by livingdharmanow in Meditation Mondays

Compassion, as I’ve said many times before, is a fundamental tenet of Buddhism.

Cultivating compassion is essential not only to the well-being of others around you, but also to your own happiness.

Compassion comes from understanding; it is near-impossible for ignorance to breed compassion. We are not often compassionate to the things we do not understand.

You feel compassion for your loved ones: family, friends, significant others. When they suffer, you also suffer.

But how many times do you see someone suffering, and pass by? In the wake of natural disasters, would you feel so much sympathy for victims if you weren’t constantly reminded of their plight on the TV, radio, and in the newspapers?

Do you know how many homeless people live in your town? Do you see them often? Do you feel compassion for them? How often have you helped someone in need? If you don’t understand their experiences, it’s difficult to sympathize with them. But if you have a conversation with someone who has experienced misfortune, you feel yourself warming towards them.

Compassion can be achieved through understanding, but you don’t need to have a conversation with every suffering person to reach understanding; you only need mindfulness.

Starting with Ourselves

Your meditation on compassion should start with understanding yourself.

Thich Naht Hanh recommends starting your meditation practice by saying, “May I be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and compassion in myself.”

We can not achieve loving-kindness unless we believe that we are first capable of opening our hearts and feeling compassion for all living things. When I say all living things, I mean all living things.

We should be able to extend our compassion not just to our loved ones, but also to those who have made us suffer.

Recognize the seeds of compassion in yourself. Even if you feel like you aren’t capable of forgiving those who have wronged you, understand that you will be able to with practice. Our enemies deserve our compassion just as much as our friends do.

Loving-Kindness Meditation

As you meditate, first think of someone you like, such as a casual friend, or a mentor.

Extend your love and compassion to that person.

“May he/she be peaceful, happy, and light in body and in spirit.

May he/she be free from injury.

May he/she live in safety.

May he/she be free from anger, disturbance, fear, worry, and anxiety.”

-Thich Naht Hanh

When you have visualized this person and offered love to him or her, select someone more neutral. Not someone you like, nor someone you dislike. A distant acquaintance, or the cashier at the grocery store.

Take this person as your object, and extend compassion to him or her. Imagine his life, feelings, experiences, virtues, and suffering. Understand that he deserves compassion just as much as anyone else.

In the third stage, meditate on someone you love. Offer unconditional love and compassion to this person.

And in the fourth stage, allow yourself to feel compassion for an enemy, or someone who upsets you.

Understand that even a person who has made you suffer is also suffering, and it is likely that he or she has only hurt you because he is himself hurting. Think of your enemy, and his life, values, dreams, perceptions, and thoughts.

As a fellow human being, is he or she less worthy of compassion? (There is a right answer to this question: no person is less worthy of compassion.)

Forgiving Our Enemies

The fourth stage is arguably the hardest. We all struggle with forgiving those who have hurt us, let alone extending our love and compassion to them (even symbolically).

But honestly, does your anger towards them benefit you? Does it make you happier? Do you “get back at” a person by despising them? Do you “serve them right” by carrying your resentment around?

Most likely, you can spend all your time and energy hating someone, and they won’t even notice or care. You’re not doing yourself any favors by clinging to negative emotions.

It’s important to carry a certain amount of dignity around, for self-preservation and to prevent people from taking advantage of you – but will your enemy notice if you quietly forgive them? If you’re embarrassed, or you feel like you need to stick up for yourself and your principles by continuing to hold a person away from you – take a first step towards releasing unhealthy anger by feeling compassion for that person.

Understand that anger comes from within, but forgiveness does too.

Practice

Buddhists do not expect that you can successfully practice all of these stages in your first sitting.

You should meditate on the person you like first, and then the neutral person, but it may take months before you can meditate on the person closest to you, and even longer to extend compassion to your enemy.

Try meditating on compassion just once a week, or bi-weekly. Start slowly. In each session, practice loving-kindness on a different person you like, or a different neutral person.

Thich Naht Hanh warns that you should not immediately meditate on the third stage (extending compassion to a person dear to you), because thinking about someone to whom you are so attached can actually break your concentration.

After you can extend compassion to individuals, try it with bigger groups of people. Practice loving-kindness on the people who live in your city, or your co-workers, or even a whole country.

Have you tried meditating on compassion? Share your experiences in the comments, or email me at livingdharmanow at gmail dot com!