Human compassion does not come from religious
text.
Human compassion is in our blood.
Human compassion is in our blood.
THE FOUR IMMEASURABLES
I AM FILLED with love, compassion, joy and
equanimity for the depth of meaning found in the Dalai Lama’s
simple words above.
Again and again my soul is endlessly drawn to the
Four Immeasurables—Love, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity. Their
depth and simplicity bring such comfort to me at times when comfort
is needed. They bring such clarity of understanding when clarity is
needed. They bring abiding insight into our ultimate nature when
insight is sought.
It is profoundly meaningful that these four—Love,
Compassion, Joy, Equanimity—are called Immeasurable because their
magnitude is so enormous it cannot be measured. Just as the
vastness of space cannot be measured, so, too, is it impossible
ever to be able to measure the depth and breadth of influence of
the Immeasurables. To master these four would truly be the
accomplishment of a great being.
Students of Brahma went to the Buddha and asked,
“What must we do to become like you?” The Buddha replied: “Daily
practice the Four Immeasurables.” By practicing them daily, you add
to your happiness and the happiness of all those around you.
As we practice Love, Compassion, Joy and
Equanimity, our hearts are healed. They soften and become open to
all people and animals and to the environment and nature as a
whole, seeing all as precious treasures to be highly valued. In
faithfully practicing these four, all the madness and nonsense that
has kept us separated from ourselves and others begins to be
healed. The chasm begins to narrow. Light enters the shadowy places
in consciousness and begins to bring forth profound healings on
every level.
The Buddha said that the Four Immeasurables are the
very nature of an enlightened person. In other words, as we advance
on our journey of awakening, these are the very qualities that
define who we are and what we are becoming.
LOVE
There are thousands of books on love, I myself
having written a popular one, A Course in Love.
Love is immeasurable and so difficult to
communicate through the written word. It is not sentimentality. It
is not a commodity. If it’s here today and gone tomorrow, it was
never love. Love is at the very core of our being. When everything
else is stripped away, true love remains. It is our essential core.
We do not have to seek to become loving, but rather we must remove
all the obstacles and obscurations to love’s presence within us.
This means systematically eliminating all judgments and all
separating thoughts.
Consider the absolutely most loving person you know
and observe his or her behavior. Ask yourself: How could I be more
like that? How could I be more kind, thoughtful and loving?
Considering who I would pick is difficult, because
my life has been blessed by so very many loving people—from my
parents, who truly loved me, to my dear husband, to my precious
friends with whom I share a soul-bond and walk a spiritual path.
Instead of telling you about only one, I’ll share what they all
have in common, for they are all noble beings who personify love.
Here are four characteristics:
1. In order to be an extraordinary loving person,
the tantamount requirement is to love yourself. A self-effacing or
self-loathing individual does poorly when it comes to loving
others.
2. Loving people are all verbal. There is none
of, “Oh, she knows I love her. I don’t have to say it.” Yes, we do
need to say it and say it often. Be generous with your praise and
acknowledgments. It is so important to simply see another
person and tell her what you see.
3. A loving person is generous. Tightwads need
not apply. One who truly loves has learned he lives in an abundant
Universe and can afford to be generous.
4. A truly loving person has learned to care for
and cherish others as much as self.
Practice being loving, doing loving acts for others
you know—family, friends, colleagues, and for those you don’t know.
Engage in acts of loving-kindness throughout your day. Your heart
will soften. You will become more accessible to others, and others
will become more accessible to you. Practice truly listening to
others. Practice truly seeing them. Catch others doing something
grand and praise them.
COMPASSION
For many compassion takes years of practice. One
beneficial way to practice is to engage in the technique of
exchanging yourself for others. Depending on how difficult you
consider the other person to be, you might find it more helpful to
start to use this attribute with those whom you already love and
who you know already love you.
To do this, visualize the other person. Pick a
loved one who is experiencing a minor upset. See her in her current
state, and imagine you can go directly into her and begin to feel
what she is feeling. Remain very centered and continue to plug in
on a soul/cellular level until a shift begins to take place within
you. Breathe through her pain and discomfort until you feel a
degree of release. Enfold her in light and love. Ask that she be
protected by angels, dakinis, bodhisattvas or whatever protective
image works for you. Then come out of the meditation through deep
breathing and feel the clarity and freedom.
What I have learned in life about compassion is
that we cannot know what we do not know. What that means is that we
cannot truly understand something until we have personally
experienced it. When we have suffered in a particular way, then we
can have true compassion for others in similar circumstances. Such
experiences afford us true compassion.
Compassion comes with spiritual maturity. When we
have experienced much in life—sorrows and suffering, heartache and
loss—we are seasoned to become either bitter or compassionate. The
spiritual person chooses compassion. To be compassionate our hearts
must truly be wide open. There can be no barriers or walls of
protection. Then we can begin to experience the joys and
triumphs.
JOY
When I think of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I
think of the most joyous person imaginable. To hear him laugh, to
see his face light up with delight fills an auditorium with joy. He
has not allowed the adversities and tragedies of his life and
people to rob him of his immeasurable quality of unabashed joy and
compassion that is in his blood.
Joy bubbles out of him like a sparkling fountain.
Does he have the corner on how one can have a happy life? No, but
for his seventy years he has from childhood practiced the Four
Immeasurables. So, too, must we practice removing that which would
keep joy a faint hope. We must see all the good, the blessing, the
beneficial that is contained within an experience. Find what brings
you joy and cultivate it more into your life.
Our two little Yorkshire terriers and our
adopted-from-Hawaii kitty bring us great joy every day. They are
just being themselves, but my husband, David, and I observe them
through eyes of joy. So we attend to them lovingly. We are forever
noticing their cute antics and poses and relish in what joy they
have added to our lives.
The Dalai Lama speaks frequently about all people,
all sentient beings, desiring happiness. He regularly emphasizes
the importance of being happy and having a happy life, happiness
and joy being one. How important has joy been in your life? What
would it mean to you to have more joy and happiness? What would you
have to give up to have more joy in your life? Do not quickly
dismiss this important question. What stories would you have to
cease from telling; what behaviors, beliefs and attitudes would
have to be released?
I coached a friend whose life record seemed
permanently stuck on the “they did me wrong” song. After years of
hearing ancient and new versions of the same old story, out of
utter frustration I said, “I’ve heard enough. Your life is never
going to change until you change and divorce yourself from this
unhealthy life-robbing situation.” What I have always known and
continue to know about this young man is that he will have his
life-changing breakthrough. For now he still has more work to do to
learn how to love himself enough to no longer tolerate in the
future the abuses of the past.
Abe Lincoln said, “. . . most people are about as
happy as they’ve made up their minds to be.” Choose joy and you are
choosing happiness for yourself and others. This is a truly blessed
Immeasurable.
EQUANIMITY
Patrul Rinpoche teaches in Words of My Perfect
Teacher that the Immeasurable he prefers to explore first is
equanimity, which he refers to as impartiality, “. . . having an
even-minded attitude towards all beings, free of attachment to
those close to us and aversion for those who are distant.”
The teachings on equanimity are very profound, and
it takes at least an awakening mind to comprehend that all human
beings hold equal value—not for their persona and accomplishments,
but because, when all the layers of self are peeled away, what
remains is the true spiritual essence, the Divine Nature which is
all the same. It is one. No matter how glorious or how unskilled an
individual’s actions may seem, no matter what they are doing with
their lives, beneath it all there lies a oneness. This is what we
are called upon as noble beings to look upon.
When we can know this and see this, then we have
spiritual sight. We are experiencing equanimity. When we can care
as deeply for the sinner as we do for the saint, then it can be
said that we are grasping equanimity. When we can embrace all with
love, compassion and joy, then we are awakening to
equanimity.
When attending the teachings of the Dalai Lama in
Pasadena, California, I experienced as always a life-affirming and
inspiring few days of sitting with pure holiness in the presence of
an enlightened one.
One afternoon at the lunch break I exited the
auditorium with the other 2,400 attendees and received a startling
greeting of enormous contrast. Just beyond the boundaries of the
convention center were about a dozen enraged men with bullhorns and
nasty placards screeching at the Buddhist assemblage. They hurled
insults at the monks and nuns in robes and at all the rest of us
“stupid, stupid Americans.”
I was taken aback and startled by their venomous
rage, a glaring contrast to the peace and love in which I had just
been swimming. Later I would see that those angry men were the
perfect teachers assisting me to learn about equanimity along with
the other three Immeasurables. I had to do much praying,
forgiveness work and meditation to see this, but with practice the
insights came. Then I could begin to see them as fearful of the
unknown, just as in the past I had been fearful of the unknowns in
my life.
These men were fearful of Tibetan Buddhist
teachings and their leader, because their teachings told them there
was only one holy man, and he lived thousands of years ago. They
were fearful of the Buddhist teachings because they were unknown
and not Christian. I must say that I saw and experienced a lot more
“Christianity” inside the auditorium than out.
One Tibetan monk was busily snapping the whole
scene on his camera. He got close-up shots of the men’s contorted
faces hurling insults at him—all the while being calm yet
inquisitive, and taking none of it personally as he clicked
away.
From earlier teachings of the Dalai Lama I remember
him frequently saying that no one behaves so unskillfully unless he
is deeply hurting and unhappy. Therefore we must have compassion.
In all circumstances life calls on us to practice the Four
Immeasurables—Love, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity.