Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
So I want to talk a little bit about compassion and really the importance of compassion.
I think for a lot of us we’re overwhelmed and there is a lot coming at us,
and the tendency is to think about our problems and issues, which is of course important.
But really it's a matter of how we go about solving it.
And I feel like compassion is the way to, in a sense, overcome a lot of problems, obstacles,
the sense of making a life moving in a forward direction.
And compassion is incredibly powerful and initially we may think compassion is weak.
We may think it's only when there's room we have compassion.
As opposed to when things become very difficult, compassion maybe doesn't seem practical.
But really what I want to express today is just the practicalness of what
compassion is and how it works.
And it is in a sense the mind, the attitude that we take, about how we deal with others.
And if we take an attitude of compassion, and here compassion is really thinking about
that others are having a difficult time, that others are suffering, stressed out,
angry about something. And compassion is just seeing them
and realizing they themselves are going through difficulty too.
And just at that moment, just that attitude change
of saying, "Oh my goodness they themselves are like myself. They're having difficulty".
And just that thought is compassion: that moment when we think about them.
And from that we gain so much ourselves; it puts perspective on what we're doing.
We see that our problems are not as monumental. We see that others have problems
or we may be sick, but there's so many people sick.
Or we may be having difficulties, and others are having difficulties.
And just that attitude change is tremendous.
And within the buddhist tradition and in the meditation tradition, we say that compassion
actually brings happiness to ourselves and to those around us;
it helps those around us and it helps us: eases our mind in a sense.
When you are considerate and compassionate towards others,
there's a sense of the whole environment is opening up; the sky opens up, there's more sunlight;
there's more of that perspective.
And for life there's so many ways; we could get aggressive; we could try to push one more time.
We say, "I am going to get it right, I am going to be more aggressive".
And really here, a lot of the wisdom is saying compassion is the way to go.
Compassion in Tibetan we call it nyingje or noble heart. Nying means heart;
Je means lord; it means noble; it means something that is superior, not arrogance.
But it is really a superior or higher or sort of lofty view.
We all of a sudden take ourselves out of being small minded,
little minded, petty and we bring ourselves up.
And at that moment when we do that, life begins to transform.
And for myself, so many of the people that I respect and I have tremendous admiration for,
really is because they are compassionate and I think many of us can see that.
We do not have to wait for someone else to be compassionate to us;
we can go ahead and start that process.
And if we can do that, just one moment by one moment, one person, one nice word,
being generous, protecting someone else, those things go so far.
And it could start a chain reaction, in a positive way.
So compassion I feel like is the key in terms of smoothness, happiness.
It's very, very critical I feel.
And even for myself talking to different people and even when you're tired,
there's a tendency just to collapse on yourself. And compassion could be that moment,
moment we open up; you just begin to look out and realize, "Oh I live in a world;
there are others like myself". So it's that thought, it's that attitude.
There are meditations on it. There are deepening process of it,
but just having the opportunity where compassion might be key.
Compassion might be something that we would want to try. So I'll leave that up to you.
And I wish you much success on the path of compassion.