of of into this learning.
But given that compassion
is the stamp of creation,
there are roads and avenues for all of
us. And so, I'm so happy to be
able to explore that together.
Thank you, doctor Matson.
That was very moving, and,
it's special being up here right now because
there's so much
infused compassion
that I think we're not touching our chairs.
It's quite amazing up here. I don't know
if you're feeling it out there. I guess
you are.
Reflections,
comments,
inspiring and I love
the imagery of
home,
compassion, the state of compassion as being your
kind of natural home and
kind of awakening compassion and cultivating compassion is
in some ways returning home.
So I was wondering whether you would like
to kind of flesh this out a bit
more,
and,
because there is something very beautiful about this
because sometimes
we have an idea that somehow we need
to work hard at it and we have
to kind of, you know, this people kind
of think in terms of exertion and effort.
But on the other hand, if it's a
matter of returning home, there's a kind of
a naturalness,
which means that we just happen to have
straight. But if we had straight, we also
may be able to find our way back.
And and it depends how far wandered wandered
from home whether it's gonna be very difficult
or not.
And that's why it's really a collective effort
to try to help, you know, to try
to help people who haven't gone that far
or if they have. I mean, if you're
in a
thorny thicket of shrubs,
and you've got to go, you know, break
out through them, it's it's gonna be difficult.
And it may be you may need someone
to help you, you know, pull them back
and give you some support.
And so
it really depends,
but I think what I find most comforting
about it is that if it's our natural
state, we never lose hope for
anyone. We never write anyone off.
We never say they've gone they've gone so
far, it's impossible
for them to
we don't expect the same for everyone.
But No one is beyond redemption. No one.
No one is.
And and it may be I mean, we
may not be able to do
fulfill our our
our responsibility in this life to help everyone
and they may not get the help they
need, but, of course, we we believe that
that this this life that we're living in
now is not the only plane of existence
and that there's still an opportunity for people
to grow beyond that. So we never give
a possible.
Thank you. So I think you've
addressed and maybe answered the question about
is compassion possible
with impartiality
in your response right now?
I think what you said is, yes, of
course.
No one is beyond redemption.
Everyone
has this home
of compassion.
And
I mean part of it is, and I
mentioned this yesterday when I was demonstrating the
prayer, sometimes it's
loss
is other people,
we may not
it may not be possible for some people
to truly experience that compassion among other people
at a certain point
yet we are in a creation, we are
in creation that is
formed by compassion and so that's why you
see, for example,
with some very hardened prisoners,
you know, they'll bring they'll bring animals and
do animal therapy with them and that's the
thing
that will bring out the compassion.
There there's a there is a place for
everyone
but
we as human beings sometimes
haven't done our job very well. So for
some, it may not be among us.
You know, I think for most of us,
it should be and and we should be
able to but we should be we should
find those spaces also for those who just
can't can't get back to it among us.
But certainly, we have
we we are,
you know, brothers and sisters in all of
creation and even if it's under a tree
that is also
given the compassionate shade and the coolness under
that.
Good.
I would like
to welcome to Plinjempa.
I think I will try to speak from
here actually.
Good afternoon.
First of all, I would like to thank,
Owsley and the festival faithful,
you know, inviting me to be part of
this,
this year's celebration.
And I'm particularly honored to share this stage
this afternoon
to really sort of, in a way,
kind of humbly represent the voices of the
world's spiritual traditions.
Because I believe that when it comes to
the discourse on compassion,
the voices and insights and perspectives of the
world's spiritual traditions is an important one.
I grew up as a Tibetan refugee child
in India.
My parents left Tibet in 1959.
I was barely a year old. And
of course as a child,
even though I was a refugee child, when
you are very small, you are shielded by
your ignorance of what was actually the story
around you.
Of course, my own parents went through the
traumatic experience of displacement.
But
as I grew up,
it became quite obvious
that, you know, we were the recipients and
beneficiaries
a
ordinary British citizens primarily.
It's a British charity. And,
as I grew older, I began to notice
Catholic Relief Service marks
on sacks of weeds and stuff. And there
was also
USAID
you know, food products
with this kind of,
implementing mark is a 2 hand join and
a handshake
with the
stars and stripes on the backdrop. So it
was, as I began to grow older, it
became very obvious that we Tibetans were beneficiaries
of other people's compassion. Then of course,
having brought up in the traditional Tibetan society,
compassion is really at the forefront of everyday
consciousness.
The presence of His Holiness, who is the
symbol of compassion for the Tibetans is everywhere
with images and his visits and so on.
I remember my
parents
in the road construction camps
early morning, every morning waking up
in kind of smoke filled tents,
chanting the 4 immeasurable prayers, may all sentient
beings be happy,
free of suffering and so on. So that
was the daily prayer.
So I kind of took it for granted
that that's how
everybody
was thinking. So compassion really.
So it wasn't a big deal, but, as
I grew older and having joined a monastic
kind of community,
I really began to see compassion in a
much more kind of fine tuned manner. And
when I was about
12 years old, I memorized,
which is a very celebrated text in the
Tibetan tradition by the 8th century
Buddhist thinker, master Shantideva
called Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life
or the Way of the Bodhisattva.
There was a passage which says that,
the Buddha is having contemplated
for eons and eons,
found that compassion alone to be the most
beneficial.
I mean, imagine
a young monk reading those lines that the
Buddha's with all their omniscience reflected forth eons
and eons
and found compassion to be the most beneficial.
And then there was another line that also
intrigued me, which says that if you have
a choice between,
you know, revering the Buddha and making offerings
to the icons versus having a chance to
help
you
know, should be treated as more important if
you're a Buddhist.
And then of course, as an adult,
I had the privilege of being able to
serve His Holiness as his principal interpreter
for now over 30 years, I began in
'eighty 5. So I had in some sense,
a privilege to be able to see,
what it means to live a compassionate life.
Those of you who know His Holiness,
what you see is what you get. Really,
here is an individual
who really lives what he preaches
and you can feel the power of compassion
when you're in his presence. There's a kind
of a joy as well. But normally when
you think of compassion, particularly in the West,
we think of hardship, sacrifice, self sacrifice, pain,
but compassion can also go with joy. You
can see someone like His Holiness.
But this emphasis on compassion
is not really unique to Buddhism. I mean,
of course in Buddhism there is a very
attribute to the Buddha, which says that, you
know,
attributed to the Buddha. So you can see
the centrality of the compassion. So this is
a statement attributed to the Buddha. So you
can see the centrality of compassion as a
spiritual value
in the Buddhist thinking.
But on the other hand, it's not unique
to Buddhism. We know
as Ingrid presented,
you know,
powerfully,
compassion is the common ground on which all
the world's major religious traditions come together.
You know, religions we know differ in their
beliefs,
narratives,
doctrines, and so on. Sometimes this diversity causes
a lot of confusion and conflict
and division.
But on the other hand, when it comes
to giving a prescription
on what it means to live a good
life, what we should do and what we
should not do,
really there's a striking convergence on the lists,
even the list of the prescriptions
across the traditions.
And that's because at the foundation of all
the ethical teachings of the world religions
is the basic golden rule.
Do unto others what you wish to others
to do unto you.
Basically,
this is because the central question of ethics
is really the question of how should I
treat others.
That's the central question of ethics. Question of
ethics is about how you treat others
and you would want
to be treated by others in the manner
in which
they respect your dignity as a human being,
your basic aspiration for happiness and wish to
avoid suffering.
And that is compassion.
Basically, you would want others to treat you
with a sense compassion and understanding of your
own humanity and basic needs.
So no wonder there is, you know, we
find a version of golden rule in almost
all the religious traditions. I mean, there's slight
variations in how it is phrased, but essentially
it's the same.
Now,
the reason why I'm particularly
inspired to have be part of this panel
here is because when it comes to discourse
and compassion,
if you don't include the voices of the
spiritual traditions,
we're ignoring
a
huge richness of the history of human thinking
and experience
that has gone before science became the dominant
discourse.
Richness that is not there. And of course,
sometimes
we're reluctant, particularly in the public discourse, to
bring religious perspectives because we are wary of
all the differences.
But compassion is one area, there's a real
commonality,
so why ignore that?
Now, of course, today the difference is,
as we saw this morning from the Mind
Your Life
session, that there is a new kid on
the block, that's science.
Science is now talking about compassion.
And the beauty of bringing science as part
of discussion on this important topic is that
science has
a tendency to naturalize
and normalize and universalize
the concepts
and the language around it.
And also for a lot of people,
science is what makes things real.
They can measure, they can calculate,
they can demonstrate.
Personal experience from our own personal experience, individual
level,
we don't need science to tell us
about the importance of compassion. We all know
from our own personal experience what compassion means
to us.
Each one of us knows what it is
intuitively.
You know, when we are in a most
distressed state of mind,
the most
powerful approach is someone
listening to our needs compassionately,
being fully there present and giving us a
hug.
And as parents, I'm a parent of 2
kids, I know that when a child is
completely distressed,
no amount of talking is going to calm
that child down.
The instinctive thing, the smart thing to do
is to grab the child
and hug tightly for a while. And even
the heart rate goes down.
And this is, as Ingrid pointed out, that's
our home because we're trying to make the
child return home. And we know, and also
when we
to talking about compassion from the religious perspective,
we tend to elevate it so high that
we can't identify with it.
But
we mustn't forget
compassion is a natural human sentiment.
All of us have this capacity.
You know, those who have been parents know
that when a 2 year old is in
total distress, throwing tantrum in front of you,
you are there fully for that child. I
mean,
a scientist may say, oh, that's because biologically
that's your child, there's a gene propagation motivation
going behind the scene and all the rest.
But the fact is,
in that moment, your perspective's
completely for the other. There's no selfish agenda.
You have a tremendous amount of patience because
you have opened your heart.
And same thing, if we allow, can happen
in
the case of a total stranger. If
person?
Are not
going to stay back and say, do I
know this person? Does he speak my language?
Do we have the same religion?
We're not going to do that, we're just
going to completely feel for this person
and respond to the situation.
That is compassion.
So when compassion, I mean, I define compassion
as the natural sense of concern that arises
when we are confronted with someone's simultaneously.
One is you see the situation,
simultaneously. One is you see the situation
and you understand it, it's a need or
a pain.
You feel emotionally
connected with this and moved by it. That
is empathy. You feel for it or feel
with the person.
And then you want to see the situation
change. That's the motivation component. And if this
compassion is stronger, maybe you want to do
something about it yourself.
That is a compassion. That's a natural more
we are able to live at that level,
in that space, respond to ourselves, to our
level, in that space,
respond to ourselves,
to our loved ones, to the world around
us from that place rather than from the
place of negative judgment and criticism,
then we ourselves are better off.
That's why Yesolinas often says
that the first beneficial of your compassion is
yourself.
You know, whether the compassion translates
into something that is really beneficial to the
other person depends on many other factors. The
person may not be ready to receive your
compassion.
There might be other factors that are beyond
your control, but
you actually
experience the benefit yourself because you open your
heart. And when you are able to allow,
when you allow to open your heart, you
feel expansive.
In that space, you actually feel quite great.
I mean, that's not your motivation though, of
course, But when you are able to allow
your
or open your heart, you really feel that.
So now science is beginning to show all
of these benefits.
And also,
you know, science is increasingly pointing out that
compassion is part of our natural
human quality.
So in the old days,
scientists came up with this idea that basic
human nature was competitive and selfish
and ultimate human
aspiration or motivation was to pursuit of self
interest. But now they're opening up because that's
a very narrow one-sided picture of the human
reality. Human reality is much more complex.
So this shows that compassion is part of
our natural makeup.
Compassion is good for us.
Now, the contemplative traditions, particularly the Buddhist tradition,
which has rich meditation practices,
is also showing that we can do something
about it. We can make it
more of a proactive stance, because normally what
happens is that we
leave it to the situation,
like anger. When we are triggered,
we get angry.
When we are inspired, we compassionate.
But we leave it at that. But what's
the kind of the science and the contemplative
science is particularly showing is we can
actually be more proactive
and learn to make compassion an active standpoint
from which we can relate to situations
to ourselves,
to those around us and to the world,
you know, around us. And if we are
able to do that, I mean, in the
end of course that is a choice because
we have huge amount of resources from which
we can relate to the world, anger,
judgment, fear, and so on. So in the
end, it's a matter of choice. But if
we do make that choice
to relate to situations around us, to ourselves
and others from a place of compassion,
everything changes.
That I can promise you.
But the choice is up to us individually.
So,
of course, when we think about
the, along these lines, then His Holiness' statement
which seemed quite paradoxical,
also makes perfect sense. There's a statement that
His Holiness made where he says that,
if you wish others to be happy,
practice compassion,
and if you wish yourself to be happy,
practice compassion.
So I think that's a powerful and beautiful
statement, and we, each of us,
really it's in our hand, you know, and
the way to do that is to pay
conscious attention to compassion in our everyday life.
Make compassion part of our everyday intention
so that we learn to relate to situations
from a compassionate standpoint.
And one of the most beautiful things about
compassion for me
is it provides a sense of purpose.
When we are able to relate to others
from a sense of compassion,
we feel
kind of needed, we feel valued. And
also
the thing about
a sense of purpose is that it really
then makes us much more motivated
to be able to be for others.
So all around when we choose compassion,
we are able
to escape this narrow
confines of self interest. Sometimes
we tend to get locked in, especially when
we are living in a very competitive
consumerist society.
So
compassion is really one of those things that
is least appreciated, particularly in contemporary culture.
So we, I would like to appeal to
all of you
to take a look at compassion with this
kind of a new,
new eyes
and try to make it real in your
everyday life. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Reflections,
comments,
reactions?
It's interesting because
you'll find the,
you know, when you talked about
being there for your child, right?
And some people saying, well, that's because you,
you know, you you want to preserve your
genes or something like this. This is part
of the challenge with,
with
bringing science into the equation is a very,
is the idea that somehow this is
the, that when we explain something scientifically that
it's
the fundamental
thing. So there's a kind of like hierarchy
I mean,
you you
I mean, you actually pointed it out because
one of the things about science is that
science is a particular way of understanding a
phenomenon.
They have a certain
boundaries in which they operate,
which involves measure measurability,
and also which in, you know, and and
particularly
in relation to something like compassion,
you know, science can only get involved with
there are some behavioral expressions,
whether it is at the level of brain
processes or
physical behavior or verbal behavior.
But the phenomenon itself, what we call compassion,
at the moment lies beyond science. I mean,
of course, a scientist would say, you know,
the compassionate mind is basically the brain state,
but that's a kind of a metaphysical question.
So I think
most of the kind of, you know, more
discerning scientists are aware of that.
So I don't think that's a problem,
but
of course there are some people particularly coming
from the scientific background who have a much
more totalizing
view of science course,
are not course, are not going to be
particularly interested in sitting down with the people
who are going to talk from the perspective
of the interior landscape.
So science is kind of the modern idiom
for many people. There are many people without
faith and many people who would like to
be compassionate.
Maybe they are, maybe they're not. And so
in a way, science can become a bridge
for many people. It can give it can
lend some credibility
to all of this for those people that
want to have measurement and numbers.
And from that, they can move on to
more secular
kind of approach, which is the same compassion,
I believe,
that is also faith driven.
But this can be a an inroad for
a lot of particularly young people that have
more of a scientific rational mind and don't
have much much to do with faith. Except
that there has to be one thing that
it can be a bridge, but it can
also be a brick wall.
And that if we if we begin to
buy and you alluded to this, Ingrid,
that
that everything is under a function of a
certain determinism.
And the whole question raised of, well, if
you've had lousy nurture Mhmm. Or if you
have
of
of compassion that that circumstances
might
might prevent you from doing it. And I
think what the spiritual traditions have to say
is that that pa compassion
emerges in the domain that represents
a freedom
which is unconditioned.
And that human beings at every point in
their life, no matter what kind of genes
they have or history they have, have equal
access to the unconditioned realm.
And since that's beyond measurement
Sure. It sort of has to be taken
on faith,
but not that old blind faith of the
past because the priest told you so. Sure.
But on some deeper capacity of the heart
to to validate through its own empiricism. Sure.
Space. And how can we come back to
that?
But I'd like to now please welcome,
Cynthia Bourgeault.
Okay.
Over we go.
Good. Thank you.
Thank you. I did mine with a music
stand with notes on it.
So I can look utterly deceitful and walk
around like this as if I know what
I'm doing.
But what I want to do is actually
raise a couple of questions and perspectives on
this. It's more that of a question
than it is a statement.
That I think one of the real problems
that we get into when we try, particularly
in the West, to understand compassion,
and this was there in that film that
we saw from that variety of responses,
is a lot of people have a hard
time distinguishing it from pity
or from charity.
And what happens or from being a helper?
And there's a subtle sort of, as we
understand compassion,
place ourselves through identification
on the side of the hads.
We are the ones that are practicing compassion
or doing compassion,
untos.
And,
and
it's like that, the great prayer, thank God
I am not like other men.
But there for the grace of God
go I. We'll drop out the but for
the grace of god, there go I and
we're closer.
So how do you eliminate the power
eros, and that it levels
the playing field
and creates out of what were hierarchical
human
the
the the final result
of
of compassion and a compassionate
action
is that there is the healing and the
empowerment
of the
whole.
So we have to we have to ask
this. And, of course, Jesus was right onto
this. One of the most popular of his
teachings, the powerful one, was in
the in the parable of the good Samaritan
where the halves walked right by
the person,
in distress.
And it was the one who was the
have not, the Samaritan, the pariah,
who was
actually able to break the trap. And I
think that what Jesus was talking about there
was watch out,
Watch out.
Don't place yourself in the in the position
of the entitled one, of the helping one,
of the
of the powerful, the strong one.
Turn the table upside down and see what
you get.
We all know the love your neighbor as
yourself,
but we always hear that as
love your neighbor as much as yourself.
And then, but I have to love myself
first.
And we don't realize that there's no comparison
in there. Love your neighbor as yourself,
one
individual.
So it really is fundamentally an act of
seeing. The doing will fall out of the
seeing.
We don't see from the oneness.
We don't know how to see from the
oneness. We don't even know that we're not
seeing from the oneness.
And I, there's the dilemma, the rub.
So what do you do about that?
Well, in the spiritual traditions that I come
from, which is basically the the the the
Christian tradition
informed deeply by the Sufi tradition,
we have a whole kind of teaching about
something called identification.
It's a form of an attachment.
Attachment to your sense of self,
to your self image, or even deeper than
your self image, your sense of persona.
Your your image of yourself as a helper
or as a compassionate
person or as a victim.
We we carry these little identifications
inside them, and we don't
see them.
And we don't want to see them because
particularly in the western tradition that most of
us have grown up steeped in, we actually
use attachment
as the motivator
for righteous action.
And we can't imagine
a righteous action
happening
apart
from attachment.
So it's the old test of it bottle
of zeal for the for the Lord is
burning up the house.
And we identify ourselves with the good person,
with the moral high ground, with the right,
with the one who's God's little helper,
with the one that's doing I don't think
anybody ever self identifies as
as the one who's doing the wrong thing.
Yeah. So we we suddenly
steal
the moral high ground. Jews
out of the temple. And as a matter
of fact, I've often been been told, people
throw in my face, Jesus throwing the money
to me, just out of the temple.
And they say, well, you know, you you
gotta be angry.
You gotta have a sense of justice
in order to be able to act righteously
and compassionately in the world.
This tradition says, no,
not so.
That's the blinder
that's always introducing the power differential
and skewing compassion
into pity and do go.
So
one of the most powerful, powerful quotes I
know comes from a Christian teacher now dead,
Gerald May,
who, developed the institute the Shalem Institute for
spiritual,
guidance,
for formation.
He has a wonderful challenging calling,
in his book, will and spirit. He says,
as
attachment
ceases to be your motivation,
your actions will become reflections
of compassion
absolute.
As attachment
ceases to become be your motivation,
your actions
will become
reflections
of compassion
absolute.
It's amazing what he's saying, in other words,
is that your attachment is the blind spot
there, the thumb over the camera lens.
And as you let go of it, what
you begin to see
is that the world actually is
orahim.
It is
the womb.
The fundamental
nature of reality,
whether you call it God,
interdependent
arising,
what you name it, is it's ordered
and structured.
It's relational,
it's personal.
It's compassionate.
And once,
once you see that,
that
tidal wave of the actual fundamental
nature of reality
is what rises up
to carry you into
a compassionate action, which is judgment free
and no role play.
But so to see the world
as one,
to see the world as coherent and compassionate
is really
the challenge, is really that that amazing flip
of a light bulb.
What our western tradition has said very, very
clearly here is that only the
heart can see it.
The mind can never see
the world as a coherent,
unconditioned
whole.
Because that requires the heart to kick in,
the heart as it's understood in the West,
not as a source of emotion,
not even as a source of empathy,
but as an organ of spiritual perception,
which perceives
by
vibrational
resonance,
by being able to enter the insides of
things and and sense, holographically,
the pattern from the whole.
And over and over and over in the
West comes the refrain,
put the mind in the heart.
Put the mind in the heart,
which doesn't mean get out of your mental
constructions and start feeling.
What it means in in scientific language, which
some of my friends in the neurology business
say is, heart.
So
of the brain
to the vibrational field of the heart so
they form a single
instrument
of perception.
And so over and over and over, spiritual
practice says, put the mind in the heart,
put the mind in the heart.
As that happens,
a, that condition itself, that busy translator
acting, doing good, participating,
motivating,
gone.
And what you begin to see on the
inside is the world looks intimate.
Because intimacy
is the feeling tone, is the objective real
description
of the world
seen from the perspective
of the heart.
There's an intimate
belongingness,
cohesiveness, a coherence from the field.
So when you look at the world from
the heart and see intimacy,
action heart
perceived
intimacy.
Condition
might really simply be to work
out of conscience.
And I'd like to introduce this word and
ask
us to reclaim it, to taste it.
Because often we confuse
conscience with morality
or with learned social norms or with that
little voice
that Paul was talking about this morning that
beats up on you all day. You ought
to do that. You ought to do that.
You all know that.
Conscience
is simply the heart
centered, the eye of the heart wide open,
perceiving the scale of
things, perceiving
the the love, the equalizing,
leveling love that flows through
everything, pulling it into 1.
And when we see
from that eye of conscience,
we see from the oneness,
we see from the humility,
we see from the compassion
that flows
out into the world in a whole new
way.
So
the the point of the spiritual
practices
is to try to open up the conditions
and help us remember
the practices
that move us from that middle calculating,
acting, identified self
into simply that
whole oneness
that can see what I really believe
that compassion does not belong to the individual
even.
It is a an emergent
property
of the whole.
And as we realign
and reorient and reground ourselves
in the whole,
compassion flows.
So
last image to leave you with. We're here
in Louisville. It's my first time I've ever
been in Louisville, but I've known Louisville for
years from Thomas Burton,
from that wonderful thing that's formed the actual
theme song of our conscience.
My hotel, as for many of you, is
right in the corner of what used
to be 4th and Walnut
in the middle of the shopping district
where he realizes
I loved all those people.
I could not be separate from them. I
was theirs.
They were mine.
And he says, I woke from this funny
and spurious dream
of belonging to this false special realm. And
I could say, thank God,
I am like other men.
And it's from that seeing
that everything shifted
in Merton's life.
It's like the watershed
epiphany in his life.
And all of a sudden, he moved from
pity,
charity,
compassion is something you did,
to the natural flowing of this different
kind of seeing.
And his final words in that beautiful, beautiful
statement is,
I have no
formula
for that seeing.
But the gates of heaven
are everywhere.
So in this city, in this place,
on this occasion,
I would merely
ask us
to believe
that when
As the tradition says,
that is our sense of self
comes down into the heart,
that something
opens that allows
the rest to flow
from a whole different place.
And as we're able to do that,
we shift the whole art and science
of compassion
to a whole
new
ground.
So keep striving and working
for that
transpersonal
personal
openness of the heart.
And the rest,
the gates of heaven
are everywhere.
Thank you.
If that wasn't from the heart, I don't
know what is.
Reflections,
reactions.
It was, I mean, thank you so much.
It was very, very
inspiring.
I love the idea of
this progressive
path where,
I mean, we have to start somewhere.
And the place to start is the
kind of the narrow natural compassion that we
all possess.
And then moving on to this transpersonal
compassion.
So in your understanding,
disjunction so that you let go of this
natural
love, that parental love that we have
for our loved ones, our friends, and so
on,
which is of course involved with attachment.
So this
trans personal level of compassion,
the path to that would involve a kind
of a disruption and disjunction,
or would you see a possibility of a
of both and because the see it as
a progressive
of both and
because the,
that I think that what the great spiritual
teachers have said is that when we don't
see what we think is our love,
as we started a certain level of selfhood,
is always kind of
infused
with agendas that are clinging and sentimental.
Mhmm. And and
and when we first go away from that,
it looks like we're not loving anymore. You
know, that question that God asked this morning
about 10, you do the action from the
impartial place. Yeah. But the impartial place is
scary to us at first.
And
so what what I love about the meditation
practices
is that they bracket that experience.
Like in Centering Prayer, you only do it
for 20 minutes twice a day, And for
20 minutes, if the image comes up of
your child or your baby or or or
whatever, the suffering in the world, you learn
that the practice is to let it go,
not renounce it, but let it go. So
you're getting used to being able to abide
in the state where you're not pulling things
close to you and emoting about them all
the time. Mhmm. So you're getting used to
being able to abide in the state where
you're not pulling things close to you and
emoting about them all the time. Mhmm. So
you're getting used to being able to
and by little, that shifts
the center of selfhood
so that you're less and less dependent
on the the micro drama
in order to generate your sense of identity.
And I think it happens very slowly and
naturally
over the course of however long
it takes a person
to integrate the thing according to their own
wonderful particularity.
That would be
how do you see that, Ingrid?
Yeah. It's I think it's,
in in I'm in education
and
in so many fields now, the whole
everything is measured by outcomes. Mhmm.
So,
you know, unless you're you're meeting some outcome,
you're not doing anything.
It's so destructive to education
Mhmm.
From the beginning. And
the key is that,
in that cultural context, in a way I
feel like we've never been in a place
that's more antithetical
to that kind of dispassionate,
compassion
and love.
So I don't know how you change a
culture
like that, but somehow, at least for for
those who who want to,
you know, I mean, this idea of I'm
a helper, I'm doing things, I want to
do things,
and then they have to get funding.
You know, to do these to do these
things and put your outcomes
and Yeah. Right. Which is there's a there's
a lot of practical,
obstacles
in the midst of this.
Mhmm. And I don't know if you have
any solution to that.
My own is to try to stay
below the radar screen. There is a practice
in Buddhism which we call Mahamudra.
There's another one, Dzogchen.
And it's precisely what you were talking about.
In meditation, Your mind, your heart, everything is
wide open, but you stick to nothing. Mhmm.
So it's complete it's continual letting go. Mhmm.
Continual letting go. Mhmm. Yeah. And I don't
know. I have no experience. But people that
do this for year in, year out,
they say that after the 20 minutes or
whatever on the cushion,
you go out in the world, and slowly,
there's a little less and a little less
attachment.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's gradual.
And I I think I take refuge in
the collective nature of reality
that that everywhere across the spectrum, somebody doing
something, a concentrated
group of work like the the folks in
in,
Dharamsala doing Mahamudra
are carrying the people like you that are
trying to get funding to do get a
university program in that softens it up,
carries those amazingly
good initiatives of CCARE and mindfulness and all
those things. We're carrying each other, and we're
gotta love it.
I mean, if there isn't So what I
would like to do at this point excuse
me, please. Yeah.
Let's take 1 minute. Please stretch and move.
And then after 1 minute, come on back
down. We have some lovely music for you.
And now if you can please
slowly return to your seats.
And we are extremely fortunate.
It was a
harmonic conversion, I think.
We have one of the world's greatest,
neck players.
And his name, if I can find it
here, I put it on the other sheet.
His name
is Selek
Gores,
and he happened to be in Texas
Silek Goulaz.
Boy, we need more of that.
I think we ought to play it from
all the buildings all around town, all around
the state in the country in the world.
That just brings you right in, you know.
Beautiful. Beautiful. We're very fortunate.
We're going to now transition
into a discussion, broaden our discussion that we
started
earlier.
I'd like
to come back to this question maybe to
start it with.
And that is
when we're not in the space, if we're
not, you know, if we are attaching and
grabbing and we find our heart is kind
of a bit closed and we're under a
lot of stress and we have time
issues.
You know, what can we do to try
to loosen that tight grip and find that
home,
that place of of compassion.
Maybe I'll start because, I I had the
privilege to develop
a aid with compassion training,
program at Stanford,
known as CCT or compassion cultivation training,
which is now going to be offered more
widely through another
nonprofit entity called Compassion Institute, which has just
recently been
set up.
This question of impartiality
versus attachment and whether or not that is
a stumbling block,
was an important question,
because
in a natural state,
naturally feel for our loved ones.
So
and, you know, Ingrid, you pointed out about
the
the kind of the image of the mother's
womb,
as as kind of image. And in the
Buddhist text, in the metasutta, for example, the
discourse on lovingkindness,
the Buddha actually
gives the imagery of
the mother's unconditional love for your for her
child as the
measure of having developed compassion for all beings.
But on the other hand,
you know, to ask that at the beginning
is just too too much of a tall
order. So how do we then proceed?
And one of the things that I struggled
with is really this question of attachment. How
do you take it gently? You know,
really kind
of utilize what nature has gifted you from
a scientific language. You know, I mean, we
all have this impulse to care for our
loved ones and then gently build it up
on this.
And here, one thing that I found very
helpful is in the Buddhist
kind of psychology
there is this powerful insight
that empathy
for another person
really presupposes a certain
idea of an identification,
a sense of connection with the other. And
that's one of the reasons why we have
in groups and out groups. And for the
out group, we don't feel for their pain
because we have chosen
you through all the layers of discrimination
label and all the rest because the fundamental
reality of human
experience speaks to our understanding of pain
and, you know, instinctual wish to avoid it.
So that's why
pain is such a powerful connector.
So
we have used this
and this is actually how in the Buddhist
Buddhist meditation proceeds as well. So in a
sense, what you're doing is
instead of getting rid of your attachment to
your loved ones and to your small circle,
we actually build on it
to really say, well, basically what you're doing
is you are expanding the scope of your
identification.
And you do that by
reflecting deeply
upon the shared humanity.
And we use this meditation called just like
me. Just like me,
he wishes to be happy. Just like me,
he doesn't want to have problem.
And that way, we're really getting to this
very fundamental level of
reality of human condition where vulnerability
to suffering, to pain, all of this is
part of
what makes who we are.
And so that's the approach we have used.
So that it's, I suppose in a sense,
it's kind of gently leading by that
in a kind of a softly, softly way.
So that's how we have tackled that issue
because in the end,
the highest form of compassion does presuppose presuppose
impartiality.
I mean, it's a kind of, in some
case, it's a kind of, it doesn't really
matter who the other person is. It's a
bit like the notion of justice. The reason
why we put Lady Liberty as a blindfolded
is that the recipient of the compassion is
in fact an impartial.
A
how these are sort of complementary
approaches.
One that you're talking about is to start
with a small circle in which you can
count that empathy will be reliable Sure. And
gradually extend the membership of that circle. Exactly.
Yeah. And I think that's a good and
using the term identification that way to just
say that we become identified with the whole
of the central being. That's true. And the
other that I think is complimentary
is to just spot
attachment wherever it occurs and realize that if
you could drop it
altogether
so that, yeah, what makes you so special?
You know,
you know,
that what remains by default is compassion. It's
a way I
would say that one of the things you
can do when you notice you're in a
bad
state, there's something that notices that.
Mhmm. And that's wonderful.
I mean, when to to say to notice,
you know, my heart is stressed. If you
if you could just begin
to create and collect a data bank that
says that nothing
good
can come out of a heart that's braced,
defended, and attached. No matter how just your
cause, if you're
the the energetic component is always stronger than
the than your
so as you just notice,
you know,
angry,
tight. Just the act of noticing, even if
you can't shift the state,
will
Yeah. Yeah. It it's much more important than
than anyone would think.
Sounds very much to me like a zoczochempa,
a deep practicer of zochen.
Pleasing.
Her. I mean, regular,
practices
of breaking those attachments
starts to drain so you don't, you're not
as, you know, when you're really well fed
and,
you know,
you're not as you know,
when you're really well fed and well rested
and you've got all this energy, it's like,
I have to do this. I have to
do this. I have to accomplish this. But
when
when that's taken away from you, you have
a little bit less energy, and then you're
like,
you know what? Having a little bit less
energy
allows you to see some other things. So
I think those
to to be able to integrate some of
those detachment
Halwa,
withdrawing
time, Halwa withdrawing
from people for a time.
So,
that's something that can be part of fasting
for Muslims during Ramadan. It could be part
of the fast of Ramadan is actually
detaching yourself for a while from your home,
from your family,
giving away
those things constantly
divesting
divesting ourselves of those things that we love.
But another way I think is,
and this is a, you know, it's a
long spiritual tradition is
is
travel and going away for a while,
making yourself really completely vulnerable
to,
putting yourself in a place where you don't
have attachments. You can't rely on those
that community, your friends, or family
that you're used to doing so much for
and them doing for you. When you're in
that situation of complete vulnerability,
suddenly,
you see how it's all there still.
You know.
You you you see you see everywhere, you
see
kindness
and goodness
and,
and then you're able to say, well,
you know, I thought I was just building
this up here. I thought it relied on
me.
I thought I thought everything was dependent on
me and us building this up, but I
think it's that being vulnerable,
through travel, through detachment, going away for a
while, and coming back is is very helpful.
You mentioned
Mahasabha.
I didn't pronounce did I pronounce it right?
Ingrid?
I didn't pronounce it right. Mhmm. Mah
Yeah.
Yeah.
The accents are the wrong part.
Mahasaba?
Oh, Mahasaba.
Mahasaba. Yes. Okay. Taking into account. It's it's
like it's accounting,
a discipline of doing it at certain times
to get in the practice to to start
to make it a habit.
And then we notice when these things are
arising. So if we make it a regular
practice, say, in the morning or the evening,
taking into account what are my negative
emotions,
envy,
anger,
hopelessness,
spite,
all of these things.
If I'm if I'm taking those into account
in in a peaceful state,
remembering them, counting them up, and then saying,
okay.
Those happened.
I'm gonna letting them go. I'm going to
do better next time. Then when they arise
during
the the moment, during the day as they
come up
in in that moment, we're gonna be able
to recognize them
more easily
and then
be able to to back
away from that. So I think that's,
like so many things at first,
we need to this is where the discipline
comes in and where the teachers and the
helpers
to help us
get in the habit of doing these things
until they become natural.
Until,
you know, we might not even need
to have them in our calendar anymore because
they become part of our state.
So there was a
a great
saint,
a Buddhist saint about a 1000 years ago,
Dipankara Atisha,
and it said that the story is, the
legend,
that when he noticed
a negative thought or feeling, he would put
a little black stone.
And when he noticed a positive
feeling or thought, you put a white stone.
And at first, there were these big huge
masses of black stones. Couldn't even see anything
white. And then slowly,
you know, with just recognition
Mhmm. Of course, I think he probably did
more than just recognition, but recognition was a
powerful part of this
that it shifted. And eventually,
you know, there was a bigger pile of
white stones. So doing this
Thank you. It's quite powerful.
So I guess I need to direct it
here. So let's see. So we went on
one end.
We went on one end where, you know,
we're just not fine we're not juiced. You
know, we're overstressed, and we're clinging and we're
attached. And,
and how can we a little bit, you
know, loosen things to find some compassion? Let's
go on the other extreme. Let's talk about
this non duality
of letting go and just being with being
compassion
and not having any attachments is
let's let's flush that out a little bit,
please.
Well, I say that I think one of
the dysfunctional
road maps we've inherited from our tradition
is the idea of, you know,
of progressive
enlightenments to the point that you
you your false self drops away
and what's left is your
your true self and your true self is
not attached and it's nondual and it has
no identities,
And you live in it happily ever after.
I think that's
generations of people just marching right off the
cliff and in the river of Bali.
That
as long as we're incarnate,
we bear
this wonderful, difficult,
excruciating
task of reconciling with them in our own
being, the one and the many,
the particular and the universal, the a
sudden,
oh,
my
of a sudden,
oh my god, my child has just died.
And these are the 2
parts there. The Christian language would be the
crucifixion
and the glory of our being.
And so to learn how to keep them
in a wise dialogue
rather than trying to use the spiritual
to devalue and flatten and re
press the temporal. And I thought a lot
of the bad press that non duality has
gotten nowadays is because we've used it that
way.
We've used the high side for spiritual bypassing.
So we're talking about an integrated approach, and
sometimes, frankly, it's
it's important to work out that small self.
Sometimes that kind of karate chop energy
is what needs to be brought to a
situation,
but it will work better if it's already
deeply grounded
in a lived experience
that that other is also real in you.
So that would be my
my Lovely.
Comments, reflections,
reactions?
Well,
yeah. Thank you for that because sometimes
listening to spiritual perspectives, particularly on compassion,
tends to make it unreachable
You know, it's up there.
When in reality,
compassion and these qualities are part of our
everyday reality. You know, we may not be
particularly articulate, many of us, or may not
be pay much attention to it, but that's
that's there. So thank you for that clarification.
I mean, one of the interesting things for
me, coming from the Buddhist tradition is
the, and which here I think the Buddhist
tradition is actually quite close to
the scientific
understanding that
compassion as a felt
response,
is
I think really contingent upon a concrete reality.
I mean, this is the reason why
there is something called, you know, altruism collapse.
So we are able to feel compassion for
individuals. And then
after a certain number,
you know, we just can't maintain that. There's
a kind of a certain
finite numbers beyond which,
So for example,
there's a reason why charity commercials use
real children
rather than give you statistics.
We don't respond to,
your dollar will cover this month of people,
that x amount of people suffering,
that doesn't appeal to us. That doesn't pull
at our, you know, tug at our heart.
But a child suffering
and asking for something really pulls and tug
at our heart.
So that is the reality of our compassionate
response.
So
compassion as a felt response really seemed to
require
individuals,
human beings, suffering,
need.
But compassion
So I would like to see a distinction
between compassion as a felt response
and compassion as a kind of a,
almost one could say
a standpoint, a perspective.
Now compassion as a perspective,
you don't need concrete because you are now
working at the level of your intention.
You're working at the level of motivation, your
character development,
so that you are primed
to respond to any situation
in a compassionate way. But your actual compassionate
training doesn't really involve
concrete reality.
And this is how, so in that way
when you generate compassion,
you can generate compassion for all beings
because you don't need
individuals
to inspire that compassion.
But I think
to get there, I think we need to
somehow cultivate that felt
compassion which requires, which does require real suffering,
which does require
the perception of real need. And in a
way, that's a kind of a, you know,
maybe a dichotomy, but I, that's why I
thank you very much for pointing out that
it's a kind of a boat path.
You need to somehow, you cannot
undermine the
other at the expense
of of 1. Would you agree with that?
I would certainly.
Exactly. And I think that we've done so
much damage in the spiritual
path
by pitting the 2 selves against each other
rather than understanding that they vastly extend the
range of oneself. Thank you.
Say Tawakkuk.
So
and what I Tawakkuk.
So
and what I trust
for is that when I say when I
look at a compassion as a perspective is
that
is that I know
because this is
what is the
the form,
the
substance
of of being
that it's that it's okay. I know that,
you know, I come to Louisville and I'm
gonna find all these compassion
building, I was in the
and so I know when I when these
when we we see there's so much going
on, but we don't become overwhelmed by it
because we we have trust. We have that
trusting
knowledge awareness that
it is there too. You know, we're
if we think of ourselves here and I
have to
work on this in my realm and this
is what's in in front of me,
I'd I
I'm not worried
that nothing's going on over there. And I
think that
it's really important to have
have that. So it's not detachment and and
I don't care
or it doesn't affect me,
but I know that
that it's happening in
everywhere. It's one, you know, it's
one it's one sheet. It's the warp and
weft of of the universe. And so I
think that trust is so related,
to the perspective of compassion.
This is beautiful.
We're just warming up. We
have to finish.
So I hope that this discussion will continue
with all of you. And