Meditation on Compassion
The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves inside the skin of the other. We go inside their body, feelings and mental formations and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the object of our observation. When we are in contact with another's suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means literally, :to suffer with".
We begin by choosing as the object our meditation someone who is undergoing physical or material suffering, some one who is weak and easily ill, poor and oppressed or has no protection. These kind of sufferings are easy for us to see. After that, we can practice being in contact with more subtle forms of suffering.
Sometimes the other person does not seem to be suffering at all, but we may notice that he has sorrows which have left their marks in hidden ways. People with more than enough material comforts also suffer. We look deeply at the person who is the object of our meditation on compassion, both during sitting meditation and when we are actually in contact with him. We must allow enough time to be really in deep contact with him. We must allow enough time to be really in deep contact with his suffering. We continue to observe him until compassion arises and penetrates our being.
We we observe deeply in such way, the fruit of our meditation will naturally transform into some kind of action. We will not just mention, "I love him very much", but instead say, "I will do something so that he will suffer less". The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person's suffering.
We have to find ways to nourish and express our compassion. when we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept.
We practice in this way until we can clearly see that our love do not contingent upon the other person being loveable. Then we can know that our mind of compassion is firm and authentic. We ourselves will be more at ease and the person who has been the object of our meditation will also benefit eventually. His or her suffering will slowly diminish and his or her life will gradually be brighter and more joyful as a result of our compassion.
We can also meditate on the suffering of those who cause us to suffer. Anyone who has made us suffer previously, is undoubtedly suffering as well. We only need to follow our breathing and look deeper, and naturally we shall be able to see his suffering. A part of his difficulties and sorrows may have been brought about by his parents' lack of skill when he was still young. But his parents themselves may have been victims of their parents; sufferings that has been transmitted from generation to generation and been reborn in him.
If we see all these, we shall no longer blame him for making us suffer, because we also know that he is a victim as well. To look deeper is to understand. Upon understanding the reasons that he has acted badly, our bitterness towards him will soon vanish and we will long for him to suffer less. We will feel cool and light and we can smile. We do not need the other person to be present in order to bring about the reconciliation.
When we look deeper, we become reconciled with ourselves and for us the problem no longer exists. Sooner or later, he will see our attitude and will share in the freshness of the stream of love which is flowing naturally from our heart.
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