RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Compassion
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Whatever you intend,
whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will
become the basis on which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop
meditation on compassion, for when you develop meditation on compassion,
any cruelty will be abandoned. (MN 62)
Compassion is like a mother with a son who is ill, for she just wants the illness to go away. (Vm 9.108)
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While
lovingkindness is a universal intention of unbounded kindness and an
indiscriminate wish for well-being that can radiate in all directions,
compassion is what this changes into when it encounters a person or
group of people suffering or being harmed. At that point the general
urge for safety is focused on the intention to alleviate that suffering.
Compassion is a particular form of lovingkindness, focused by
suffering.
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In order to
feel compassion, you have to be willing to see the suffering of others.
It can be hard to open to this, but your lovingkindness will not
transform into compassion unless you do. Practice being willing to
witness suffering when you encounter it, and pay attention to the
texture of your inner experience as it moves through phases: resistance
to the pain, opening to it, feeling the hurt of it, then maturing into
true compassion.
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Tomorrow: Refraining from Malicious Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Appreciative Joy
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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
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