2020-12-14 Brahmavihāras: Compassion (1 of 5)

Insight Meditation Center15min

Gil Fronsdal

00:03

With this talk, I begin a five-part series on the brahmavihāra of compassion. It's hard to imagine Buddhism without compassion. It's one of the primary forces that has brought Buddhism down to us down through the ages. It's one of the primary movements or things that are awakened in us with awakening. The more awake we become, the more compassion there is, the more care and love, goodwill.

Gil Fronsdal

00:52

And I'd like to think of awakening, this famous English word for liberation, enlightenment, includes the awakening of compassion. And certainly, for me, one of the big surprises and treasures of Buddhist practice was the slow and gradual awakening of my compassion. It was so gradual and slow that I didn't really recognize that it was happening while it was happening. I wasn't oriented to notice it, even though I was changing.

Gil Fronsdal

01:32

In retrospect, after a few years of practice, I look back and see that, well, maybe I didn't get enlightened. But I certainly became 'compassioned' and discovered this wonderful quality in myself. And to my surprise, it was a quality that was very satisfying to feel. It has kind of a sweetness and a settledness, and a 'rightness' to it.

Gil Fronsdal

02:02

In and of itself, compassion is not troubled by anything. To come to this untroubled compassion is one of the great tasks of a lifetime. It's certainly easy to experience the suffering of oneself, the suffering of others, and have alarm and upset and distress around it. It's also possible to have qualities of compassion, together with distress. But to be able to have compassion without any distress, is one of the great gifts that we can give to the world and to ourselves, and that come from Buddhist practice.

Gil Fronsdal

02:46

What is compassion? I almost don't want to define it too much. And sometimes I like to think that I don't really know exactly what it is, even though it's been one of the central organizing principles for my life, for much of my adult life. I can think of very few things that are more important for me in how I live and what motivates me and how I orient myself to the world than this compassion that's been awakened in me.

Gil Fronsdal

03:20

It's clearly very important for me. And so it may be a little bit odd for me to say I can't really define it exactly. And perhaps it's because over the years of my practice, what I have called compassion has changed over time. It may be, as I've developed, or as circumstances have changed, that the quality, the characteristics of compassion, have not stayed the same. And, in fact, maybe there are different forms of compassion. And, so in the course of time, we tap into these different forms, shapes, and characteristics of compassion. So we don't want to narrow it down to just one thing, "This is what it is."

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