So, welcome again, nice to see you all here.
And we are tonight, I'm going to talk about the idea of
compassion. Is that okay?
Yeah, give me permission? Okay, thank you.
I can go ahead. Just checking if everyone is
okay with that. So, I probably would talk about
that anyway, even if you didn't agree, so I was going to kind of
point this exercise. So, I'm going to talk about
compassion, and one of the things I want to do, as I always
like to do, is to compare the way the Buddha taught
compassion, how it is explained in the early suttas, and compare
that with how we do things today, and whether we are
getting it right. One of those things I always
like to focus on is what the Buddha taught, because the
Buddha is like the standard that we should follow.
If we understand what the Buddha taught, then we can maybe apply
these things in the right way. It's such an important way of
inquiring into what Buddhism is all about.
The Buddha was the one who, we have to assume, had some deep
insight into reality. If he didn't, the whole thing
kind of falls apart. So, that's why the Buddha's
teachings are special. So, what do we find in the early
Buddhist teachings about the idea of compassion?
You sure you want to leave already?
This is, you know, compassion is a good topic.
Sorry, I apologize for being naughty.
So, what we find, one of the interesting things that we find
in the life story of the Buddha is that very often when we look
at the life story of the Buddha, we talk about the idea of a
bodhisattva, a bodhisattva, someone who has been around for
a long time, for maybe many eons, and practicing it.
This is kind of the standard Buddhist view of how the Buddha
became the Buddha. So, he started, according to
this story, he started off four incalculable eons ago or
something like that, and he made a vow under a Buddha in the
past. So, there would be 28 Buddhas in
the past, and he was, this was called the Buddha Dipankara.
Dipankara, okay, Dipankara. And the, our Buddha that we are
still kind of following now, Buddha Gotama, he was not a
Sumedha at that time. And under this Buddha Dipankara,
he then makes supposed to made a vow and saying, I am going to
practice in such a way that I become a Buddha in the future.
And the idea behind this is the idea of compassion that lies
behind this, the idea that he can see the suffering in the
world, and he wants to help the whole world, and to do that, he
has to achieve awakening enlightenment, and then he
actually becomes the Buddha based on that idea of
compassion. That is what lies behind that
story. And this is kind of a
traditional story that you will read about in most Buddhist
countries, and you will find references in more obscure parts
of the Pali Canon as well to these kind of things, but is it
the word of the Buddha? And the answer is no.
So if it isn't the word of the Buddha, then is it true?
Did it really happen in this way?
And the answer is that this is really more to be understood as
a legend, a way of mythology of the Buddha, how we kind of came
to know the Buddha after he passed away.
And one of the things I always like to point out, you can
imagine if you have the greatest spiritual teacher in human
history, that's how I regard the Buddha, by a long way, right,
the greatest spiritual teacher in human history, and if you
have that, and one day he dies, imagine the impact on the
community. It would have been a very, very
powerful impact, a sense of loss would have been enormous, when
you touch a towering figure, where you always go to ask
questions about all kinds of things, and one day he's gone,
you can't ask questions anymore. What did you mean by this
master? That question can no longer
exist. It's a very, very difficult
period for that Buddhist community.
Imagine if the Buddhist society here lost Ajahn Brahm, where
would we be? It would be really different, it
would be a very different feeling in this Buddhist
society. So I tell you, practice now
while we still have spiritual geniuses like Ajahn Brahm
around, because it will not last all that long.
And yet Ajahn Brahm is not the Buddha, imagine if it was the
Buddha who disappeared, even more, far more powerful again.
And because of that, after the Buddha passes away, they start
to ask the question, well who was this teacher of ours?
We don't know that much about him, he told a few stories about
his life, we can kind of stitch that together and make a kind of
biography, but actually we don't really understand properly where
he came from. And then the story starts to get
developed, yeah, I think I remember he said something about
that, yeah, I better write that down.
And then gradually the story expands, and then later,
hundreds of years after the Buddha, you get scriptures, like
what is called the Charyapitaka, Charyapitaka means the basket of
conduct, which then explains the conduct of the Buddha over vast
amounts of time, and how he came to become the Buddha eventually.
But it's legend, it was created after the time of the Buddha.
If you really want to find out why the Buddha became the
Buddha, you have to go to the Suttas, the early discourse,
where the Buddha himself explains what he did.
And there, very interestingly, and this goes against the common
understanding of Buddhism, we do not find compassion as a
motivation for why the Buddha went forth, why he decided to
become a monk, why he decided to become awakened.
Isn't that kind of amazing? Have you ever thought of that
before? Maybe some of you have, maybe
some of you have heard of my Suttas before, probably heard of
these kind of things before, but it actually goes against the
whole idea of the Buddha. The Buddha is someone who
becomes awakened because of compassion for the world.
And when I now say, it's like I'm overturning the received
wisdom of so many generations of Buddhists.
But anyone who has read the Suttas will agree with me, they
will know that this is basically the truth.
So why did the Buddha, or the Buddha-to-be I should say, why
did he decide to renounce the ordinary life?
What was his motivation for doing that if it wasn't
compassion? And what the Buddha says in his
autobiography, because he will often tell his life, and he will
tell his life to inspire us to practice in the same way, so we
understand what he did, we should be doing the same thing.
And what he says was that he looked out across, he just
looked from his ordinary experience of life.
And when he saw in his ordinary experience of life the amount of
suffering that we have to go through, looking at his own life
really, and he saw in particular three things, and those three
things are illness, old age and death.
These are the three things that he was talking about, the three
things that he kind of, in a few different places he said was the
motivating factor for him to go forth.
It's kind of fascinating because it's really about he sees a
problem in his own life, and because he sees a problem in his
own life, he wants to find a solution to that problem, that's
why he decides to become a monk. This is really the thing, death
contemplation here is very central, the idea, I'm going to
die, so if I'm going to die, this world kind of loses a bit
of its luster, because all the things I accumulate, all the
things I build up, it's going to have to go.
This is what the Buddha talks about in the famous sutta known
as the Noble Search, called the Arya Pariessana Sutta in Pali, I
always like to use a few Pali words because it sounds really
cool, and people kind of, you kind of become more of a, get
more authority when you use some long difficult Pali words, Arya
Pariessana Sutta, and this sutta, it means the Noble
Search, the Buddha distinguishes between the Noble Search and the
Ignorable Search, and he says that, well I myself, I'm subject
to old age, death and illness, and then I go into the world,
and I seek other people, and other things that are also
subject to the same things, I might get myself a wife,
children, other relatives, I might get cattle or animals that
I kind of use for farming purposes, all of these things
are subject to exactly the same problem I am subject to, I'm
kind of multiplying, making a problem worse, yeah, and then I
attach to these things which is inevitable, we always have
attachments, and so we're actually making some, and that's
what he calls the Ignorable Search, when we go out into the
world searching for things that we attach to, and then that will
sooner or later have to die, have to pass away, have to
disappear from our life. The Buddha is pretty kind of, he
kind of doesn't, he really kind of lays down the law, and it's
kind of, it's very strong things, yeah, so he says, well
in that case what I should do instead is the Noble Search, not
the Ignorable Search, and the Noble Search, if I already have
a problem for myself, instead of seeking for other things that
also have the same problem, I should seek for something else,
I should seek for the end of the problem within me, the end of
old age, the end of illness, and most important of all, the end
of death, and then the search for the end of death, the
solution to that problem, that is what drives the Buddha to be,
to become a monastic. That is the reason, not really
compassion, yeah, or we can say maybe compassion for himself,
yeah, but not compassion for the whole world.
And there's something very powerful about that, yeah, and
one of the obvious reasons why that is correct, and why that
has to be the case, is that you need to know that there is a
solution to the problem before you can teach others.
Why have compassion for others is kind of assuming that you
find a solution. First of all you have to find
the solution, then the compassion will arise, I have a
solution, I know how I can help people, that's why you start
living as a Buddha. But I also just want to comment
briefly on this audacity of the Buddha, the idea that you see
that death is a problem, and then you say, oh yeah, death is
a problem, I'll find a solution to death.
Not many people think like that, it's really audacious, death is
like, no one ever thinks, yeah, I'm living here, let me just
walk into the bush and find a solution to death.
How many people do you know like that?
It's kind of, you think, oh yeah, you write them off as a
complete nutcase if they did that, no one finds a solution to
death by walking off into the bush, but that is pretty much
what the Buddha did. It's just kind of very
audacious, yeah, it's like there's something about death
which is inevitable, how can you possibly find a solution to
that? It just seems completely
impossible, so why even bother trying?
But that is what the Buddha did, and this is kind of one of the
things that make the Buddha such a powerful figure.
He was willing to challenge things and to do things that no
one else really was able or could do.
This is some of the spiritual power that the Buddha came with
when he was born into this world, that enabled him
eventually to become the Buddha. Some of these things about the
Buddha, you may not think about it when you read the suttas, but
there's something really extraordinary about that idea.
I'm just going to go into the forest and find a solution to
death. It's kind of mind boggling,
yeah. Of course, he lived in a society
where these kind of questions were asked, and that's why it
was probably a bit easier now, it's a bit different from just
walking into the bush here in Australia, but still, it's kind
of remarkable. So it wasn't really compassion,
it was finding a solution to the dying that was the problem, or
the motivation factor for the Buddha to be.
So then he goes off, he practices under a few teachers,
and obviously he has success under those teachers, but
doesn't find the final solution to what he's looking for.
Then he goes through the period of ascetic practices, if you
know the life of the Buddha, many of you here will know the
life of the Buddha fairly well, go through the period of ascetic
practices, that doesn't really work out.
And then he sort of, you know, he comes to a halt because
things aren't working out. So what should I do?
And then one night he has this insight, well, the ascetic
practices, the self-mortification they call it,
self-tortment if you like, just to be clear what this actually
means. Self-tortment doesn't work.
Indulging in the sensuality of the world doesn't work, because
he did that when he was kind of a young man living at home, he
had a wealthy upbringing, this is described in the suttas as
well, not super wealthy, but wealthy by the standards of the
time. And this doesn't work either,
what am I going to do? And then he decides, well the
path forward is actually this deep state of meditation called
the jhanas, that is the path forward.
And that is where he then discovered the awakening
experience after this profound state of samadhi.
This is sometimes called the night of his awakening, but we
don't really know if it was a night or it extended over a
longer period, probably extended over a longer period.
So that is the Buddha, that is how it reached his awakening.
What happened then after his awakening?
And then of course we assume that compassion would have to
arise at some point, but there is actually an interesting story
there as to how that happened. Obviously he became a teacher
eventually otherwise he wouldn't be here, so at some point the
compassion would have arisen in him.
How did that happen? And the way that it happened was
that initially the Buddha said, yeah I thought yeah too
difficult to teach the Dhamma, no one will understand anyway,
so I am just going to relax, I am going to chill, I am going to
meditate, I am going to attain jhanas.
He didn't use exactly those words, but you know kind of
roughly that kind of ballpark. And so he wasn't inclined to
teach in the Dhamma. And you can imagine if you have
just reached the most profound insight into the nature of
reality, into the nature of what it means to be a human being, it
is kind of hard to explain to others, right?
To say the least, it is kind of impossible, you can imagine how
even if you have a deep state of meditation it can be really hard
to explain to others what is going on.
And this is why you will hear sometimes in the spiritual world
you will hear people say, oh you know they have an ineffable
experience. And the idea, the word ineffable
means something that cannot be explained in words, it is beyond
being explained in words, that is why it is called ineffable.
And I would think that maybe that is what the Buddha felt,
this experience ineffable, it can't be explained to anyone, so
if you can't explain, no point in explaining.
So I am just going to enjoy my meditation or whatever, no point
in trying to do the impossible. And actually, if you look at
kind of the world outside of Buddhism as well, where you have
people who have good meditation experiences, often they call
these meditation experiences ineffable.
But actually they are not really ineffable, because once the
Buddha put his mind to it, he was able to explain these
experiences, regardless of how profound they were.
And this is one of those geniuses of the Buddha,
experienced that the vast majority of the world call
ineffable, the Buddha said, this is the way it is.
So he explains things like deep states of samadhi, the profound
stillnesses of the mind, called jhana experience and samadhi
experiences, and he explains it in a way that is kind of
extraordinary. And I know Ajahn Brahm said to
me, I don't know how the Buddha did that, how he was able to
explain the jhana in such a precise way, because these are
kind of otherworldly things, how can these things even be
explained? But this is part of the genius
of the Buddha, it can be explained.
And the reason it can be explained is that any experience
you have always has some tie to your ordinary experiences.
There is always something there that you can kind of grasp hold
of, and has some relation to the ordinary experiences, things
like joy and bliss and stillness.
These are ideas, we have some idea about them, and for that
reason you can explain even the most profound things in the
world. So the Buddha thought initially,
yeah, probably too ineffable, no need to try experiencing, and
then there is this beautiful legend and myth that kind of
comes into this teaching. Whether this really happened or
is mythology, I think it's mythology, there is some
evidence for that, I'm not going to go into that evidence here
and now. This is a story of this Brahma,
a Brahma is like this very high divine being, it's like a divine
being who kind of encompasses the whole universe, if you like.
And this Brahma happened to be a mate of the Buddha in a previous
life. So I'm going to check out, see
how my mate, Gautama is doing. So he comes down to the Buddha
and he realises the Buddha has had some profound experience,
because this Brahma obviously also had some very deep
meditation previously. And he comes down to the Buddha
and he bows down to the Buddha and he says, please, Master,
please teach, please teach out of compassion for the world.
Please teach, because if you don't teach, there are many
beings out there with little dust in their eyes, and if you
don't teach them, they will have serious problems, it will be a
disaster for them. They have little dust in their
eyes, they will understand the teaching if you start teaching
them. So this is where the compassion
starts to arise, it's like you have to ignite that little spark
in the mind of the Buddha to get him going, to get him started,
and then he gets the motivating factor that enables him then to
kind of do something that drives him in the right direction.
And then the Buddha listens to the Brahma, and then when he
listens to the Brahma afterwards, he says to this
Brahma, he says, well it was because I thought no one would
understand, that is why I didn't teach the Dhamma.
But thank you for, I didn't say thank you for asking, what did
it say again? He says something like that, and
he says, now the doors to the deathless are open, I will open
the doors to the deathless for them.
And this is kind of the saying that I will teach about Nibbana
and the highest spiritual practices.
And then he surveys the world, he surveys the world with the
Buddha eye, seeing beings in various kind of states of
spiritual qualities or whatever, and then he sees, this is where
the word compassion comes in, he surveys the world out of
compassion, and he sees being with weak and strong faculties,
with good and bad qualities, beings that are advanced and
beings that are not advanced. And when he sees that, then he
makes the determination to teach.
That is where the compassion comes in.
The Buddha sees beings in the world in this way, then the
compassion arises. So the idea of compassion is
like this broad idea, it is not focused on individuals, it is
not focused on anyone in particular, it is this broad
idea of understanding the suffering in the world, and the
knowledge inside of you that you have, that you can help, because
you have found a solution to precisely this problem.
That is what the search about finding the end of death is
about. It is about finding the end,
finding the solution to the problem of suffering, because it
is as if the idea of death, it encompasses all the suffering of
life within it, because that is when you have to let go in such
a big way. So this is where it kind of
arises, and that is where the kind of the whole impulse of the
Buddha, the compassion of the Buddha comes from.
And one of the things that is very interesting here is that
you will notice that the only thing that drives the Buddha to
do anything is compassion. This is the thing that
motivates, there is nothing else to drive a Buddha to do anything
in the world, because the Buddha doesn't have any self-interest,
he doesn't think, yeah, I am going to get rich, if I teach, I
have deep knowledge, I will get many people to support me, I
will get many disciples, it is cool to have disciples, it gives
him more power and these kind of things.
The Buddha didn't have any ego anymore, it was all gone, he
didn't want to amass anything external.
When you are a Buddha, all you want to do is sit in deep
meditation, because that is where you find the greatest
satisfaction. External things, at best, at the
best, there are distractions to the inner happiness.
The last thing you want is many disciples, the last thing you
want is riches and fame, because it destroys your ability to have
deep meditation. So there is nothing in that
world that is of any interest. Ordinary teachers in the world,
they teach for a salary, or they may teach because of whatever
reason, for whatever it is to maybe have people listen to them
or whatever, but the Buddha is different.
There is no vested interest that kind of drives him to teach, it
is only coming from compassion, nothing else.
It is actually a hassle for the Buddha to have to teach, he
would rather avoid it, but still he does it.
Why does he do it? Because he has our best interest
at heart, because he is there to help each one of us.
He taught to help you, you, you, you, you, you, that is what he
taught. Because remember one of my
favourite ideas about the Buddha, when he started teaching
two and a half thousand years ago, he knew that there were
people far away in the future who would teach these teachings.
So he did have compassion for everyone who was to listen to
those teachings. So he did have compassion for
everyone of us here today, for me, Venum Etijit, Venum
Vipassitoh, our president, Hok Chen, everyone here today, he
had compassion for you. Isn't that kind of amazing to
think about that? He gave these teachings for your
purpose. This is the greatest spiritual
genius in the world who taught specifically for you.
Take that on board, and when you take that on board, next time
you read the Buddha's teachings, they will feel very different to
you. Here is someone talking to you
purely out of kindness because he cares for your well-being.
He'd rather not teach because it's still a hassle for him, he
does it anyway because he does it out of kindness.
Read those sutras and they start to look different because
suddenly every word matters. Yeah, well he's saying this to
me, I better read this carefully.
You don't become so critical anymore because you understand
that these teachings are coming from compassion.
They're not said to kind of give you a hard time or anything,
even if he might tell you things that at first sight may seem,
wow, that's asking a bit too much, because you know, or at
least you think, or you have good reason to think that it's
coming from compassion. You take even the difficult
teachings seriously, you take them on board, you think, yeah,
let me think about that, let me not reject it out of hand
because there's something very profound going on here.
So the idea that these teachings of the Buddha come from
compassion is a very beautiful idea that allows you to open up
your mind, open up your heart and receive these teachings in a
more profound way. I'm not saying you should
discard the critical faculties, never discard the critical
faculties. Because there are always issues,
there are always problems about how it relates to you, there are
always textual problems. But I'm also saying, don't be
too critical, don't come with a kind of fault-finding mind when
you read these things. Find that middle way, we take on
board the good teachings in a positive spirit, knowing that
they're coming from compassion. Not just compassion, also from
wisdom, the highest wisdom of understanding the human
connection. Kind of powerful, isn't it?
The highest wisdom of understanding, fully the human
condition, combined with compassion is kind of, really
kind of awesome when you hear that.
So this is the Buddha, yeah, this is who the Buddha is,
driven by compassion. He is compassion, if you like,
compassion incarnate, compassion and wisdom in the flesh, that is
who the Buddha is. So then the question arises, do
we practice that compassion like the Buddha, or at least a little
bit like the Buddha? I'm not saying you should go out
and teach the whole world, you don't have to do that, but a
little bit like the Buddha, are we leaning in the right
direction, or are we sometimes getting it a bit wrong?
And I want to talk about some of the pitfalls, first of all,
about when we practice compassion.
And sometimes when you read about Buddhist practitioners
around the world, you realize that sometimes they get it
completely wrong. They have misunderstood what the
idea of compassion is. I remember some time ago I was
reading about these practitioners who had this
practice of taking on the whole pain of the world.
This is kind of one of these practitioners, all the pain in
the world, they want to take it on.
And what they said was the result of that, after doing that
for a long period of time, they lost all their energy, they lost
their ability to function in an ordinary way, because it was
just too overwhelming. They were emotionally kind of
malfunctioning almost, and they were blocked inside because the
pain was just so overwhelming, they didn't know how to deal
with it. And so this is doing it in the
wrong way. And what is wrong with that is
basically the idea that you are, when you take on the pain of the
world, what you are doing is a kind of empathy.
And this is one of the first things that we need to
distinguish on the Buddhist path, is make the distinction
between empathy on the one hand and compassion on the other
hand. These are two quite separate
things, and unless we understand and separate these things apart,
we can actually go wrong. And this is what happened here,
these practitioners basically going the wrong way.
So the difference between empathy and compassion, and this
was nicely summarized in something I read not so long
ago, is that empathy is feeling with, whereas compassion is
feeling for. Feeling with versus feeling for.
And when you feel with, it is like you take on the other
person's pain, you are there, you almost feel what they are
feeling. And there is nothing kind of
inherently wrong with that, sometimes that is the case.
If you are with someone in great pain, you will feel some of
their pain, you know what that can be like sometimes.
But it is important not to take that too far, it is important to
transform that, going from empathy and moving on to
compassion. That is the critical thing that
we need to do. So we don't get stuck in this
thing that can drain you of energy, and move towards
something which instead of just draining you of energy, looks
for a solution to the problem. If you think back to what the
Buddha was doing, the Buddha was saying, okay I have the solution
to the problem of humanity, I know the answer what everyone is
looking for. That is why he had compassion
for the world, he wanted to help.
So compassion is this urge to help, this urge to care for,
look after, to make sure people are okay, and that they are safe
in a sense. That is the idea of compassion.
It is a positive thing, it is a positive movement forward, that
is what compassion is about. Whereas empathy is taking on
board all of these emotions of other people.
And so it can be problematic, it is problematic also for other
reasons, empathy. Empathy often has to do with
individuals. When you feel with somebody, it
is usually an individual person that you feel with.
And because you feel with that person, then you want to help
that particular person perhaps. So you get kind of a narrow
field of understanding, a narrow field of action, focusing on
individuals. But the Buddhist idea is really
to broaden out your mind, and to have that compassion for the
whole world. Not focus on individuals, where
you kind of get this narrow sense of morality, which doesn't
really spread out to the whole world.
And you want to kind of spread it out, make it broad and wide,
that encompasses everything, rather than being narrow and
being selective in that way. So there is a lot to be said for
compassion. So what the Buddha was doing was
not really empathy, because when he was looking at the whole
world, he saw the general suffering in the world, and he
wanted to find, he wanted to help with a solution to that
problem. That was compassion, that was
what the Buddha was doing. So the Pali word behind this is
karuna, and karuna then means compassion and not empathy.
It's one of those important points.
I remember myself sometimes, we do quite a bit of walking
meditation at our monastery. I don't know if you have been
down to our monastery. Have you been to our monastery?
Anyone hasn't been to our monastery?
You should come down and check it out.
Come down, on a day, we have an open day, you can see where the
monks live in the forest, these kind of things, and one of the
things that you will see, you have a small kuti.
Kuti is like a hut, seven square meters, something like that,
that's where we live. But one of the most important
parts of the kuti is that it has a walking path attached to it.
So you can walk back and forth, called walking meditation, and
they did that at the time of the Buddha, it's called chankama in
the Suttism. And so this is actually a very
nice thing to do. If you sit too long, it comes a
point when you need a bit of walking, so you go out and you
walk. And because the walking path is
outside, even though it has a roof, it is open on the sides,
it's a half wall, very often you get insects coming onto the
walking path. And you get maybe ants coming
in, or you get these centipedes coming in, these are the two
most common creatures we find on our walking path.
And when you get that, well, when you start out as a
Buddhist, okay, I have to keep my precepts, I better get rid of
those ants, I don't step on them, I go tuk tuk tuk, get rid
of the ants. Not much compassion there, just
get rid of them because I'm keeping my precepts.
I don't really care so much about you, but I've got to keep
my precepts. And this is quite a common
feeling in Buddhism, we have to keep our precepts, it doesn't
necessarily mean that we come from compassion.
So remember that keeping the precept of not killing, that's
only the beginning. But what you really want to do
is you want to evolve that into real compassion for those
beings. That's when that first precept
really is powerful and really useful.
You want to go from just being kind out of obligation, out of
kind of habit or whatever, to be real kindness from inside.
That's just what I could see happening in me over the years,
it's kind of interesting to see that happening with yourself.
Initially ants get out of the way, you're in the way, I'm
walking meditation here. You're bothering me, stupid
ants, can't you understand? And then over time something
happens in you, and you actually, when there is an ant
there, you kind of get this feeling, I don't want to destroy
this life. It feels really wrong to want to
destroy life. It's bad, you know that this
little being there, he wants to live, just like you want to
live. The distance between us and an
ant isn't that great after all. We both want to live, we both
want to be as happy as we possibly can.
How can I destroy that life? And there's no way you would
want to step on an ant, no way after a while.
You always step to the side if you can.
And then when it comes to sweeping the ants or the
centipedes off the path, you're no longer kind of brusque, but
you gently sweep them aside, in a gentle way, and you wish them
well, you know, somewhere else. There's a little bit of
self-interest there of course, but that's kind of required.
Okay, so off you go, yeah, out of the way.
And it's such a beautiful transformation when you see
that. And I was just working in the
forest, we're working together, we're marking up some areas,
we're going to build walking paths in the forest, and we had
all these marsh flies, you know the marsh flies?
These kind of really large, blood-sucking creatures.
And I was still having, I must admit, I was having a bit of
difficulty having compassion for these marsh flies.
Especially when there's ten of them ganging together, kind of
attacking you from all sides. Did you have a hard time having
compassion for them, or were you kind of...
You left me alone. You left you alone, you were
going after me, that's true. Okay, well that's really unfair
for you. But that's compassion, that's
one way of understanding what compassion is.
Because with that ant, you don't really have empathy for the ant,
because you don't really know what they feel.
Ant is kind of too hard to know what they feel, but you
certainly can have compassion for the ant, because you know
that they want to live, just like you want to live.
It's interesting, I was reading some scientific findings
recently about insects and people are discovering that
insects have more and more of the same qualities like all
other animals have and human beings have, that they want to
live, they want pleasure, all of these things, they have
gradually finding out the secrets of the insect's life as
well. And of course we could have told
them long ago, being Buddhists, but science needs to find out at
its own pace, right? So gradually we're kind of
uncovering these things, which is great.
So that is the idea of compassion.
Develop that in your life, develop that not only towards
insects, but a bit towards people as well.
Sometimes it's easier towards animals than to people, because
people are kind of so complicated, you don't know what
you're doing sometimes. But anyway, of course we have
compassion for everyone. That is the first problem we
have to be careful with, that is the idea of compassion, empathy.
Compassion is okay, empathy can be problematic, not always, it
can be. The second thing that we have to
be careful with is pity. Pity is sometimes a
condescending feeling. Pity is like you look a little
bit down upon the other person, you think, yeah, they are
suffering, they have miserable sod, and you're looking down
upon the person, because you think that they are just living
under a bridge or whatever, and they are not really looking
after themselves, they could have done better if they wanted
to, they deserve a little bit of compassion, but yeah, I will
look down upon them. And this is actually a fairly
common problem. People say this to me, they say
that, probably to all monks, they say that, well, I try to be
compassionate, I try to be kind to people, but then I look down
upon them at the same time. How do I avoid that?
This is another enemy of compassion, the idea of pity,
when we are condescending towards other people, we'd like
to help others, but we don't really want to be helped so much
ourselves, we feel that we want to be independent, but we're
happy to help others. It's like you're putting
yourself in a slightly higher position, and of course straight
away when you put yourself in a higher position, other people
have to be relatively lower, that's just the way things are.
So how do we overcome that problem?
Because apparently it is quite common.
Well, the way to overcome that is to remember that we also have
been in that position before. Maybe you see a poor person
sleeping rough in the city, we also have slept rough probably
in the past life, and unless we get out of this human condition,
we will probably do it again in the future.
So when you see that poor person, person in great
difficulty, person with great illness, person wallowing in
whatever misery they have in their life, see yourself in that
person, that's me in there, that is already inside of me waiting
to come out. When you see someone with really
bad cancer, emaciated, and really in a terrible state, that
is me right there. And when you make that jump and
you say this is me, you can no longer look down upon them
because you're looking down upon yourself if you look down upon
that person. But all of these different
people in the world, whatever they are, they're already inside
of us waiting to come out, given the right cause and conditions
they will come out. It's a powerful way of thinking
about life, yeah, because it makes you able to sympathise and
to have compassion for everyone in the world without conceit,
without looking down upon anyone, but having a sense of
equality, we're all in this together, you are sick, actually
it's my problem too, that's why I will help you, because if I
help you, I'm actually helping myself, because I will one day
be in the same position. That is the way to think about
it. And when you think about it that
way, you won't have this problem of feeling pity or condescension
towards those people who are in an unfortunate situation in this
world. So try to avoid those two
problems, yeah, not too much empathy, pity, if it is of the
condescending variety, avoid that of course.
So what should we do then? And first of all, before I
discuss briefly a little bit more about what to do, I want to
make a distinction also between metta and karuna, between loving
kindness and compassion. And this is an important
distinction to make, and one of the things that you find in the
suttas, the word of the Buddha, is that these are part of the
four Brahma Viharas, which literally means something like
divine abidance. So when you practice these
qualities, it's like a divine abidance, says the Buddha.
Why is that? Well, because these kind of gods
in the very high realms, they got reborn in those realms
because they had those qualities.
So you are developing kind of god-like qualities inside of
yourself, if you have lots of loving kindness.
Kind of nice, isn't it? You're coming closer to the
gods, and the gods are beautiful beings.
They are radiant because their good qualities show in their
body as well. They are radiant, splendid.
I don't know if you believe in these gods, but I believe in
them. The Buddha said they are there,
it's because the Buddha said so. I think they are there, not just
the Buddha. I know many people who say they
are there. So you are developing these
divine qualities inside of yourself.
That's why they are called Brahma Viharas.
But the interesting thing, there are four Brahma Viharas.
The first one is Metta, loving kindness.
The second one is Karuna, compassion.
One of the things about the Buddhist teachings is that
nothing is really random. Sequences are there for a
purpose. So if Metta comes first, there
is a reason for that. And the reason is that Metta is
a quality that you cannot really get wrong.
Because Metta, loving kindness or friendliness, this is the
idea of seeing the good qualities of people around us.
If you have a good friend, why are they a good friend?
They are a good friend because you see the good qualities in
that person. If you saw only bad qualities,
then you wouldn't be a friend, right?
And the closer friends they are, the more you see their good
qualities. The Pali word Mitta is related
to the word Mitta. Mitta means friend in Pali.
Mitra. Mitra, we have one of our core
members of the Buddhist side, his name is Mitra, his surname.
It's an Indian name, means friend.
It's nice, isn't it? That's your family name.
So this is the first thing. So seeing good qualities in
other people is always positive. So whenever we have the
opportunity to see good qualities in others, we should
see them. And it's not that difficult when
you are part of a Buddhist society like this, to see good
qualities in the people around you.
Because there are so many good qualities here.
And there are so many people who are at least trying.
What a wonderful thing that is that people are at least trying.
They may not be perfect, actually they are probably not
perfect, but they are leaning in the right direction.
And that in itself is a very beautiful and honorable thing
that is worthy of our respect. So it's not hard.
Look around you. Don't fall far too much with
your fellows here in the Buddhist society because these
are all good people. I usually ask people, is there
anyone here who is not good? No one ever raises their hand,
so you are all good. So that's okay.
It's okay to feel that you are a good person.
It's a good feeling inside, you feel a sense of warmth for
yourself. It's okay to feel that.
Don't make it into an ego thing. It's perfectly okay to feel that
you are a good person. So that is the first part.
Then comes compassion. And the reason why compassion
comes second, compassion is a little bit more tricky.
It's more easy to go wrong. Too much empathy paralyzes you,
too much pity, and you become condescending.
It is more kind of enemies, more areas to go wrong with
compassion. And that's why, metta comes
first, then comes compassion. In reality, we have to develop
both almost at the same time because we cannot always have
metta. It isn't always possible to see
good qualities in other people or in animals, then compassion
comes in. But remember that kind of
hierarchy. So how does Buddha describe this
compassion in the suttas? I've already given you some
examples from the Buddha's own life, but one of the most
memorable ways that he describes it, and this gives you a very
nice idea for what it actually means in the suttas.
And the Buddha says, imagine, imagine that there is a person
and they are walking along a wilderness track.
There is no one around, there is no people to support them or to
help them, there is no village, the next village is far away,
both before and ahead of you, and this person then falls ill.
They become sick while walking along this wilderness track.
There is no one to help them. So what is your feeling for that
person when that happens? You see that happening, you are
looking from afar, you can't really intervene because you are
too far away, or whatever, it's like you are seeing them on TV
or something like that. And the feeling that arises
inside of you is, may this person find a doctor, may they
find some medicine, may they find a nurse to help them, may
they find some supportive people somewhere that can support them.
Why? Because if they don't get some
support, they will surely die right there on that forest
track. That is compassion, this sense
of distance, you are not right there with them, you can't
really see their feelings, but you wish them well, you are
looking for a solution to the problem, may they find a
solution, it's like you are caring for that person, that's
the idea, that idea of caring and helping, wanting them out of
that situation, that is what compassion is about.
Because it's very clear when you see that particular simile in
the suttas, that is what we are striving for.
So first metta, first the loving kindness to the people around
you, then this kind of compassion where you want to
help and you want to support people around you, you never
want to hurt anyone. The Buddha says that if you
develop compassion fully, you cannot hurt another being.
Because if you can hurt another being, he says, well it means
that you haven't developed compassion fully.
So you need to carry it on, you need to take it further.
So how can we do this in our own life?
One of the most important places to have compassion is towards
yourself. There is a nice finding in
psychology for example, that self-compassion is a very
powerful way of dealing with the problems in life and problems in
the world. So make sure you have compassion
for yourself. And when you have compassion for
yourself, you will have compassion for others because it
never stops with oneself, it goes out to others as well.
And when you have compassion for others, you will have compassion
for yourself because you can't really distinguish, these are
feelings that kind of go everywhere.
But have compassion for yourself.
And I recently had the experience, I was talking to
someone quite recently who was a person in great distress because
they said they had done some awful things in their life and
they weren't able to forgive themselves.
And I told this person that you know, you need to have
compassion for yourself. This is crazy the way you are
judging yourself so harshly. You are a good person, look at
your background, you have done all these other things.
And I realised fairly quickly that this person was not able to
see that, wasn't able to have compassion.
It was like they were blocked from that ability.
So please develop this, because when you develop this, it means
that when you make a mistake, and we are all going to make
mistakes, it means you will be able to let go, to forgive
yourself and then also have compassion for yourself at the
same time. It's beautiful when we can do
that towards ourselves. Instead of carrying along all of
this guilt and all of these negative things from the past,
we can let it go and have compassion.
And remember how you do that. Remember that man or that person
on the forest track walking around in the wilderness and
then getting sick. That is what you are like.
You are like this man walking or this person walking along the
wilderness track. You don't really know what is
going on, suddenly you just get sick out of nowhere.
The sickness here means that one day you start doing something
stupid. You don't really know why.
It is something that has come within you, somewhere from the
past, a bad habit that you carry from a past life, some kind of
program that you are playing at which was laid down in your
mind, in your heart, eons, long, long time ago, many lifetimes
ago, it's playing out again inside of you.
You don't know why it is there. This idea of compassion is an
idea of non-self. It is an idea that as human
beings we are so conditioned by our circumstances, by the people
in our life, by our schooling, by everything that has happened
since we were born, but also in past life.
And past life is like this black box.
We don't know what happened in the past life, but we know there
is something there. If you open up that black box,
no, best not to open up, leave that black box closed because
there is endless of stuff from the past.
But you know something has brought you to this point.
You are blind, you are following along pretty much like a robot.
And the more, that was tough, robots, so you are almost like a
robot. You are going through these
spaces without understanding where it comes from.
And then the more you see that in yourself, this idea of
non-self, of not really being in charge of your own life, means
you have compassion for yourself.
I didn't know what I was doing. I was in the darkness.
How could I do that? Well, actually I could because
of that conditioning from the past.
And then you learn from your mistake.
You know now you shouldn't be doing it again.
This is critical. You can't just have compassion
and not learn, because if you don't learn you will do it
again. And eventually you run out of
compassion even for yourself and then you have a serious problem.
So absolutely learn from it. And then at the same time have
compassion, because you know that you are not really very
much in charge of your own existence at all.
And then you can move forward. Then you can learn, you can
change the trajectory of your life.
You can have changed those habit patterns that have been laid
down for such a long period. And you can become a far better
person. Compassion makes you resilient.
It makes you able to deal with these difficulties that come
into your life when you make a mistake, when you go wrong.
It makes you able to take the admonishment of other people.
If someone says to you, you know, may I say something to
you? Yeah.
You think, I'm not sure if you're sure about that.
But if you have compassion for yourself you can take these
things, because you know that whatever that person says,
whether it's right or wrong, you will be able to deal with it,
because you know that, okay, if they're right, actually it is an
opportunity for me to improve myself.
It's one of those nice little verses that you see in the
suttas, where the Buddha says that when someone is criticising
you or giving you admonishment, they are showing you a treasure.
Sometimes we're not clear about ourselves.
Sometimes we don't see ourselves very clearly.
We don't really know what our own character is, because we're
too close to ourselves. And sometimes it takes someone
on the outside to point out things.
So they're showing you a treasure, because they give you
the opportunity to overcome that hurdle, whatever it might be.
So listen to criticism. Not always, because sometimes it
is unfair, sometimes it is unreasonable, but often there
may be some truth in it. So ask yourself, could it be
that they are right? And it may be painful initially
to admit that maybe there's a kernel of truth there, but once
you admit that to yourself and you combine that with
self-compassion, then you can grow as a human being.
You can grow on the path. You can overcome some of those
obstacles that have been in the way for you for a long time.
You wonder why is my meditation improving?
Maybe that's the reason. And I know this from personal
experience, because I have also been criticised sometimes, been
told off, you are this kind of person.
I thought, wait a minute, what are you talking about?
And initially you get a bit defensive, you know what it's
like. But then you reflect, do they
have a point? I always try to reflect when I
am criticised. Do they have a point?
And then usually you will find that there is maybe a little bit
at least in a character which has a little bit of that flaw.
And then you ask yourself, well, you know, maybe they are right
to some extent. How, what can I do to overcome
that flaw in my character? And in this way it can become
useful. Don't listen to criticism too
much, because sometimes it gets out of hand, but occasionally
when you feel that maybe this is the right time to criticise or
to listen, especially when someone is coming from a good
place, then you can listen to what they have to say.
It makes you very resilient when you do this.
So have compassion for yourself in this way.
And then it starts to become something very powerful in your
own life, helping you to let go, helping you to forgive, helping
you to move forward on the path. But the Buddha's idea of
compassion is an idea of joy. It is an idea that is supposed
to elevate us. If you practise compassion in
the right way, instead of depleting our energy that
empathy can do in certain circumstances, it gives rise to
energy. It gives rise to this urge to
help. It gives rise to joy inside when
you do it in the right way. And there is a beautiful story,
this is a story that is in that coronavirus book.
I don't know if you have read the coronavirus, actually
coronavirus, right? Corona means compassion, right?
So this is actually, yes, compassion.
I should have mentioned that book in the talk tonight.
There is a nice book that we printed for Ajahn Brahm's 70th
birthday called coronavirus. Corona, corona, almost the same.
So in Buddhism we have the corona, in the world they have
the coronavirus. We have the coronavirus, the
virus of compassion spreading out in society.
That is what we are trying to achieve here.
So in that book there is a story which many of you may have heard
before, but I am going to repeat it anyway.
So whether you like it or not, no compassion, right?
It is kind of forcing a story onto it.
Some of you may not have heard this story.
This is a story from a pilgrimage in India.
Every few years we go on pilgrimage in India and we try
to see some of those ancient holy sites of Buddhism.
Many of you have been there before.
Yes, maybe you have been there before.
Some of you have not. The Buddha said that there are
these four holy places that we should ideally, if we can, visit
while we are alive to get some inspiration, have some
connection with the Buddha, a physical connection, go to the
places where he is. I talked about pilgrimages here
before. I am not going to elaborate too
much on it now. There are four places in
particular that the Buddha said we should visit.
The place where he was born, Lumbini in present-day Nepal.
The place where he attained awakening, Bodh Gaya in India
and the Bihar state south of the river Ganges, south of Patna.
Then the place where he taught his first teaching, that is when
the Dhamma started, that is in the Deer Park in Varanasi, which
is an ancient city in India on the river Ganges, and the last
place where the Buddha passed away here, Kushinara, north of
the river Ganges. These are the four places.
Of course, Ajahn Brahm, he has led a few pilgrimages to these
places and many more places as well.
Some of these places are now getting very, very touristy.
I would recommend you, the sooner you go, the better,
because they are getting more touristy every blooming year.
Every year. More and more people coming,
more and more noisy, more and more people from all kinds of
backgrounds. Some of them have a quiet time,
some of them are walking, have big ghetto blasters and giving
Dhamma talks, and loud chanting and these kinds of things.
This is what these places have become a little bit.
Check it out. One of the things when you have
these large tourist places, it attracts a lot of beggars.
These beggars in India are probably some of the most
insistent beggars you have ever met in your entire life.
They cling on to you and they don't leave until they get
something from you. That's how they function.
It doesn't matter what you say, it doesn't matter what you do,
it doesn't matter if you completely, utterly call them,
ignore them. Nothing works.
They will kind of grasp on to you until they get something
from you. Except this one occasion.
And this is what is so cool. This was kind of Ajahn Brahm's
method of getting rid of beggars.
But actually the point was it wasn't a method of getting rid
of beggars. It was just accidental.
This is kind of the point. Ajahn Brahm, like everyone else,
he also has a beggar walking next to him.
This was a Bodhgaya. Venerable sir, give some money
in that kind of language there. Give something useful amongst
having money. Just take out your wallet and
give me a few rupees or whatever.
Insisting. Ajahn Brahm tells him, I'm a
monk, I don't have any money. Bakshish, bakshish, give, give.
I don't have any money. Bakshish, bakshish.
That's how it goes on. You can't get rid of them.
And then something happened. And this is kind of the
beautiful thing. Ajahn Brahm looked at this
beggar and he realised this is a person in very difficult
situation. Maybe being used by some kind of
begging syndicate. Miserable with all his limbs
kind of crooked and bent and distorted in all kinds of
terrible ways. Dragging himself along with his
hands and his arms. Ajahn Brahm realised what kind
of the pain and the suffering and the problem of this beggar.
So he took hold of the beggar and gave the beggar a hug.
This is in India. They are dirty.
They are, you don't know whether they are criminals.
You have no idea who they are. Ajahn Brahm gave them a hug
because Ajahn Brahm realised this is a fellow human being in
great suffering, in great pain. It's a powerful moment when you
do that. You create this connection
between human beings. Which probably, maybe this
person has never been hugged in his whole life.
Because when you are in such a miserable condition, maybe you
were stolen from your mum as a baby or something like that.
Who knows what the background was.
And that was like the transforming moment.
At that point you had transferred something far, far
more important than money. You had transferred a direct
human connection. And of course from then on that
beggar left Ajahn Brahm alone. Ajahn Brahm wasn't trying to get
rid of the beggar at all. Ajahn Brahm made a connection to
another human being. And the result was that that
beggar left Ajahn Brahm alone. It was like the instant coming
result. So it's a beautiful example of
compassion. And you can see how compassion
like that gives rise to joy. The beggar then had a smile on
his face for the first time for a long time.
Felt some real love in this human realm, which can be so
hard to find sometimes. And then he went off and did
whatever. This is what we are trying to
do. Don't have to go hug all the
beggars in India. Please don't try that.
If you try, likely it will fail. There has to be something that
happens spontaneously, naturally.
If you try to do it, it's not going to work.
But live these kinds of ideas in your ordinary life.
Have compassion for people. Help out when you can, when
somebody is in need. And when you do that, you will
be able to build up that joy inside of yourself.
And then you are on this beautiful ladder.
This thing I talked about when I gave a talk here last time, the
idea of the dependent liberation ladder, from that joy, that is
the starting point that allows your meditation to develop and
allows your mind to go into deep states of stillness and samadhi.
That is where it comes from. From the joy comes the
tranquility, from the bliss and happiness comes the stillness of
the mind. Because happiness draws the mind
in and it allows the mind to become still as a consequence.
This is then becomes the power of your meditation.
Or, as the Buddha said, another way of doing this, is once you
start to give rise to that feeling of compassion, when you
bring it into your meditation, you can expand it out to the
whole universe, gradually stage by stage.
Because there are beings in this universe, wherever you go in
this universe, even if you go to far distant galaxies, there will
be aliens, aliens also need compassion.
Isn't that right? Aliens also suffering.
Why? Because they live in a world
just like ours. They probably look a bit like us
anyway. So the whole universe is
pervaded with life. So spread out your compassion to
the whole universe. And as you spread it out in this
way, you are doing this Brahma-Bihara practice, as
described in the suttas. And if you do it in the right
way, building it up, building it up, it then also takes you to
the deep states of samadhi as a consequence.
So this is what we are trying to do with compassion.
You live it out in daily life, bring it back to your meditation
practice, and eventually it will be a support for attaining deep
states of samadhi. And of course that in turn will
then take you all the way to awakening, if you keep on
practicing even further. Okay, everyone, that is the talk
for tonight. So if anyone would like to ask
any questions or comment or whatever, this is your chance.
Hi Ajahn. Yes.
Now we know why you are a great Dharma speaker.
Okay, a question now. So even in the Buddhist BSWA
committee, sometimes we have disagreement.
How do we use compassion to overcome when we discuss tough
subjects? Yes, what you have to do is you
have to always assume that the other person is trying to do the
right thing. They are trying to do what is
right from their angle, from their point of view, and they
actually want to be helpful. And when you see that they want
to be helpful, then you can say respectfully, I disagree, I look
at this in a different way. And then if both people come
with that sense of compassion in their heart, when they meet in a
discussion, usually you are able to resolve it quite nicely.
It is just a matter of respecting the other person.
And one of the things for me is that we are, as a Buddhist
society, we should always emphasize that the spiritual
qualities come prior to resolving world issues.
We are not here to kind of optimize the kind of income of
the Buddhist society. That is not the main point.
The main point is to develop spiritual qualities.
And even if the income is not as optimal as it could be, or we
don't have as big a building as we could optimally have, it is
okay. Sometimes we just take a bit
more time, and we ensure that we do things with harmony and
compassion for each other rather than doing it just because we
need to solve things. Sometimes you have to solve
things straight away, and that is why you have to be really,
really careful because the pressure is on.
Sometimes we have time limits and things.
But we try to take things a little bit less seriously.
We were just driving here today. We were coming here and we had
some detours on the way, and maybe we started a little bit
too late from the monastery. We were just making time for the
meeting today. And so our drivers started to
drive a bit fast, going in and out of traffic, back and forth.
And I said to him, just relax, it is okay.
Even if we are late, it doesn't matter, we are fine there.
And we can resolve those committee issues later on if
necessary. That is what I felt at the time
was the right kind of approach. And I think if we can, always
put the Dhamma first, secondary the worldly issues.
Eddie! Ajahn Brahmali, it is really,
really, really nice to hear a Theravada monk mention about
compassion. When I heard it, I thought, is
it turning into Mahayana or Vajrayana, Tibetan Buddhism?
Because from my understanding, the Theravada Buddhists, we
don't emphasize on compassion, but on the Buddha's teachings,
mind, feelings, all that. But the Mahayana, they have Kuan
Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion.
They emphasize on compassion, and the great compassion mantra.
So there is an emphasis on all this chanting on compassion.
And they even have Kuan Yin, whereby when they have problems,
they ask, is the bodhisattva of compassion, ask for help from
Kuan Yin. And the other thing is the...
I wouldn't recommend that part, but anyway.
The other thing is Tibetan Buddhism, they have bodhicitta,
that is compassion, and Chenreksit, the Buddha of
compassion too. So sometimes, you know, like
a... You see, I mean, that's the wide
range of Buddhism, you know. And then you mention these
things, so it should be... How to say, like maybe adopt...
That's okay to adopt bits and pieces, isn't it?
Sorry? It's okay to...
You know, our teaching, okay, is more towards the Buddha, our
practice, you know. We do the practice...
I think that's a misunderstanding.
And I think this is what you often hear.
You hear that, oh, you are a selfish Hinayana, or selfish
Arahants, and this kind of thing.
But it's a misunderstanding of how the Buddhist path works.
You cannot be selfish if you're going to have success on this
path. You have to actually give up
selfishness. Selfishness is one of the
fundamental things you have to give up.
And one of the things you find in the suttas, that for example,
if you want to enter a state of deep samadhi, you have to
perfect your generosity already. You can't hold anything back.
You have to be wanting to give to the whole world.
Because this idea of giving to the whole world, that is the
state of perfect generosity. And it's a beautiful state when
you have these kind of feelings, even if you have them only
partially, they're very beautiful states.
So it is a complete... It's actually a profound
misunderstanding that Theravada Buddhism or Arahants are
selfish. They are the exact opposite.
They are completely giving. In fact, you can tell someone's
degree of awakening by seeing how selfless they are.
That's why you see it. So this is...
It's true that they focus more on compassion in the Mahayana
tradition. But it's fully part of the
Theravada or early Buddhist tradition anyway.
Let's call it early Buddhist tradition instead.
It's fully part of that. And if you read the suttas, the
word compassion occurs hundreds of times in the suttas.
Also, the reason why I ask is because I saw myself as a
Theravadist, okay? I have a kuan yi at home for my
mom. And I also recite the great
compassion mantra. Yeah, fine.
No problem. So it's like a little mixture,
you know? Which I find there's no problem.
Anything which works and kind of brings up good qualities is
great. Absolutely.
No problems. Thanks for the talk, Eddie.
Thanks, Eddie. Okay, Rene, you want to bring
some questions from outside of the center?
Anyone else want to say anything?
Everyone else happy? Everyone else happy?
Okay, good. So this is from Eddie in
Indonesia. Dear Ajahn, please give more
insight about how to be mindful when our mind on the present
moment is worrisome and we are feeling depressed.
What can we do to help our overthinking mind?
Okay, so you should come to my Satipatana course, right,
mindfulness? Tomorrow morning we're starting,
so be there or be square. 8 a.m. till 2.30 p.m.
Perth time. So if you're in Indonesia, that
means it will start at 9 a.m., is that right?
No, 7 a.m. No, 7 a.m., yeah, they are
behind. Correct, I'm getting confused
now. Okay, anyway, one of those.
So when you are worried or you're feeling depressed, you
have to learn to think differently.
It's what you call a cognitive problem.
The thinking process has gone wrong.
That's why we tend to feel depressed or we feel anxious.
So you have to reprogram your thinking mind and start to think
in a different way. Anxiety is fear, it's a kind of
fear about the future. And so to overcome anxiety, you
have to, instead of looking at the danger in the future, look
at the opportunities. You know, to give you an example
is that these days people talk about climate anxiety.
And, you know, I sympathize with that because obviously the
climate is going funny. And so I can see why people are
anxious about it. But what I would say to people,
and this is kind of the Buddhist view, is that your future is not
really determined by the climate.
Your future is not determined by COVID.
Your future is not really determined by the politics of
the world. Your future is not determined by
an asteroid coming into the, and kind of, you know, blowing up
the planet or whatever. That's not your future.
Your future in Buddhism is determined by your personal
qualities. If you are a good person, if you
live well, yes, you may have some temporary pain and problems
because of COVID, because of climate change, because of
whatever. But in the long run, you're
going to be a happy person because you are developing those
qualities that will safeguard you in the long run.
These are the things that matter.
If you want to look after your future, that is how it is
determined. So this is how you shift your
view away from being anxious about things because you realise
that those things that you're anxious about actually are not
really that important. For your long term happiness,
what is important is your qualities inside.
So develop those qualities, and then you feel less and less
anxious as a consequence. And you look at that in the
right way, and then you'll be okay.
So ensure that you are a good Buddhist.
Ensure that you live well, and then your focus will shift.
So hang out with the Buddhist society here, hang out with good
people around you, and as you do that, you will gradually get
into that groove. Depression is similar, because
depression is about also seeing faults in yourself or seeing
faults in the world, and becoming depressed about
yourself because you are no good or whatever.
Also it's a matter of being able to refocus.
Okay, you're heading in the right way, you're part of the
Buddhist community, you're living well, you're doing the
right things, a lot to be happy about.
So try to turn that thinking mind around, appreciating the
good things in life. I have been depressed in my
life, I know what it feels like, and it's really just a bad habit
pattern of the mind. So turn it around.
You need some of this sort of way of thinking differently,
then you'll hopefully be on the right track.
This is John from Penang. Hello John.
Ajahn Brahmali, can you please explain the difference with
examples between loving kindness and compassion?
Okay, so loving kindness is like when you appreciate someone,
because you see the good qualities in them.
You see someone and you feel a strong sense of friendship or a
strong sense of goodwill towards them.
You feel a lot of goodwill because someone is a special
person. They have lots of good
qualities, like someone who has been very kind to you in your
life, some family member perhaps, or perhaps whoever it
is, and you have this kind of very positive feeling about the
person. That is really meta.
And then you build up that positive feeling, seeing more
and more good qualities, building up this positive
feeling inside. Compassion is when you see
someone who is suffering and you want to help them out of the
suffering. And you are inclined to avoid
hurting other beings. I don't want to hurt other
beings. Why on earth would I want to
hurt even an ant? Ants want to be happy as well.
So it is the overcoming of suffering which is the main
thing. Then we have Dan from Australia.
Hello Dan. Dear Ajahn, is it skillful to
recall instances of your compassion in for the world
during meditation to drive it deeper, bringing up Pitti and
Sukha etc.? Yes, that is certainly the case.
You can do that to get things started.
You feel that there are times when you have lots of compassion
for whatever. Bring it back into mind again.
In fact this is one of those important things in Buddhism, is
the idea of the Anusatthi, the recollections.
When we recall our past actions and our past way of thinking,
bring it into the present. And then we bring it into the
present, it becomes a source right now for success in our
meditation. Okay everyone, that is all for
tonight. May you all have a nice night, a
nice weekend, and a nice everything.
And then hopefully see you again.
Let's just pay respect to the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha before we
leave.