A Fresh Approach to Compassion

So where I want to start is to-- I'll, I'll start where I want to go, in the direction that I want to go in and unfold more fully, which is to talk about compassion.

So compassion.

And as soon as I say the word, certain associations will arise for you.

So we all have a certain idea about what compassion is, what it looks like, uh, what it means.

And it's, it's a common word, isn't it? You hear it, I wouldn't say everywhere, but you hear it a lot these days.

So, uh, it's not just a Buddhist term, obviously.

It's something that is in the air, and we have all kinds of compassion-based therapies and other things that are using that word as the defining aspect of a particular approach to life.

In Buddhism, compassion, uh, it's a translation of the word karuna.

Compassion is karuna, and it's definitely got a specific, uh, meaning.

And when we use the term in Buddhism, it is-- means something specific.

So what I, what I would like to invite you to do or request that we all try to do is just to, whatever ideas we have about what compassion is and what it looks like, can we just put that slightly to a side, uh, and just approach it with a fresh eye or fresh mind, uh, just for the next hour? And if at the end of the hour you think, "No, I'm not on board with this Buddhist perspective on compassion," well, that's fine.

Just go back to what you thought before.

Um, but can we just have a kind of-- we sp- we use this term beginner's mind, don't we? So it's good to have a beginner's mind when you approach meditation.

Can we have a beginner's mind to what compassion might be in a Buddhist context? And just to help us with that, I've got a couple of things.

I've got a poem and a, a little story, a favorite one of mine from the Buddhist tradition.

Uh, so the poem is, uh, a poem of Sangharakshita.

Yep, there is a picture, uh, of him on the shrine.

He's the founder of our Buddhist community and tradition, the Triratna, uh, Buddhist tradition.

And I think probably when-- probably around this time when the photo's taken and he's in India as a young monk, um, he wrote a poem called The Unseen Flower.

And The Unseen Flower goes like this: Compassion is far more than an emotion.

It's something that springs up when you yourself are not there.

Something that springs up in the emptiness, sorry, when you are not there, so that you do not know anything about it.

Nobody, in fact, knows anything about it.

If they knew it, it would not be compassion.

But they can only smell the scent of the unseen flower as it blooms in the heart of the void.