Loving-Kindness and Compassion

Geshe Thubten Sherab

Loving-Kindness and Compassion

Bucharest, February 2024

Transcript and Edit: Veronica Anghelescu

Thank you very much everyone for coming today evening. I’m happy to be back, this is my second time here.

Today’s topic, as you are aware, is about how loving-kindness, compassion, and respect can cultivate our own well-being, and how through such practice we can cope with the adversities better; let us all engage in a short mindfulness breathing exercise, so that we can bring our mind in the moment, in the present and trying to quiet and settle our mind.

So make yourself relaxed, comfortable.

Try to straighten your back.

Feel the weight of your body on the chair.

Breathe in and out normally.

Watch it mindfully, being aware you are present now.

Then we can contemplate and reflect on giving our precious time to listen, to engage in discussion, reflection, contemplation.

May all of these become causes and conditions to develop our inner pursuit of loving-kindness, compassion, and goodness.

The topic that we are going to discuss, loving-kindness and compassion, is one of the fundamental ideas of Buddhist teaching, Buddhist philosophy and practice. However, to practice and meditate on loving-kindness and compassion, you don’t necessarily need to be a Buddhist. Anyone can apply this meditation and practice.

Normally, when we think of loving-kindness and compassion, sometimes there is misunderstanding or misperception about what that loving-kindness and compassion mean for well-being of others, we tend not to take our own well-being into consideration. But when we practice true love, loving-kindness, and compassion, not only are we able to be of more help, more benefit to others, and thereby help to others, but also, it’s a source of our own well-being.

The research that has been done over the last 15-20 years clearly shows that even when people are meditating for 10 minutes a day, even for just 3 weeks, it benefits them on many different levels. Certain research shows that when you meditate on loving-kindness and compassion, that brings about a change in your brain, it affects a certain area of your brain, which has the function of empathy and happiness.

Some other research shows that – through such meditation, your stress level reduces, and people who have post-traumatic disorder will experience a decrease in their distress, there were very clear effects of reducing the anxiety level. And of course there is a decrease of anger. Finally, when you meditate on loving-kindness, compassion, especially when someone has been meditating for a while, it shows a decrease of distress when you see the suffering and of others. It shows a clear decrease of the feeling of discomfort; when we have strong attachments to our friends, family, let’s say, when we see the suffering of our loved ones, it can create a great discomfort, it can be very overwhelming. But when someone practices true loving-kindness and compassion, the attachment reduces, even you feel their pain, you see and you feel their pain and suffering, you don’t get distressed, and you don’t get overwhelmed by such feelings.

So meditation on true loving-kindness and compassion helps us build resilience and sense of inner strength to deal with suffering and pain of ourselves and suffering and pain of our loved ones, dear ones, or anyone. Compassion helps us grow our resilience and the feeling of facing when those around us are suffering.

Research shows that, when you are angry, when you have such kind of hatred and overwhelmed by anger, it affects your immune system. So definitely it’s very harmful for our physical well-being if it actually destroys our immune systems. Also, when we are overwhelmed by such negative feelings, such as anger and hatred, then you lose your intelligence and correct judgement in that moment. When people are strongly overwhelmed by anger and hatred, more than 90% of the negative effect in such situations is just imagined.

So, not only does it hurt our physical well-being, but it also hurts our emotional well-being. We all know what it feels like when you are very strongly overwhelmed by those emotions. Also, it’s our experience that when we are overwhelmed by such strong emotions such as anger, hatred, even if we try to sleep, we cannot sleep well because our mind is too occupied by thoughts about that. Even if you try to do something, whatever you are trying to do, you cannot concentrate well because your mind is too occupied by again thought that is related with those emotions. Even if you try to have some enjoyment, good food, being in a good, nice place, in the right weather, you don’t enjoy these because your mind is too occupied or overwhelmed. So it takes away all our enjoyment, all our peace in that moment.

Whereas loving-kindness and compassion is the counteracting, the opposite force. When we don’t have anger and hatred, when we are in a state where we are experiencing and feeling love, compassion and gentleness, our mind is much calmer, more peaceful, we are able to concentrate better.

Also, I have been told by some of my friends who have some health issues like diabetes and blood pressure. When they experience anger, if they check their sugar level or blood-pressure, immediately they can see that those levels go up, and they have a feeling of frustration or even of anger and they check their blood sugar or blood pressure again, the values increase.

I think that there are enough studies and experiences that show that meditation on love, compassion and kindness brings forth clear results. When someone engages in meditation or practice, when they are able to develop a sense of true love and compassion towards someone, they automatically become more understanding of others, of their suffering, pain, feelings. And also, studies and personal experiences clearly show that practicing this meditation of compassion and love and increases their sense of concern, their sense of more empathy towards others’ problems,

So when you have that feeling of understanding, then definitely, in any kind of relationship, you will have a better connection. At least from your side. Of course, any kind of relationship is from both sides. There needs to be effort from both sides. But even if there isn’t effort from both sides, even just from one side, it still helps to make the relationship better. The Dalai Lama has often shared that, he finds so much inner strength and inner resilience, inner peace, through this practice of love, compassion and gentleness, despite him, the citizens, the Tibetan people going through so much pain and suffering, But you can see he doesn’t feel any kind of bitterness at all. Despite all things that he went through, he is able to keep his mind calm, peaceful, not having anger, hatred. Therefore, the practice of loving-kindness, compassion really helped him, for his physical well-being and emotional well-being, and to be so joyful, cheerful, jolly and happy in life despite all the challenges.

What this shows is: if you choose to follow the path of loving-kindness, compassion, and you put effort to do that, you don’t have to be so bitter, so angry, so frustrated. So it depends on what we choose when we are faced with such a difficulty, challenge, or problem: whether we try to choose, to follow the path of cultivating loving-kindness and compassion, or we choose not to follow it, and instead follow the path of bitterness, anger, and frustration.

So just like Dalai Lama is able to keep calm, peaceful, and not have those kind of frustrations, bitterness and anger, we also have the same potential, if we decide to follow the same path and if we decide to make effort to do that. Also, there is one story that the Dalai Lama often shares, about one monk, that was in prison for more than 10-15 years, and tortured during this time. At some point, he was released and then he and came to India, to discuss with His Holiness; the monk told him that there had been a couple of dangerous while he was in prison; he said that there were two things he was afraid of in prison.

The Dalai Lama asked him what kind of danger he had had those couple of times. And the monk replied. there had been a couple of times during those all this time, when he had been in danger of losing compassion for those who were torturing him. So all these two years, not just one day, one week, one month, but 10 to 15 years, constantly tortured for no crime that he had committed. Still, he was able to keep his compassion. So again, he had the choice to live those 15 years with so much bitterness, anger, hatred, but he decided not to go in that direction, but to practice loving-kindness and compassion, even for the very people who tortured him.

And because he decided to put more effort towards cultivating love, compassion and he was able to do that, he didn’t have to also experience all the mental suffering and pain, which is worse than physical torture. On the other hand, when our mind is tortured by bitterness, frustration, anger, hatred, not only it takes away our mental peaceful, calm, mental joy, happiness. Not only that it takes our peace, joy, mental calm, but sometimes it can take our own life, end our own life, and also take the life of others. That is how harmful or how strong is such mental torture.

It seems loving-kindness and compassion are even more needed in our present time than even before. New technologies are developing in every area. It is possible to misuse it and abuse those technologies and, and if there is not enough compassion, loving-kindness, the chances to misuse it, abuse it, increase. They can destroy someone’s life, someone’s family or country, or the world that we live in; if there is more loving-kindness, compassion, then we will not misuse them.

We use it for, to reduce the suffering and to relieve the suffering of the beings in the world. But if we don’t have that loving-kindness-compassion, then we might use those to create more suffering and pain and problems in the world. We should use them to try to reduce or even eliminate the suffering of those on the other side.

Loving-kindness and compassion are something that we all can practice, meditate on, and that we all can cultivate and improve.

Our fundamental quality is by nature altruistic and compassionate. And so, since that is our fundamental basic nature, the seed is always there. If we nurture it, if we take care of it, it will flourish; it is something that we don’t have to develop from zero, the seed is always there. Our capacity to be altruistic is always present, and we can easily access it.

Research also seems to indicate that the basic nature of human beings is altruistic.

If we really believe, it is possible to cultivate and improve our loving-kindness and altruism.  Conviction is important to inspire us to practice. When you don’t feel it is possible, when we don’t have the conviction, then we are not inspired; when we don’t have these inner convictions, when we don’t internalize this understanding, then we are not so motivated and inspired to practice, our practice becomes kind of half, not fully dedicated. And I think it is the same in everything that we do when we are not convinced of something that can be achieved. Then it’s hard to put our full heart, everything into that.

So then, after the break, I’m going to talk a little bit about meditation itself on loving-kindness, compassion and then I will open for any questions.

Okay, so we are going to resume.

So as many of you might be aware, there are many different practices of meditation. You are probably aware of mindfulness meditation. Most mindful meditation practices focus on breathing, on rising and falling of our abdomen. So basically it is a meditation practice to improve our concentration and to help us to be in present, in moment, here.

And of course, as a part of that practice, when any thoughts arise, we learn to be aware of, and not to get involved in them.

The meditation of loving-kindness and compassion is slightly different. During this type of meditation, we reflect upon and contemplate the suffering or pain of others. We try to feel the pain and suffering of others. After contemplating, after thinking about someone’s pain and suffering, you feel pain and suffering in such a way that it becomes unbearable as your own pain, your own suffering. And so how will you react when you have your own pain and suffering, unbearable? You want to get rid of that pain and suffering immediately, as soon as possible. And not only do you have the wish to free or reduce or relieve the suffering, but you will also try to do that.

Thus, we develop this aspiration, this wish to attempt to be free from the pain, suffering, problems, you want to do something yourself.

And when we start, we always start with someone who is very close to you, most dear, most close to you, where you can feel compassion more easily. In a way, you don’t have to put so much effort to feel that compassion. And then, more neutral person in your life who is neither someone very close to you, that you are very attached to, nor someone you dislike so much, that you call enemy, or someone you dislike very much, nor neither of them, but who is more kind of neutral. You feel more neutral towards that person.

So here you must put a little bit more effort, compared to the previous one. But still, it wouldn’t be so extremely difficult to feel compassion. If you contemplate the suffering of others and you feel the pain and suffering, and you feel as though it is almost like your own pain, unbearable, regardless of who that person is, so unbearable, wish for that person to be free from that pain, suffering, problem.

If we don’t know the person closely, it will be difficult to know exactly what kind of suffering that person has, and to feel it in our soul. We can use our reasoning mind and see as long as they are in samsara, as samsaric beings, we all experience suffering.

Some of my friends often ask: when you go and visit different places, what differences do you find?

And my answer – that is how I feel, in any part of the world I go to, people are the same. Everyone has similar pain, problem, sufferings. Some currently have more problems and pain, some have a little bit less this time; next time when I visit, the one who had less before, now has more problems, more suffering; in general, all people have, in their everyday life, suffering and pain of all kinds.

Sometimes, from outside it seems that a person is fine. In general, if you don’t talk about the pain and problems of a person from outside, that person seems to be fine. Seems that person’s life is happy, everything seems just fine.

But when you get to know them closely and when they are more open to discussing feelings, what’s going on in your life, then everyone has more or less the same, same, same suffering, same problems, same pain. When people open up, I start to see that they have problems. In most situations, people always have the same problems. With that understanding, even if you don’t know this specific suffering or problem, we can still think and contemplate.

Sometimes they have health issues just like everyone else. Some have a little bit more worse health issues than someone has. But still, we all go through some health issue, at some time in our life.

Also, there is no relationship that is perfect. If it is not a relationship, it is perfect. Whether it is a husband, a wife, whether it is a boyfriend, girlfriend, whether it is children, parents, whether it is colleagues, every relationship… there is not one relationship that is perfect. Not in samsara. Even though sometimes we feel when we are in that challenging period, similar and we believe that other people have good relationships, and we think “Why me, why my family, why are we struggling with that?”

But if you really discuss, everyone has similar situations, challenges, difficulties.

And so we can apply that with all other problems, suffering, pain that we experience and then contemplate that that person, even if it is not so obvious to us now, most definitely they are also going through problems, suffering, and then try to cultivate a wish for them to be free from that suffering, pain and cause of suffering and pain.

And then, next, try to feel the same compassion for someone you have conflicts with, someone, the most difficult person in your life. And that is not going to be so easy; that requires a lot of effort and a lot of practice and meditation. Here, sometimes we might have to think a little bit more than before.

Sometimes, I think, even though we see the pain and suffering, it might be difficult for us to feel the pain and suffering. Due to so many negative feelings, we sometimes build a wall, where we see it, but we cannot feel it. Therefore, sometimes, to see and feel the pain and suffering of that person, maybe we might have to perform an analytical exercise, in order to break down, to dismantle that shield. To destroy the walls of the mind, you will have to analyze more.

So, first step is to really understand that the person you dislike or that you have conflict with, are just like everyone else, myself and everyone else, they want to be happy, and they do not want suffering. So, instead of focusing on the differences, we try to feel this oneness, this sameness on that fundamental level that we all are same, we are equal as human beings, as sentient beings.

And just as we have the right to be happy and to not suffer, that person has the same right not to suffer and to be happy. That person is also saying they are trying to protect their happiness, their well-being. That’s all they are trying to do, to protect themselves and bring good to themselves. When trying to do that, the way we do that, sometimes it hurts and harms someone. People don’t always want to intentionally hurt and harm that person. It’s more about how can they protect their happiness, their well-being. And so then, they think of how to do that in a certain way. And when they do that, then it might hurt and harm someone in that way.

So, if someone is being harmful, hurtful, whether to yourself, your family, friends or anyone, many times it is just… they are trying to protect their own well-being, their own happiness. Everything that these people are trying to do is to protect themselves, to defend themselves, to generate good for themselves and their families and in this process, it is possible to hurt those around them.

If we can feel that, if we understand, then we don’t have such a strong negative bad feeling towards that person; our negative feelings will be less powerful, or they will diminish. We will have less anger, fury and resentment, then that wall – that we have built up – will start to dismantle and get destroyed; our mind will become more spacious; then, we will be able to see their pain and suffering more clearly, because our mind will no longer be so biased, so subjective. And then, try to feel the pain as though it were your own pain, your own problem. And if you can feel compassion for this most difficult person in your life, then it will be much easier to feel compassion for all other beings.

And also as a part of our meditation and practice, that is what we should more focus on: to be able to have compassion even for those who make our life difficult, who do not make our life easy. And if we can feel compassion for them, then even their harmful, hurtful actions won’t make you upset and angry. So then if their attitude, if their actions and behavior do not disturb and agitate you, then, you suffer less. But in the end, if my mind is kind of disturbed and agitated and angry by someone’s actions, behavior or attitude, then, by that agitated, then because of this mind I will suffer a lot; it will create a strong potential for me to act more aggressively, more harmfully, to be more violent towards others and thereby bring more suffering and pain and suffering to the others.

Sometimes we might feel that anger is good because it can protect us and our family, but anger never protects you or your family. It makes you more vulnerable, more dangerous to us and our families. But if there is something that protects you, your family and others. If there is something that can really protect us and our families, it is love and compassion.

Therefore, we start with those three different people, and then we try to extend that same compassion to all the beings, We must understand that – as long as we are in samsara, as long as we are under the control of karma and delusions, we continue to experience problems, suffering, pain, again and again. The potential is always there. Even if we are not experiencing any significant problems, suffering is there. If you are in prison, even if someone is not torturing you now, give you a relief from being tortured, still since you are in prison, you still suffer. It’s still a prison. Sometimes for us, it’s like when we are being tortured in a prison, we feel suffering. And when we are not tortured, for the moment, we feel like we have no problem. Everything just seems fine, and we forget that we are in a prison.

The Buddha says that – when we are the slaves of our mind, our mind itself becomes the slave of our own afflictive emotions; you are a slave, you are a prisoner of that delusion, of your own karma. So if we understand that – even though someone does not have an obvious suffering, who is in good health, who seems to be doing quite good in their relationship, financially who are very secure and good – they are still suffering, because they are still overwhelmed by their delusions and karma. If we understand that, then we can feel compassion even for those.

So through such reasoning, we try to understand and feel the suffering of all the beings, and then cultivate the compassion through wishing them to be free from each and all sufferings, not only one particular suffering, but all the suffering and the cause of suffering, all the potentials, all the negative karma, all contaminated karma, and all the delusions.

Then, we generate the desire to free all beings from suffering, regardless of the context in which they are in, to free them from these delusions and karma. We expand this thought to everyone in Bucharest, everyone in Romania, everyone in Europe, all the world; slowly, like that, we train the mind.  We expand this thought not only towards all the human beings, but all the animals, all the beings that can be seen and unseen, all the beings.

If you want to be more specific, you can think of a particular person and recite a prayer your mind: “May they be free from the sickness and the cause of the sickness. And may they have good health.”

In the same way, if someone is dealing with some suffering, pain, because of certain challenges in their life, again, same thing, feeling their pain and suffering and wishing them to be free from the pain and suffering of such a difficult problem and so forth, wishing them to have a stable and good relationship and causes of stable and good relationship, financial security; we wish them to acquire the causes and conditions that will lead them to be free from future problem and sufferings, negative karma, the contaminated karma and the delusions.

We want to free ourselves from these sufferings in our relationships and financial situations, but we also want to free ourselves from the deeper causes of illusions, of karma, and the contaminated karma that led to the manifestation of these sufferings. We wish them to be free from all the obscurations that are obstacles for them to achieve the true ultimate happiness – which are, virtues and positive state of mind, spiritual realization, and to achieve the ultimate happiness of fully awakened state.

So I think that is a little bit about this type of meditation, the practice itself.

Geshe-la, you are a person who traveled a lot in many countries and gave teachings to all sorts of people. And I was wondering what did you notice to be the greatest problem of people everywhere? What is the most important source of suffering and of problems for people everywhere in the world?

Basically I noticed the same as Buddha said: attachment. And of course that attachment comes along with a lot of frustration, a lot of fear, a lot of anger. Those are the problems that I see most. When I go to Nepal, India, people are frustrated and upset with so many things:  political system, or the situation of the country. I go to USA, same thing. People are very upset and angry with politics, the systems, the situation of the countries is not good. Same in Europe. Every place I go, people have the same complaints, same problems, same sufferings.

People in, let’s say, India, Nepal, they think… America is the place to be and they aspire to be there and they pay a lot of money, they risk their life to go there, and then on the other hand there are a lot of Americans who feel that is the place to be is India, Nepal, this is… always not being happy and satisfied with where you are and your situation. Everyone wants to go where they are not. As long as, because of the attachment, you always want better and more. And when we don’t get that, then we are frustrated. Millionaires are frustrated because they cannot make more money. When the government says they have to pay one percentage, two percentage more tax, they are extremely unhappy, they are extremely frustrated, they are extremely angry.

Similarly, poor people are not pleased with what they have. They feel they need more to be happier. They are not happy and satisfied with their life and everything because they want to be in the middle class to be more secure. Once they arrive there, they want to be on the upper path. And that never ends.

I personally know people who are millionaires, but who feel more insecure than many poor people.

Until we work with our attachments, we can never reach a point where we feel safe and protected. So that is the same problem, suffering that I see all over the world.

There is another question, Geshe-la. I was thinking about the technique of applying what you have taught us: to meditate on love and compassion which is very important; my question is what happens when our minds are, let’s say, in a turmoil or, let’s say, drawn into something that’s like 70%, 80% made up of attachment, anger, desire again, ego, identities, conflict because that’s how we are most of the time. How to have a mind full of compassion?

We should try being more mindful and, whenever we notice any kind of negative feeling, bad feeling, instead of giving space and time for those negative thoughts to spread in our mind, to keep them under control.

And so when we start doing that more and more, with the mindfulness and conscious effort at the very beginning, then just like you are training your physical body, then slowly, slowly, your mind gets used to it and then when it comes, you don’t have to put so much effort in getting that kind of rhythm, that kind of action by itself easily.

to make it observe and stop those thoughts and it will enter in a sort of rhythm to bring things to the virtuous. If you get used to it, familiar with that, then the body itself, without putting effort, it kind of goes naturally towards that direction.

Same is the training of the mind, you know. At the very beginning, we have to be more alert, more mindful, more conscious. And then whenever any of those negative feelings arise, we try to, immediately try to apply, apply the antidote, the practice. And then, slowly, slowly, our mind getting used to that. More humility, more accustomed, and then, then when such negative thought comes, your mind starts to respond in that way, without having put so much effort.

And for the initial mind it is harder to do this exercise of observing negative thoughts, negative emotions. But then, slowly, you get used to it and as soon as you see a good, you immediately find it, as soon as you see an emotion, you apply the antidote, you practice, and it will be easier and easier to bring the mind where you want it to be.

For example, let’s say when you have anger and then start to feel negative about that person, wishing that person bad, when you have that kind of feeling, with mindfulness, immediately recognize that: “Oh, there is that bad feeling, negative feeling of anger and wishing someone bad.” Instead, try to put effort to wish that person good, instead of wishing that person bad: “May they have happiness, may they have good health, may they have everything.” So you try to put effort to feel, even though you don’t naturally feel that way; put effort to feel that way. And slowly, slowly your mind gets used to that, and then every time you start to feel a little bit bad, your mind starts to respond or react; instead of wishing bad, wishing good. And then in that way, compassion, loving-kindness, come more easily.

For example, if you see a person you don’t understand, and you feel anger, as soon as you notice that these emotions come to you, make the effort to start generating good thoughts for this person, wishing them to be happy, to be well, to be in peace. At the beginning, it will be difficult, it will take effort, like when you go to the gym; with time, your mind will start to get used to it. Little by little, it will be easier, easier.

Because we are in samsara, because we are not free from the samsara, because of our karma, because of our delusions, sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we do things that we are not very proud of.  In such situations, we need to be patient with ourselves, because we are all in this complicated situation and we are all the same as everyone around us.

I think the most important is we have to understand and accept where we are now: we are ordinary sentient beings in samsara, with delusions and under the control of karma. So we are born to make mistakes. If we don’t grow up, it means we are in Buddha. Even the Bodhisattvas – even they make some mistakes.

Can we do anything to increase the peace in the world, in this situation, in the present situation, through our own action?

Of course, I think there are so many ways through which we might be able to contribute. The most important thing is that we work with our own mind, so that we don’t get angry and upset with those whom we blame, who are the cause of the turmoil, of the sufferings.

Whenever there is conflict like this in the world, whether it’s in the Middle East, whether it is in Russia, Ukraine or other parts, different people have different views. Who is to blame for all this? They might have different views about that, but we shouldn’t have anger, hatred and bad feeling towards those whom we might believe, or think are the root of the problem. When that happens, instead of creating better environment for peace, we create environment for more conflict.

What we have to do is to try not to put ourselves in a camp and not to generate negative emotions and not to judge the context. Those who claim to be fighting for peace often end up taking guns themselves and starting to kill.

What we can do is to try to ask for more dialogue, more balance. We can try to put pressure on all those people who lead us, to try to balance the situation, not to go in one direction.

It is not easy to practice but that is the only hope we have for ourselves and for the world. Hence why you are here. Thank you.