The Brahmaviharas: Compassion

Compassion is the English translation of karunā. Sharon Salzberg, in her book Loving Kindness, notes that seeing the suffering of others can cause a range of emotions in us, including anger, fear, or sadness.  She says (p. 108):

The state of compassion as the trembling of the heart arises with a quality of equanimity. Can you imagine a mind state in which there is no bitter, condemning judgment of oneself or of others?  This mind does not see the world in terms of good and band, right and wrong, good and evil; it sees only ‘suffering and the end of suffering.’  What would happen if we looked at ourselves and all of the different things that we see and did not judge any of it? We would see that some things bring pain and others bring happiness, but there would be no denunciation, no guilt, no shame, no fear. How wonderful to see ourselves, others, and the world in that way!  When we see only suffering and the end of suffering, then we feel compassion.  Then we can act in energetic and forceful ways but without the corrosive effects of aversion.

The compassion meditation practice is very similar to the loving-kindness practice.  One way of considering how they’re different is that karunā is the desire to remove harm and suffering from others, whereas mettā is the desire for happiness and comfort.  So compassion has an aspect of is recognizing what is (and taking some action), and loving-kindness has an aspect of setting an aspiration for what can be.

To do the meditation practice requires thinking of particular people and offering them these phrases:   "May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.  May you have peace and joy." Traditionally, you would start with yourself, then offer this wish to a loved one, a friend, a neutral person, a difficult person, then the group including yourself, the loved one, friend, neutral and difficult people all together, then to all beings.

To consider the differences between compassion and loving-kindness further, let’s revisit the idea that each of the Brahmaviharas is an antidote to something.  Mettā is the antidote for anger and hatred. Compassion, in comparison, is the antidote to cruelty.

Shantideva describes meditating on compassion in this way:

"Strive at first to meditate upon the sameness of yourself and others. In joy and sorrow all are equal; Thus be guardian of all, as of yourself. The hand and other limbs are many and distinct, But all are one--the body to be kept and guarded. Likewise, different beings, in their joys and sorrows, are, like me, all one in wanting happiness. This pain of mine does not afflict or cause discomfort to another's body, and yet this pain is hard for me to bear because I cling and take it for my own. And other beings' pain I do not feel, and yet, because I take them for myself, their suffering is mine and therefore hard to bear. And therefore I'll dispel the pain of others, for it is simply pain, just like my own. And others I will aid and benefit, for they are living beings, like my body. Since I and other beings both, in wanting happiness, are equal and alike, what difference is there to distinguish us, that I should strive to have my bliss alone?"

Seeing the similarities between yourself and others, we will be much less likely to be unkind or harsh. In this way it is an antidote to cruel behavior.

There is another aspect to notice:  Mettā is the antidote for a feeling, whereas compassion is the antidote to an action.  In the Buddhist texts, mettā is generally described as a “disposition, an interior attitude.” Karunā includes more than simply feeling - it also has the aspect of combating suffering.

The Stanford University compassion project notes that there are four stages of compassion.

1. Awareness of suffering – sensing or seeing the suffering.  This recognition can be of the self or someone else suffering
2. Feeling of our emotion – which could be many different emotions singly or in combination
3. Motivation to relieve suffering – in contrast to sympathy and empathy, which do not necessarily give rise to motivation to act
4. Gives rise to action – It may not be the action you would imagine, but what arises on the spot, which might just be to stay with the suffering; The action is not driven by your agenda; Responding, not reacting.

If we examine the Latin roots of the English word compassion, we can see these four aspects.  It comes from com (with) and passio (to suffer).  It is therefore "to suffer with." When we suffer ourselves, we become aware of pain, we feel our emotional reaction, and we become quickly motivated to do something to lessen the pain.  When we feel compassion, we can feel their pain and share the motivation to reduce it.

So how does compassion relate to empathy and sympathy?  Empathy is the ability to see things from the other person’s point of view. Seeing things from another’s point of view is surprisingly hard. Most of our fights with loved ones are not because we or they intend to be unkind, but because we simply don't understand each other's point of view.  So empathy is the beginning of compassion, and we're not generally very good at that.

Mimi & Eunice cartoon by my friend Nina Paley

Sympathy similarly starts with the acknowledgement of someone else’s suffering, but in contrast, it’s actually often harmful.  Dr. Brene Brown, who studies empathy, notes that compassionate responses rarely, if ever, start with “At least…” If someone shares something painful, and we try to find a silver lining for the person, it keeps us disconnected.  You say, “I had a miscarriage” and I say, “Well, at least you know you can get pregnant.”  It’s not connecting with the real emotion that is really here.  It’s not suffering with.  It’s not saying, “yeah, I don’t even know what to say, but I’m glad you told me.”  Compassion is connecting with the other, sympathy drives disconnection.

So if we do compassion right, which is empathy combined with action, how do we know what action?

Your emotional reaction may not be the right one for the person.  For example, if my daughter discusses something difficult for me, I don’t need to show her my reaction. That may not be helpful for her. You do, however, need to acknowledge your own feelings and reactions, as well as your feelings that are compassionate. Without acknowledging your own feelings and reactions, you will be driven by them.  You need to see them to get past them.

Your actions therefore need to be compassionate to yourself as well as toward the other. Part of the underlying assumption is that you and other are equal, which means that you should never act in a way that diminishes or harms yourself. Altruism is not the same as compassion.  You don’t need your response to hurt yourself for it to be beneficial for the other.

That said, true compassion does mean being vulnerability.  It’s not so much a vulnerability to being hurt, though. It’s a vulnerability to allow yourself to connect to a difficult feeling without knowing what will happen next – to resting in the gap. Willingness to sit in the space where you don’t feel like you know the other person.  The problem is that we tend to generalize from past experiences and assume we know what is happening and what will happen.  As Ethan Nichtern has said, we objectify situations and the people in them, as if they’re action figures – “You’re the good guy and you’re the bad guy.” Until we practice with compassion enough, we will keep doing this.

The truth is that rarely does saying something ever make the situation better. What the person needs is not us to say a special thing, but to be there – really there.  It’s not that we can’t try to say or do things to help, but we need to temper the compassion with equanimity.  We can’t expect or push for any particular outcome. We can do/say whatever feels appropriate in the moment, and then sit back to see what happens and what the next moment will bring. Ultimately, the other person is responsible for his or her own happiness, and there’s really very little we can do that can influence that. Part of what we can feel compassion for, therefore, is that we have far less control than any of us wish we did.

The Brahmaviharas: Equanimity

Meditation sometimes gets discussed as if it can fix everything.  One reason this is inappropriate is because each meditation technique focuses on specific goals.  If we desire full enlightenment (which I define as being able to live in one's life fully), most of us need to use multiple techniques.  As described previously, Mindfulness Meditation focuses primarily on familiarizing ourselves with our minds.  Once we've achieved some measure of stability, tranquility, and clarity through Mindfulness Meditation, we can be more effective using meditation techniques that focus on cultivating some positive aspects of ourselves.  In this post, we begin discussing Brahmaviharas, or the Four Heavenly Abodes, the Four Immeasurables, or any of about a dozen other translations into English, all of which basically mean that these are four qualities that help us live with a sense of peace, well-being, and joy.

These are four qualities we already have, at least some of the time.  The goal is to cultivate them through a number of meditation practices, and they help to change our habitual reactions to be more open and caring, as well as providing antidotes to difficult emotions.  Specifically, the four are:

• Metta: Loving-kindness - the antidote for selfishness, anger, fear, and negativity.
• Karuna: Compassion - the antidote for frustration and hatred.
• Mudita: Empathetic joy - the antidote for envy, jealousy, and resentment.
• Upeksha: Equanimity - the antidote for both clinging attachment and aversion.

Traditionally these are taught in approximately this order, but I like to start with equanimity, because (1) it is the hardest, and (2) it is necessary for the other three.

By Equanimity, I mean the sense of freedom and balance when we're not reacting to things and wishing they were different.  There are several common questions and misunderstandings about it, however, that should be addressed:

1. Is this the same as being resigned or indifferent?  There is real social injustice in the world, and I don't feel like I should just accept that.
• No, it is not resigning yourself or withdrawing.  There is indeed real injustice, and equanimity means first accepting that it exists.  Then the goal is to be alert for it, being mindful.  This will allow you to see when there is an opportunity to take some action to help.  But once you've taken the action you can do at the moment, then you have to let go of needing a particular outcome.  If you hold on too tightly to your desire for one outcome, then you'll likely miss the next opportunity to take action.
2. Once I achieve equanimity, does that mean that everything is smooth and easy?
• Bad news - No it doesn't.  We'll still have troubles and traumas in our lives.The difference is that we can be fully engaged with them, being completely alive, rather than trying not to experience what we're really experiencing.  This ironically allows us to not be overwhelmed by them.
3. What about when people do harmful things to me?  How can I have equanimity about that?
• A common misunderstanding of equanimity is that it means that we're supposed to adopt an attitude that "It's all good."  No, it bloody well is not!  People do terrible things sometimes.  Evil actions happen.  It is definitely not all good.  When someone is harmful to you, equanimity means that you get angry, you feel your hurt, and then you take some action to try to help the situation.  That might mean you get away from that person.  It means you don't spend your time blaming the perpetrator, nor do you blame yourself.  You understand that bad things happen all the time to all people, and that you can use this opportunity to connect with the pain that all beings feel.  But don't just keep being a doormat. As Thanissaro Bhikku notes, "There's a passage in which the Buddha taught the monks a chant for spreading goodwill to all snakes and other things....Strikingly, the chant concludes with the sentence, 'May the beings depart.'  This reflects the truth that living together is often difficult.

We usually get too caught up in our stories about things, or by wanting to control things, or by wanting only one specific outcome, that we fail to realize that things are really ok most of the time, even when we’re not getting what we want. 

Pema Chodron relates the story about the Zen master who, whenever asked by his students how he was, would respond, “I’m okay.”  Finally one student said, “Roshi, how can you always be okay?  Don’t you ever have a bad day?”  The Zen master answered, “Sure I do.  On bad days, I’m okay.  On good days, I’m also okay.”  We usually get so caught by the detail of whatever specific good feeling or bad feeling that we miss this broader truth that we’re actually basically okay right now.

There’s a Pali term, papañca, that means complication, proliferation, objectification (See the Madhupindika Sutta for details).  It is the tendency of the mind to proliferate thought after thought, to spin out the story.  This takes away our equanimity.  What should we do instead? In the moment that we notice that we’re caught, we can start by naming what’s going on.  Then after loosening the hold the thoughts have on us by recognizing them as thoughts, notice how it feels in the body.  This sounds simple, but what often happens when we try?  We get pulled away by papanca, because we are stuck in the trance of wanting to control experiences rather than just feeling them.  We feel that thinking about something gives us control.  We have practiced this so much that we believe it.  

One approach to helping to overcome this is a useful phrase:  Real, but not True.

You can work with this phrase both in meditation and in your daily life as soon as you start having a reaction to something.  What you are feeling is real.  The story that you are proliferating about it ("I don't deserve this! I can't believe you would say something like that! That person is a jerk!" etc...) is not True.  We have such a limited view on the world, that nothing we think about it can accurately represent what was really happening. Our perspective is real, but not true.  In meditation, you can bring to mind a difficult situation, focusing on the feeling you had, the series of thoughts you have about it, the story that you like to tell yourself about it. Focus on this until you can actually feel in your body the emotional reaction you have to it.  Then notice that the feelings you are having right now are real, but none of the story is accurate at this moment.  None of it is happening now.  The minute that we begin to create a story and make judgments, we solidify what is in reality a constantly shifting and changing set of feelings, thoughts, circumstances, causes, conditions, etc. What is happening to you now is caused by the vast set of interconnected causes and conditions, what Buddhists refer to as Dependent Arising. 

As noted in this post about how we view our "self," we have a very limited idea of what our self is.  We usually only consider voluntary actions of which we're conscious to be our selves.  Therefore, almost everything in our experience "happens to us," rather than the more accurate description that we are happening.  We don't even feel our body is ourself, that we are beating our hearts.  We see our lives as if we are rushing around, bumping into various semi-random experiences, having conflict with some of them, going along with others.  Alan Watts noted that if we looked into our bodies with a microscope, what would we see?  We would see lots of individual cells and proteins, rushing around, bumping into each other, fighting with each other, etc.  But at our normal level of perception, our body is working as a remarkably harmonious whole.  So, which level of magnification is right?

This is another way to cultivate equanimity.  Our normal level of perception of our lives is similar to that of our cells under a microscope.  We perceive our lives to be full of difficulty and conflict and stress.  At a broader level of perception, however, we're getting along remarkably harmoniously with each other and the world.

Consciousness evolved like a radar system, constantly looking out for trouble.  It therefore pays little attention to the things that are constant or that are generally going well.  We scan the environment, but only pay attention to what we think is likely to be trouble.  Constants are generally safe.  We therefore focus on the negatives, and in fact, we make so much of it that we come to identify our selves with the radar system.

But you are more than this scanning system.  You are in constantly shifting relationships with the external world that are, on the whole, extremely harmonious.  Our happiness is not dependent on things being just one certain way.  Once we cultivate this view, then we are free to be happy with all of our life.

One classical way to train in equanimity is to meditate on the phrase, "All beings are inheritors of their own karma.  Their happiness or suffering depend on their actions, not on my wishes for them" or any of several other similar phrases. Traditionally it would go through seven steps, first focusing on a neutral person, then a benefactor (someone who has helped you in the past), then a loved one, then someone with whom you have difficulty, then yourself, then all five of you together (neutral, benefactor, friend, enemy, self), then all sentient beings.

The goal of these types of practices is to learn to be able to sit in balance, being able to participate in all aspects of your life without being overwhelmed, and therefore able to take appropriate action when there is a chance. Sound like something you want? It just takes years of practice, that's all.  

What can Mindfulness Meditation do for you?

One of the arms of the Buddhist Eightfold Path is "Right View."  There are many meanings to this, but one that I find under-utilized is the idea that when we set out on the path, it is useful to have a "view" to where we are going.  It's like looking at the map before we set out.  It's also useful once you've been on the path for a while, because then you can take stock of where you've been.  In this context, I want to consider some ways of thinking about what the goals of Mindfulness Meditation are.

Broadly speaking, there are two styles of meditation practice - Familiarizing and Cultivating.  Mindfulness meditation focuses primarily on the first of these.

It is important to start the journey by familiarizing yourself with your mind and emotions.  How can you change or improve something until you understand how it works?  If my car isn't running smoothly, just wishing for it to work won't help. Buying new seat covers or putting an inspirational CD in the CD player won't make it run more smoothly.  By knowing how the car works, we can focus our efforts to the place that can actually make a difference.  Similarly, we need clarity about our circumstances and ourselves to be able to make a difference, but often when things aren't going the way we want, we get caught up in blaming and feeling that it "shouldn't be this way," and then we make a bigger mess.

Mindfulness meditation starts us on the path to understanding how our minds work.  As we gain familiarity, it also begins to cultivate three properties: Tranquility, Stability, and Clarity.

Tranquility is often one of the goals people explicitly have when they begin meditating - they want to slow the mind down and have some sense of peacefulness or stress reduction.  It is worth noting that people often also have the belief that the goal is to stop thinking.  This is not correct.  The mind will always think - that's what it does.   The goal is to not be so hooked by the thoughts.

As we slow the thoughts down, we begin to be better at focusing our attention intentionally rather than being so easily distracted by the next thought.  This increased stability is sometimes called one-pointed focus.

As we gain stability and tranquility, we also begin to gain some clarity by seeing deeper into our true natures.

The classic analogy in Buddhism is if you scoop a glass of water out of a muddy river, it is undrinkable at first. There is too much sediment floating around in it, and no amount of effort will change that. You can't get the mud to settle out by shaking it hard or trying to force it to the bottom. Instead, if you let it sit quietly, the impurities will slowly settle to the bottom of the glass, leaving the water tranquil and clear.

The goal of meditation, therefore, is not to get rid of thoughts, but instead (1) to understand how our thoughts are constantly changing, impermanent, and empty, (2) to stop believing them as if they are "true," and (3) to stop believing that your thoughts are you.  These realizations lessen the control that your thoughts have over you, and opens up the way that you can begin to change.

Another way we can think about Mindfulness Meditation is that the focus is always on being present.  But what do we mean by that?

There are at least three different aspects of "being present" in Buddhist practice.  The most basic and stereotypical is a heightened state of focus.  You can test this by staring at an object or space on the wall. You may notice as you focus on it that the rest of the room may darken, blur, or get wiggly.  This one-pointed focus is ironically equally a rejection of all other things that are also present.  You can, however, learn to focus on the target yet also notice all of the things in the periphery, noticing the full environment. Therefore, heightened focus doesn't necessarily have to just be about one object (such as the breath), although it's often beneficial to start here.

The second way of being present is noticing a heightened vividness, vibrancy, clarity, and specificity of your experience.  I notice this most clearly doing walking meditations, where I am astounded by the colors, the vividness, and the detail that exists in the world.  Each leaf and blade of grass is distinct and clear and interesting.

The third way of being present is focusing on the Karmic momentum of each moment and being present in the "gap."  Ethan Nichtern describes this as "where the past is creating a tremendous momentum of feeling and impulse, but we haven't yet figured out how we're going to react to it....it's the awkward vulnerability between impulse and action."  That is, based on all of our past conditioning and all of the present causes and provocations and emotions, we experience some feeling.  We usually react to these feelings with habitual responses, but what if we didn't?  What if we instead were present with feeling the momentum of the moment?  (This is the gap between steps 7 and 8, or between 8 and 9 of the 12 Nidanas for those of you who want to be Buddhist geeks.)

So these are three more aspects we gain from Mindfulness Meditation.

What takes our mindfulness away?  Strong emotions and habits -- the momentum of the past and all of our conditioning and the present causes.  As discussed in a previous post, we tend to react to each new stimulus with either grasping, pushing it away, or ignoring it.  These are the Three Poisons of greed, aggression, and ignorance.  Every time we act based on one of these feelings, we strengthen our habitual responses, so we can no longer see the gap between feeling and our habitual reaction to the feeling.

Once triggered, emotions have strong energy.  One technique that Buddhism teaches to help us deal with these emotions is that of antidotes.  For each of the afflictive emotions, there is a series of things one can meditate on to counter them (see here, for example). Note that the core assumption underlying this approach is one of change.  We are trying to break the powerful link of our habits.

Once we have achieved some level of tranquility, stability, and clarity, we can begin to work with our minds and our habit energies, but Mindfulness Meditation isn't really designed to change them.

We usually enter a spiritual pathway and practice in order to change something about ourselves.  We want to reduce our suffering, to find ease in the midst of turmoil, to be of more benefit to others, etc.  Yet, Mindfulness Meditation doesn't get us too far down that path, but it's the first step on the path. Other meditation techniques focus specifically on changing our habitual responses.

But there's a paradox present here.  We know that we're really just a quivering mess.  We don't want to be a quivering mess.  But to be the kind of person we wish we were, we have to stop being a quivering mess.  But since we are such a mess, we're not the kind of person we want to be.  So how can we break out of this conundrum?  The way out is to practice capacities that you already have, such as compassion, joy, and love.

This moves us into the next style of meditation technique - those that focus on cultivating rather than familiarizing.  We use these techniques to help grow something that already exists in us.  The next post will begin to examine meditation techniques on what are called the Brahma-viharas, or the four heavenly abodes.


These thoughts adapted from talks given by Ethan Nichtern and Alan Watts, among others.  Image sources: Here, here, here, and here.

Mudita and the Angry Itch

It's a real burden to want to be happy all the time.  In fact, it's such a burden that we often think others should help us to shoulder it - we look to others to "make" us happy, which is a Sisyphean task (at best). Not only that, but it's a thankless task, because we feel so entitled to be happy that when others "make" us happy, we take it for granted.  It can easily be the case that we only tell others about it when they're not making us happy - this is our angry itch.

With this mindset of expecting others to make us happy and punishing them when we're unhappy, it's no surprise that it's such a burden and that repeated scratching doesn't really ease the itch.  We become the cruel taskmasters of others' impossible tasks.

The real shame is that others can make us happy easily, without our micro-management or prodding.  All we need to do is cultivate mudita, sometimes translated as empathetic joy.  It is the opposite of schadenfreude (taking pleasure in others' suffering).  Instead, we take pleasure in others' successes, happiness, good fortune, and enjoyment.  

Parents may understand this perhaps more easily than non-parents, because we have so many opportunities to witness our child's joy in something in a way that cuts through our frustrations.  I may want to leave the park and get on with what I think I should be doing, but seeing my daughter's delight at finding a rock in the sand cuts through my preoccupations and shows me the joy in each moment.

It is significant that the four divine abodes (lovingkindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity) are considered to be antidotes to three poisons (plus one).  Cultivating lovingkindness toward others counteracts irritation and aggression. Cultivating compassion toward others counteracts indifference.  Cultivating empathetic joy counteracts greediness and jealousy.  Cultivating equanimity counteracts worry about the past and future.

At some points in our path, we can have a very selfish attitude toward the four divine abodes.  "Why should I spend so much energy trying to feel good about others when I have so much work to do on myself first?"   This attitude is misplaced selfishness - it's trying to scratch the angry itch that we can't really reach.  If we truly wanted to be successfully selfish, meditating on lovingkindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity will help us to feel better about ourselves.  Specific to mudita, if we learn to feel and share in others' joys, we then have many people helping us to feel happy, and they are doing it without our making them feel they should!  It's like the students who park outside my house to "share" my wireless internet connection (because I don't password protect it).  They get what they want just by being near someone who has it.  You can be happy just by sharing in the happiness that is going on all around you all day.  Finally, that itch can be scratched, and no one has to work to reach it!

This post originally appeared on the Inderdependence Project blog.