COMPASSION - The Wish Fulfilling Jewel

We all yearn for happiness, yet our actions are generally uncompassionate and bring ourselves and others harm and distress, instead of the happiness we all seek.

Does a canny, self-grasping, resourceful selfishness, a selfish protection of the ego make us happy?
When you really investigate self-cherishing and self-grasping they are seen as the root of all harm we do to others, and also to ourselves.

Considering yourself the same as others - We all want to be happy and want to avoid suffering. It is important to realise our sameness as human beings.
If you are having difficulties with a loved one, such as your mother or father, husband or wife, lover or friend, how revealing it can be to consider the other person simply as another 'you', another human being, with the same feelings as you, the same desire for happiness and fear of suffering as you, rather than in their role as mother or father etc. Thinking of the person as a real person, exactly the same as you, will open your heart to him or her.
If only societies and nations could view each other in the same way - there would be a solid basis for peace and the happy coexistence of all peoples.

Exchanging yourself for others - when someone is suffering and you feel at a loss to know how to help, put yourself in his or her place. Imagine what you would be going through if you were suffering the same pain. Ask yourself "how would I feel? How would I want my friends to treat me? What would I most want from them?"
When you exchange yourself for others in this way, you are directly transferring your cherishing from its usual object, yourself, to other beings. Exchanging yourself for others is a powerful way of loosening the hold on you of the self-cherishing and self grasping of the ego, and so of releasing the heart of your compassion.

Meditating on Compassion - Evoking the power of compassion in us is not always easy. Every day, life gives us innumerable chances to open our hearts.. if only we can take them. An old woman passes you with a sad and lonely face, swollen veins on her legs, and two heavy plastic bags full of shopping she can hardly carry, a shabbily dressed old man shuffles in front of you, a boy on crutches looks harried and anxious as he tries to cross the street in the afternoon traffic, an animal lies bleeding to death on the side of the road.
All beings, everywhere suffer, let your heart go out to them all in spontaneous and immeasurable compassion. Direct that compassion to the alleviation of suffering everywhere.
Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity. Pity has its roots in fear, and a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of "I'm glad it's not me". As Stephen Levine said 'When your fear touches someone's pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone's pain it becomes compassion.' To practice compassion is to know that all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honour all those that suffer, and to know that you are neither separate nor superior to anyone.
Your first response on seeing someone suffer becomes not mere pity, but deep compassion. You feel for that person respect and even gratitude, because you know that whoever prompts you to develop compassion by their suffering is giving you one of the greatest gifts of all, because they are helping you to develop the very quality that you need the most.

THE PRACTICE OF TONGLEN

In the Tonglen practice of giving and receiving, we take on, through compassion, all the various mental and physical sufferings of all beings: their fear, frustration, pain, anger, guilt, bitterness, doubt, and rage, and we give them, through love, all our happiness, well-being, peace of mind, healing, and fulfillment.

Before you begin this practice, sit quietly and bring your mind home. Then meditate deeply on compassion.

Imagine in front of you, as vividly as possible, someone you care for who is suffering. Try to imagine every aspect of the person's pain and distress. Then, as you feel your heart opening in compassion toward the person, imagine that all his or her sufferings manifest together and gather into a great mass of hot, black, grimy smoke.

Now, as you breathe in, visualise that this mass of black smoke dissolves, with your in breath, into the very core of your self grasping at your heart. There it destroys completely all traces of self-cherishing.

Imagine now that your self cherishing has been destroyed, so that the heart of your enlightened mind, your Bodhicitta, is fully revealed. As you breathe out, imagine that you are sending out white smoke, sending a brilliant, cooling light of peace, joy, happiness, and ultimate well-being to your friend in pain.

At the moment the light of your Bodhicitta streams out to touch your friend in pain, it is essential to feel a firm conviction, and deep lasting joy that he or she has been totally freed from suffering and pain.
Then, as you go on breathing normally, in and out, continue steadily with this practice.

Practicing Tonglen on one friend in pain helps you to begin the process of gradually widening your compassion to take on the suffering of all beings, and to give them all your happiness, well-being, joy, and peace of mind - Gradually widen the circle of your compassion to embrace first other people whom you feel very close to, then to those you feel indifferent about, then to those you dislike or have difficulty with, then even those you feel are actively monstrous and cruel. Allow your compassion to become universal, and to hold in its embrace all sentient beings, all beings, in fact, without any exception:

Sentient beings are as limitless as the whole of space:
May they each effortlessly realise the nature of their mind,
And may every single being of all the six realms, who has each been
in one life or another my father or mother,
Attain all together the ground of primordial perfection.

This is the wonderful goal of Tonglen practice, and in a larger sense, of the whole path of compassion.

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