How to generate bodhicitta / compassion through meditation
Bodhicitta: Compassion, altruism.
What is compassion? If you search the word 'compassion', one of the descriptions that comes up is: "...compassion is the ability to understand the emotional state of another person or oneself. Often confused with empathy, compassion has the added element of having a desire to alleviate or reduce the suffering of another."
Personally, I haven't heard many Zen teachers using the word bodhicitta - although I believe it is extensively covered in Tibetan Buddhism. In Zen, I've heard teachers refer to 'Wisdom Heart' or 'Luminous Mind'.
It's not to say that the practice of bodhicitta is not at the heart of Zen - because I believe it is a big part of Zen practice. I think it's just 'a rose by another name'. The service of giving, to open the heart and live for others is very much at the heart of Zen. If you take a look, I think you will find that bodhicitta is very much at the heart of most major faiths or belief systems.
When we practice giving or being of service to others, we live for others, and are engaged with the world. Then we can see clearly that everything is connected,and it becomes difficult to sit back and do nothing. If we see someone suffering, we suffer as well.
Developing bodhicitta (altruism or compassion) in our heart, through the act of helping others is so beneficial to us in so many ways, after a while it starts to seem almost like a selfish act, as you begin to notice how much you get back in return.
How to develop bodhicitta?
Traditionally, we begin by developing bodhicitta, altruism or compassion, through a set of specific meditations. It may seem a little strange, but once you practice these, you will quickly see what the meditations achieve:
1.) We recognise that everyone was once our mother.
If you don't believe in reincarnation, or find your mother a particularly difficult person to get along with, you might find this a difficult meditation to begin with.
(It's fine. Not everyone gets along with their mother.)
However, if you allow yourself some time to sit quietly, you may find recognition that, through the kindness of your mother, you are sitting here, reading this today. Your mother provided food to eat. When you were small, she had to feed you, keep you from harm, keep you warm and clothed. Maybe your mother ensured you had a good education, etc. If you find your mother did none of those things for you, the teachings suggest that you meditate on the fact that, at the very least, your mother gave birth to you and she is the reason you are here today.
2.) Meditating on a mother’s kindness. Through many acts of your mother's kindness, you are where you are today.
3.) Meditating on repaying such kindness. Meditating on the idea of repaying this kindness, either directly or by 'paying it forward', you begin to develop a sense or feeling of bodhicitta.
4.) Meditating on love and compassion develops bodhicitta, and
5.) Meditating on the extraordinary thought of universal responsibility - or on the idea of social responsibility within our community.
For those of you who practice meditation regularly, you may recognise that, even without meditating on these factors, meditation brings about a happier, more relaxed and balanced state of mind. As we meditate, our stress levels go down, our minds become more positive, anger disappears and compassion arises. When we become strong in meditation, and this positive mind-set becomes more solid and stable, a reflection of our mind-set naturally flows outward from our practice.
Our happiness and positive mind-set, generated through meditation, leads us to being a more engaged, compassionate and empathic person, providing us the tools to act with kindness and gentleness towards all other beings.
But more about this in another article, because .... before we practice any of the methods outlined above, we must first develop a sense of equanimity towards all living beings. (Note: ALL living beings.)
We must rise above identifying or labelling some people as "close friends", others as "people we don't like" or enemies and a different group of people as "complete strangers" or people who don't matter or feature in our lives. Until we have developed the same balanced feeling towards every person, regardless of where or how they fit into our 'social picture' or how we feel about them - i.e. equanimity for all beings - any meditation we do in an attempt to develop bodhicitta is not effective. This is not to say we have to love every single person we meet, or that we need to turn ourselves into a doormat, having no psychological boundaries. We can still have compassion for people we don't love.
How do we develop equanimity? We recognise that our minds automatically "impute". We discriminate between people: some we have labeled “friend,” some we have labeled "enemy" and others we have labeled "strangers".
It happens automatically, but once we meditate on this action, we will soon see how unstable this discrimination is.
We label someone "friend" and we respond with warmth or kindness - because we have an attachment to this person. Why? Because at some time, on some level or other, this person has benefited us in a certain way. Perhaps this person has helped us or has been kind to us.
Alternatively, whenever we encounter somebody we have labeled “enemy,” aversion arises and we respond with coldness, unkindness or anger, because that person has once hurt, injured, displeased or threatened us in some way. Similarly, when we encounter somebody we might not know, or perhaps do know slightly, but this person has neither helped nor harmed us before, we apply the label “stranger” and have a neutral feeling about this person - no feelings for that person one way or the other.
This process is extremely unstable because there is not one sentient being who has consistently been either friend or enemy. People once regarded as friends can become enemies quite quickly by hurting us, strangers can become friends by doing something that benefits us, and enemies often become friends when they stop doing what hurts us.
If you sit for 5 minutes, immediately after reading this article, and think about / meditate on / consider the concept of bodhicitta and how unstable our labelling of people is, you will develop a recognition or feeling of equanimity. Try it.
Developing compassion and a feeling of equanimity towards all living beings is a great strength, and a source of great calm, confidence, inner peace and happiness.
