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Venerable Ajahn Sucitto -
Cultivating Empathy
The
standard Dhamma practice for the human realm—the realm of being affected
by people and events, and by our moods, limitations and disappointments
— is the cultivation of empathy (anukampam). In Buddhist
practice, this is made more specific by cultivating four ‘measureless
states’: loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna),
sympathetic joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha).
Collectively they are known as ‘sublime abidings’ (brahmavihara),
states which are all ‘lofty, uncramped, measureless, free from hatred
and ill-will, to others as to myself.’
The way the
Buddha defines these states is by what they are not. They are not
cramped, they are free from hatred and ill-will, and they are beyond
measure. This is typical of the way the Buddha speaks, a way that
emphasises letting go: it’s by the removal of certain blocks that
healthy states happen. It’s not ‘pump out the metta now,’ ‘you
should have more compassion, otherwise you’re not good enough,’ but more
that if you understand these blocks and practise releasing them, then
you can be free of their cramped boundaries. A greater potential can
come forth.
These
brahmavihara are very profound, because if one contemplates the
human realm, then what people are often doing is running from shelter to
shelter, creating patches of territory, defending them, and curling up
inside their own little burrows. The world at large can be a place of
anxiety, with terrorists and criminals and con-men lurking on every
corner or boring into your computer software. Why? Because of a lack
of empathy. Sure there are natural dangers, but if the few billion
resourceful humans who live on this planet were co-operative and
friendly, all that would be no problem.
The truth of it
is, we all need other people. We’ll all need fellow-humans to help us
when we grow old or get sick; and it’s also valuable to have others
listen to us and give us perspective on our lives. But whatever the
reason, relating is part of life; and it needs to be developed as a
skill. And if we base our relationships on the understanding that we
are all subject to suffering and loss, and we all want happiness and
freedom, it’s easy to experience empathy. This is because metta,
karuna, mudita, and upekkha are natural responses
to the sentient experience when we relate to the simple facts of life.
We’re in this together. So we need to develop that way of regarding
ourselves and others, rather than from the bias of self-interest.
We can all lose
touch with that uncramped mutual regard and find ourselves caught up in
contracted ways of being, because the context within which we live, and
how we can best operate in it, have not been fully cultivated. We get
lost in immediate self-interest, and that effect spreads to generate
selfishness and narrow-mindedness. Because of this ‘ignorance,’ we get
contracted into a cocooned world of thoughts, memories, hopes and
ambitions, secret fears, illicit passions, and so on. There’s always a
toy we can play with in our own little rooms. Therefore to live out
here, in a shared world, we need to find a way to be comfortable in that
mutual environment. Of course all of us need conventional boundaries—
doors that close— but all of us need doors that open as well, otherwise
our life is not free. We can’t move, and can’t feel our own fullness if
we’re closed in on ourselves. So how do we get to feel good, or at
least OK, with others — and when we’re alone?
A big part of the
solution comes from attending to the flow of emotions, whether they’re
positive or negative. But you can’t do that unless you’re prepared to
feel them in a focused and non-reactive way. That is why we meditate;
that's what mindfulness is about. When we bring mindfulness to bear on
how we’re affected, what arises is a means to handle the emotions —in a
non-separative, non-judgemental way. From that transformative shift of
view arise the sublime abidings of the
brahmavihara.
The first of
these, loving-kindness (metta) is about well-being, about being
given or providing nourishment. The image that is used in the Buddhist
commentaries is one of a mother nursing, suckling a baby. It’s that
kind of feeling— you’re just being held and nourishment’s being given.
This is metta. It removes the hard-hearted view of ‘everyone
for themselves.’ This kindness is to be developed towards others,
whether you regard them as good, bad, important, unimportant, in a
superior or in a lesser position than yourself. Actually, to experience
loving-kindness for another is something that we like to do. But also,
to cultivate it towards oneself—whether one is feeling stupid,
inadequate, joyful, enlightened, exalted, whatever it is— is just as
important. In fact, the kindness has to begin with ourselves— otherwise
our kindness to others can be something we do in order to win their
attention or support. Then the offering of heart is not a free one.
Karuna:
compassion or protection. In this case, the image that is used is that
of a mother watching over a child in its cot while it sleeps—making sure
no harm comes to him or her. In this case, the awareness is a little
more spacious, and is one of providing shelter: ‘let no harm come to
this one.’ And similarly compassion is to be developed towards oneself:
to protect oneself from abuse— or from neglecting one’s own well-being
in order to attempt to fulfil needs elsewhere. It’s not that you regard
yourself as the only one who counts, but it’s good to ask: ‘Do I have
the energy, and the capacity to fulfil that need right now?’ Going into
‘full speed ahead’ when there’s no gas in the tank isn’t going to help
anyone. And if you don’t attend compassionately to your own needs in
relation to others, eventually you get to resent them for ‘taking up my
time.’ Then you get to feel guilty about that feeling. So although you
may doggedly stick to your duty, you lose heart.
Mudita
is the joy that is associated with sympathy, with appreciation. The
analogy is of a parent seeing that the child is growing up, getting
stronger, and being able to do things. ‘Very good. You can manage….’
It’s joyful: ‘I know what it’s like to feel strong and confident and
upright and independent.’ Mudita is the joy, the rejoicing in
another’s—or in one’s own—good fortune, strength or skilfulness.
Mudita is connected to anumodana, which is the chant we do in
the monastery for the acts of offering that sustain us. It is an act of
rejoicing: ‘You’ve done some good kamma—that’s wonderful. Don’t
overlook this. Please reflect on your goodness so that you feel
good.’
Upekkha—
this is equanimity. The commentary describes this as the sense that a
parent has when they see that the child is now fully grown and can move
around on its own. Then the parent senses: ‘Well, he or she will find
out what they need to find out. I still care for them, but now they have
to discover things for themselves.’ This is upekkha: it’s
accompanied by the understanding that we all have to work with our own
sometimes confused impulses, habits and attitudes. Equanimity
holds a caring space that allows us to grow. It trusts that we can go
through what we need to experience; it is love manifesting as trust. We
all have to be with our fears and joys, our success and failure, our
good and bad, and equanimity allows us to be present with the results of
our actions so that we can acknowledge and investigate them. With
equanimity we know what is good, as just ’that leads to a good place’
rather than ‘I am right.’ And what was unskilful can be known as ‘that
was unskilful,’ rather than being agonized over. So we learn and see
things in a way that doesn’t attach a big ‘I am’ to them.
Equanimity is not
indifference. Upekkha maintains the sense of empathic connection—
to others as to oneself. So when one is going through a rough time: ‘Do
I have the breadth of heart to hold that?’ Rather than to panic, react,
start beating myself up, or run away. Equanimity is not about cheering
up, and being happy, but about having confidence in being present. We
trust presence of heart to have its effects. With some stuff, you just
don’t know what to do; but you can know that all you can do is be
present with it, hold it in an empathic way, and just not keep adding
more to it. This is upekkha, to others as to oneself.
These
brahmavihara are obviously not always such easy things for the human
mind to cultivate, because the self-orientation of our minds thinks:
‘Why should I have to co-operate and listen and share? As for all this
empathy stuff— it complicates things: it’s more straightforward and
simpler if I do it my way.’
Even in
meditation retreats you can see this. We easily form our own ways of
doing things, and then get irritated when other people do things
differently. People can get violently upset about someone breaking the
silence; or dogmatic about details of etiquette and ritual or even
domestic duties: ‘someone didn’t clean the tea-towels properly. I’ve
said this three times. I’m a patient person, but the tea-towels are
supposed to be cleaned properly!’ These small things get intense for
us because they trigger patterns of losing control, and suddenly things
flare up. Then we want to get out of this shared domain and into
Nibbana, and imagine that Dhamma practice is about cutting ourselves
off from everyone else. But just consider how many hindrances to
Awakening occur through feelings of resentment, lack of worth, anxiety,
and a joyless attitude to life: these have to be addressed and cleared.
And even practising on one’s own is an emotive experience, with
unexpressed emotions, unresolved bitterness, fear or grief welling up
from the recesses of the heart….You can only control things for so long;
eventually you have to clear them. That means meeting your shadows
with empathy; which means meeting other people with the same.
But this isn’t
about taking on a lot of social engagements or getting emotionally
involved, it’s about broadening the basis of non-attachment. Dhamma
practice is not about getting sentimentally attached to our moods and
sensitivities, but about coming to the place of insight, of a clear view
of how it is. And this requires the strength and sensitivity of
mindful empathy. It is this development that supports the wise and
silent listening that allows whatever is afflicted or unsettled to come
to resolution.
Through
meditation practice we can access a core presence, which feels like an
‘inner’ state, where things are not happening, and the flow of events
has receded. Thoughts quieten down, and we feel firmly grounded. There
is a sense of singularity, of ‘just being here.’ This is a valuable
basis from which we can look into the roots of mental/emotional
behaviour. So meditation is not about getting into that inner state just
for its own sake, but about using its quiet firmness as a base from
which to contemplate moods and mind-states. This entails not sticking to
ideas of what I want and what should be, but really relating to what is
present without reactions and bias. In this way we learn and develop
non-attachment. And one important development is to take the skills of
that non-attachment, of its sensitivity and strength, with you, whatever
the situation you find yourself in
Some of what we
have to learn about occurs when we’re handling the ‘external’ world; it
is part of what we work with. We need to to integrate the directness
and non-attachment of meditation into how we live. Otherwise, if we
think the contemplative practice is purely about inner depth (or any
state in fact) we remember that calm state of mind and think: ‘If I get
a few hours in that everyday, I’m okay. If I get a retreat, I’ll get in
there a long time. Then I’ll feel pretty good and strong before I go
“out there” and get battered again. But maybe I won’t get enough this
time, because last time I was in the middle of my retreat and then
someone went and died on me. I had to go to the funeral, and that made
me feel agitated.’
So states of
mind, calm and ease are transient. What is of long-standing relevance
however is how we view any state of mind. What non-attachment develops
is just this view of the transience and ownerlessness of any state.
Then instead of attaching to states of mind, we focus on their basis.
They arise from the sense of being a something that is contacted by
other things. This is very apparent when you start to come out of the
silent centre of meditation and open your eyes and ears; or when you’re
moving around in walking meditation— there is the sense of being in
something else. You’re with something other. It’s not
actually a physical sense: it’s intrinsic to the mind-consciousness that
is bound up with potentials and variables. That is, although we can see
shapes and hear sounds, we assess them through a mental tint of
expectation, uncertainty, or need. There are mental tints, attitudes, of
reaching out or withdrawing. comparing and contrasting, liking and
disliking, and based on these, the world gets coloured in. Mind colours
the world, so we have to comprehend and clear its tints; if we close
off from the world, all we really experience is the colour of our own
closed door.
The
brahmavihara help us to deal with what appears; what manifests as
the world ‘out there’, but is actually suffused with psychologies and
emotions that are challenging for ‘me in here.’ If you sieve through
some of the topics that spark off the sense of fear or mistrust or
aloneness or irritation — you realise that many of them are not all that
bad on the external level. Why does one get so angry about having to
wait for fifteen minutes in a traffic jam? Is that anger going to make
things move faster? Or the waiting any more comfortable? Why did I get
so resentful about your talking to this person and not talking to me?
Is that going to draw more warmth my way? Maybe it’s because we are
carrying a lot of latent ill-will and desolation already, in a heart
that’s so cramped that it has to project it as ‘out there.’ So when
we’re in a safe and benevolent place — and yet experiencing tension and
isolation, the thing to check is: how much of that is coming from our
own minds? Maybe there are levels of affliction and confusion that we
haven’t really acknowledged. Maybe we’re looking at people and events
through a lens that is tinted by being abused or neglected by other
humans. But right now we don’t have to give energy to those tints and
re-live them; instead, we can develop the empathy and compassion towards
that in us and that in others that causes and attaches to pain.
This is where
meditative training is so useful: with that skilled attention, we can
place and sustain mindful awareness in different areas of the body and
mind. And the brahmavihara are particularly relevant at the
doorway between ‘self’ and ‘other’, or between one aspect of myself and
another. It is just this boundary that is so marked with mistrust, fear
of being hurt, and fear of causing hurt. It’s an awkward edge…but this
is where the cultivation of empathy is so important. In essence it’s
just the ability to stand alongside one’s fear or irritation or despond,
to feel with it, rather than get lost in it, shut it off or distract
into something else.
Fear and
irritation are very basic: we all have them just from having been born
in a physical body. The body reacts to protect itself; it goes into
fear, it retracts; it does that automatically. It has to jump when it’s
startled, otherwise it might not survive. Fear is not some kind of
personality disorder. Then sometimes there’s that twitch of rage, which
is the defence reflex that causes the whole body to flood with as much
power as it can. The bodies of sentient beings have to do that. However
for human beings it gets much more complex, because the same mechanism
gets triggered by all kinds of psychological interpretations. It’s no
longer triggered by tigers jumping at us, but it’s triggered by people
looking at us in a disapproving way, or by a raised tone of voice; or
even by how we imagine other people sense us. We have a thinking
mind and a heart that stores perceptions of friendship and threat and so
forth; so that we can be living in a state of mild panic all the time.
We carry a sense of fear of what we don’t know, and intimidation in the
face of authority. Alternatively, if you are carrying responsibility,
you may get the sense that you’ve got to carry it until you drop dead.
And then they’ll say you didn’t try hard enough, or weren’t good enough,
or weren’t relaxed and friendly enough…That burdened sense can come up
in the mind, even when no-one else is demanding things of you. You can
fret and worry and try to get it right and please everyone…but that
requires a lot of control and organisation. And control is about being
apart from something in order to manage it. So if you’re controlling,
you’re always apart, and that feels alienating.
This intense
‘self and others’ issue can get triggered into red-alert over your role
or responsibilities or gender. You’ll feel slightly intimidated or
guilty and find yourself doing or saying the things, or presenting
yourself in a way that will ward off the punishment that you sense is
waiting for you. Isn’t it pitiful what we can do to ourselves through
losing empathy with our own humanity? But we've got conditioned into
making unreasonable demands on ourselves— even when no-one else is
giving us a hard time. Then when they are, we have no resources to cope
with the blame, failure and loss that are part of the social context.
Isn’t this something that gives rise to compassion?
Sadness is part
of being human. Reptiles seem to act in fear and rage; they don’t seem
to get a lot of grief going. Humans have a sense of that, because as
mammals, we’re biologically wired to being in
mother-father-offspring-mate relationships. On top of that, we’re
socially geared to life as part of the tribe. In either family or tribe,
ostracism is punitive or even fatal. So with any degree of separation,
grief is a natural sense; and it’s worsened if the separation is
psychological. Then it becomes alienation: this separateness is not just
an event, it becomes a life-statement. ‘I’m not in a place that’s warm
and friendly. Nobody cares. Oh, well, I’ll just put up with it. Life’s
like that.’ It gets so chronic that this attitude feels normal and it
seems that there’s nothing we can do about it, except maybe get a pet,
to cope with the numb patches in our lives. This is resignation: we
accept things in a resigned way, and may assume that this is
equanimity—but it’s actually numb grief. And when we cultivate the mind
for the ending of sorrow and grief, it doesn’t mean burying them in
resignation and indifference towards ourselves and others. It means
exposing and clearing the source of distress.
The practice of
the brahmavihara is a great source of healing for the mind. It
matures into the ability to move empathy through the whole field of our
perceptions, starting perhaps with just the sense of what’s closest,
what’s touching us right now. Thus: ‘In the presence of this, may I be
well.’ ‘May I not be carrying blame and criticism towards myself.’ ‘If
I feel fearful or inadequate, may I not be ashamed of that.’ ‘May I
acknowledge my goodness and rejoice in it: my virtues, the precepts I
keep, the bad that I’ve given up, the commitments I’ve made. May I
acknowledge those and rejoice.’ ‘May I be able to bear with the foolish
things I’ve done— as past actions, rather than as my self.’ These are
daily reflections. So once we have established the basic intention
towards empathy and good will, we focus on that intention with its
steady feel and energy, and work towards placing that benevolent intent
alongside any afflictive attitudes, moods, or energies. We ask
awareness to stand beside us in our grief or anger or despond— and not
try to fix anything. To just be a present witness, with a clear unfussy
empathy—and allow a process to unfold.
When I begin a
meditation sitting, I often imagine or visualise sitting within a pool
of light, something that is gently pleasant and stable. Or I might
imagine sitting in sunshine, because I enjoy doing that. So I bring that
image and mood into the mind and spread it into the body. In walking
meditation, I might walk along as if I were wading a step at a time
through that warm light so that the body feels relaxed. Or I might
imagine sitting with the Buddha as a father, mother, or friend— that I’m
in the presence of someone who’s saying, ‘You’re all right with me.
Whatever you are, I accept it.’ Other approaches might work for you;
I’m just suggesting ways of evoking a mood. However you do it, it’s
important to find your own space where you don’t have to be that
good, or happy or vigorous or punctual or neat. Instead, you place the
body in a space that feels welcoming.
Now the bodily
sense is very important. When we cultivate mindfulness of the body, we
sense how the body is affected by psychological/emotional experiences—as
in the tension around rage and fear, or the relaxation with friendship.
We can bring around an easeful bodily state through the mind—as when I
imagine my body being in that which is pleasant, buoyant, uplifting.
This can help to free up residual tension, or the numb, shut-down bodily
sense that many people are left with after years of coping with rage,
fear and grief. It’s a sense that we may experience at particular
times—such as with strangers— or in particular parts of the body, such
as the area around the eyes or the throat, or the upper chest. It may
not seem unusual. But in meditation on the body, you can sense the
dis-ease that the body carries. Then, noticing, say, that your chest
feels quite closed, you practise slowly sweeping awareness through the
whole body, through these places…with the suggestion: ‘What would it be
like if it were pleasant, okay, safe— right here?’ Around your chest or
throat or diaphragm, for example— to be willing to receive whatever
impression is there, without aversion. This is a way into the
brahmavihara. It’s not about doing something to make things better.
It’s not about feeling wonderful. It’s the willingness to tune in
through empathy whenever, wherever. Then when you don’t have to prove
something, defend yourself, or succeed at something, you come out of
stress into a fuller clarity and calm.
That movement to
clarity and calm doesn’t come about through suppressing our feelings,
but by being empathically present with our emotional stuff. Sometimes
what arises is the awareness of something nourishing, of a sense of
seeking our own welfare in a tender and non-grasping way. Sometimes
it’s the compassionate sense that checks the mind-state or compulsion
with which we are harming ourselves….I remember one time being for days
on retreat in a very difficult negative state. Everything felt dark and
bleak and steeped in the sourness and the hopelessness of all that. For
days I was being turned over by this mood and trying to get over it;
but I didn’t have the confidence or energy to pull out of it. After
about four days solid of this stuff, I was looking for annihilation. To
just dump this pathetic mind over an edge somewhere….But then, as I got
that image, something shifted. I got the picture, the meaning of it. In
a moment I could mentally ‘see’ an anguished form called ‘me’ dangling
helplessly over the edge of a precipice on a rope…and feel the wish to
just cut the rope and have done with him for once and for all. But as I
saw and felt the helplessness of this being, there was empathy— and a
wave of compassion arose. And from nowhere a mood, a silent ‘voice’ if
you like, came forth. That awareness ‘said’: ‘No, we’re in this
together. I won’t let you down.’ And the mood lifted.
Helplessness can
be the gate to despair— but as eventually I allowed myself to clearly
see that door and let it be open, an unpremeditated compassion expressed
itself. With that, there was a sense of the unshakeable resilience of
the human heart. To me, that’s a Refuge. Isn’t it marvellous that our
very suffering can turn itself around when we relate to it rather than
fight it or explain or justify it?
When you see how
this works towards yourself, then practise it with how you feel about
being with others. Investigate what you sense just by being here and
occupying a shared space. Just go to the sense of being here, being an
object to others— even before anything happens. Open your eyes and be
present with no particular aim. Feel how that is in the body. You may
sense affects that the mind normally ignores; a slight tightening in the
shoulders, a slightly frozen, withheld feeling in the chest or the
abdomen. Do you feel comfortable with being in a space with other people
around? Or do you feel it would be nice just to get out and be on your
own, or doing something? Feel how the body senses that dis-ease: a
non-specific sense of irritation, restlessness or nervousness. Or the
sadness or resignation that evolves from having to contain and cope with
a long-term low-potency fear or sense of isolation. But then feel your
own presence and the steady intent that comes from meditation— and
spread your awareness around you: ‘to others as to myself.’ Let that be
your Refuge.
Can we invite
others into that Refuge of empathy? Sometimes it doesn’t seem
relevant, or useful or necessary…or that they’d notice anyway: such is
the lens of separation, personal insignificance and resignation through
which we gaze. So it's important to peel off these layers from our
hearts: really is there anyone who would not appreciate being
regarded with kindness and empathy? How could I imagine that ‘there’s no
point?’ And regarding others this way is always going to do
me some good! So the practice is ‘internal’ — in our own minds —
and ‘external’ — involving conscious action and speech that is based on
sharing and respect and friendliness.
Especially in
hearing people talk, it’s good to listen beneath the topic, to the
dismissed remark, the stresses, the places where the pauses occur and
there's a reaching out for response — what is needed? And what arises
in your own heart when others talk? Rather than the character
assessments, the inferences about hidden motives, the waning of
attention, and finally the ‘oh here he goes again’ of resigned
indifference, we could learn to listen from an empathic place.
Then, in
providing occasions for that empathic listening, we could be a blessing
for each other. You could help me to learn how to regard you, and even
myself, with an empathic rather than a critical awareness. Other people
can help me to welcome my numb ‘doesn’t matter, leave me alone’ patches
back to life. Then, as I practise this towards myself, I am
pragmatically learning empathy rather than ideologically demanding that
you or I should be more compassionate and loving, and joyful and serene
and so on...I learn to be present with my mind, rather than get stuck in
it. Even when the heart is cramped, I can regard it directly, with
empathy: ‘the cramped heart feels like this.’ Then I can practise
welcoming it; I can feel how it affects me in a bodily way, breathe
through it, and let it relax.
Practising like
this, the tints of fear and tension get cleared: we get big-hearted.
And then the uncramped heart feels like this: ‘it’s good to be
here.’ And as I come out of the nervousness or the uncertainty of being
with an ‘other’, there’s a warmth that just starts flowing out — and it
doesn’t matter who you are and who I am. There’s no ‘deserves it,’ or
‘don’t get attached,’ or getting swept away with moods. It’s just steady
heartfulness.
Even if it’s not
that way all the time, to appreciate, to be glad that 'the afflictions
are not present right now, may we all enjoy and benefit from this’: this
is mudita. We could think: ‘Well, this good patch isn’t going to
last, don’t attach!’ Or, ‘He’s saying that now, but it’ll be a
different tune come nightfall.’ Or, ‘That’s no big deal. She doesn’t
deserve that much praise.’ Feel the contraction that happens when that
view comes into play. We could mutate into a niggardly Scrooge:
‘Don’t open up to the good, otherwise you’ll get hurt when it
passes’ —but how long do you want to be defending yourself against
happiness? If we do develop the quality of joyful appreciation, then
it’s more likely that, in that warm climate, the goodness will grow.
And if we learn
through the practice, our personal boundaries could be maintained from a
mutual understanding and appreciation of each other. There are times
when we all need to withdraw, have privacy and solitude, and we can
empathise with that. If we’re clear, we can acknowledge and co-operate
in terms of each other’s needs.
So may we
empathise with our wish for well-being, for freedom from hostility, for
appreciation and enjoyment, to accept and to be accepted. ‘To others as
to myself’: this is the standard for the human realm.
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