The Buddha
taught that to realize enlightenment, a person must develop two qualities:
wisdom and compassion. Wisdom and compassion are sometimes compared to two
wings that work together to enable flying, or two eyes that work together to
see deeply.
In the West,
we're taught to think of "wisdom" as something that is primarily
intellectual and "compassion" as something that is primarily
emotional, and that these two things are separate and even incompatible. We're
led to believe that fuzzy, sappy emotion gets in the way of clear, logical
wisdom. But this is not a Buddhist understanding.
The Sanskrit
word usually translated as "wisdom" is prajna (in Pali, panna). I
understand this word could also be translated as "consciousness,"
"discernment," or "insight." The many schools of Buddhism
understand prajna somewhat differently, but generally we could say that prajna
is understanding or discernment of the Buddha's teaching, especially the teaching
of anatta, no self.
The word
usually translated as "compassion" is karuna, which is understood to mean
active sympathy or a willingness to bear the pain of others. In practice,
prajna gives rise to karuna, and karuna gives rise to prajna. Truly, you can't
have one without the other. They are a means to realizing enlightenment, and
they are also enlighenment manifested.
Compassion as
Training
In Buddhism,
the ideal of practice is to selflessly act to alleviate suffering wherever it
appears. You may argue it is impossible to elminate suffering, and maybe it is,
yet we're to respond anyway.
What does being
nice to others have to do with enlightenment? For one thing, it helps us
realize that "individual me" and "individual you" are
mistaken ideas. And as long as we're stuck in the idea of "what's in it
for me?" we are not yet wise.
In Being
Upright: Zen and the Bodhisattva Precepts, Soto Zen teacher Reb Anderson
wrote, "Reaching the limits of practice as a separate personal activity,
we are ready to receive help from the compassionate realms beyond our
discriminating awareness."
Reb Anderson
continued, "We realize the intimate connection between the conventional
truth and the ultimate truth through the practice of compassion. It is through
compassion that we become thorougly grounded in the conventional truth and thus
prepared to receive the ultimate truth. Compassion brings great warmth and
kindness to both perspectives. It helps us to be flexible in our interpretation
of the truth, and teaches us to give and receive help in practicing the
precepts."
In The
Essence of the Heart Sutra, His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote,
"According
to Buddhism, compassion is an aspiration, a state of mind, wanting others to be
free from suffering. It's not passive -- it's not empathy alone -- but rather
an empathetic altruism that actively strives to free others from suffering.
Genuine compassion must have both wisdom and lovingkindness. That is to say,
one must understand the nature of the suffering from which we wish to free
others (this is wisdom), and one must experience deep intimacy and empathy with
other sentient beings (this is lovingkindness)."
No Thanks
Have you ever
seen someone do something courteous and then get angry for not being properly
thanked? True compassion has no expectation of reward,
even a simple "thank you," attached to it. Expecting a reward
maintains the idea of a separate self and a separate other.
The ideal of dana
paramita -- the perfection of giving -- is "no giver,
no receiver." For this reason, traditionally begging monks receive alms
silently and do not express thanks. Of course, in the conventional world there
are givers and receivers, but it's important to remember that the act of giving
is not possible without receiving. Thus, givers and receivers create each
other, and one is not superior to the other.
That said,
feeling and expressing gratitude chips away at our selfishness, so unless you
are a begging monk it's all right to say "thank you" when
appropriate.
Developing
Compassion
To draw on an
old joke, you get to be more compassionate the same way you get to Carnegie
Hall -- practice.
It's already
been noted that compassion arises from wisdom, just as wisdom arises from
compassion. If you're feeling neither especially wise nor compassionate you may
feel the whole project is hopeless. But the nun and teacher Pema Chodron says,
"start where you are." Whatever mess your life is right now is the
soil from which enlightenment may grow.
In truth,
although you may take one step at a time, Buddhism is not a "one step at a
time" process. Each of the eight parts of the Eightfold Path support all the other parts.
Every step integrates all the steps.
That said, most
people begin by better understanding their own suffering, which takes us back
to prajna, wisdom. Usually meditation or other mindfulness practices are the
means by which people begin to develop this understanding. As our
self-delusions dissolve, we become more sensitive to the suffering of others.
As we are more sensitive to the suffering of others, our self-delusions
dissolve further.
Compassion for
Yourself
After all this
talk of selflessness, it may seem odd to end with compassion for oneself. But
it's important not to run away from our own suffering.
Pema Chodron said, "In order to have
compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves." She
writes that in Tibetan Buddhism there is a practice called tonglen, which is a
kind of meditation practice for helping us connect to our own suffering and the
suffering of others.
"Tonglen
reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure and, in the
process, we become liberated from a very ancient prison of selfishness. We
begin to feel love both for ourselves and others and also we being to take care
of ourselves and others. It awakens our compassion and it also introduces us to
a far larger view of reality. It introduces us to the unlimited spaciousness
that Buddhists call shunyata. By doing the practice, we begin to connect with
the open dimension of our being."
Again, we see
the way compassion "introduces us to a far larger view of reality."
This larger view is seen by the two eyes of wisdom and compassion
No comments :
Post a Comment