"The_Dalai_Lama_-_An_Open_Heart_-_Practicing_Compassion_in_Everyday_Life" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lama Dalai)

THE VAST AND THE PROFOUND: Two ASPECTS OF THE PATH
ALONG OUR SPIRITUAL journey in Buddhism, there are two aspects of our path that reflect two distinct kinds of practice we must engage in. Though the Buddha taught both, they were passed along over the centuries from teacher to student in two separate lineages. However, like the two wings of a bird, they are both necessary as we embark upon our journey to enlightenment, be it a state free of suffering for ourselves alone or the ultimate enlightened state of Buddhahood we seek in order to benefit all sentient beings.
Thus far, I have largely concentrated on describing "the vast." This practice is often referred to as the "method" aspect and refers particularly to the opening of our heart, of our compassion and love, as well as those qualities such as generosity and patience that extend from a loving heart.
Here our training involves enhancing these virtuous qualities while diminishing nonvirtuous tendencies.
What does it mean to open the heart? First of all, we understand that the idea of the heart is a metaphorical one. The heart is perceived in most cultures to be the wellspring of compassion, love, sympathy, righteousness, and intuition rather than merely the muscle responsible for circulating blood through the body. In the Buddhist worldview, both aspects of the path, however, are understood to take place in the mind. Ironically, the Buddhist view is that the mind is located in the middle of the chest. An open heart is an open mind. A change of heart is a change of mind. Still, our conception of the heart provides a useful, if temporary, tool when trying to understand the distinction between the "vast" and "profound" aspects of the path.
The other aspect of practice is the "wisdom" aspect, also known as "the profound." Here we are in the realm of the head, where understanding, analysis, and critical perception are the ruling notions. In the wisdom aspect of the path, we work at deepening our understanding of imper-manence, the suffering nature of existence, and our actual state of selflessness. Any one of these insights can take many lifetimes to fully fathom. Yet it is only by recognizing
the impermanent nature of things that we can overcome our grasping at them and at any notion of permanence. When we lack an understanding of the suffering nature of existence, our attachment to life increases. If we cultivate our insight into the miserable nature of life, we overcome that attachment.
Ultimately, all our difficulties arise from one basic illusion. We believe in the inherent existence of ourselves and all other phenomena. We project, and then cling to, an idea of the intrinsic nature of things, an essence that phenomena do not actually possess. Let us take a simple chair as an example. We believe, without fully recognizing this belief, that there is such a thing as an essential chair-ness, a quality of a chair that seems to exist among its parts: the legs, seat, and back. In the same way, we each believe there to be an essential and continuous "me" pervading the physical and mental parts that make up each of us. This essential quality is merely imputed by us; it does not actually exist.
Our grasping at this inherent existence is a fundamentally mistaken perception that we must eliminate through meditation practices of the wisdom path. Why? Because it is the root cause of all our misery. It lies at the core of all our afflictive emotions.
We can abandon this illusion of an essential quality only by cultivating its direct antidote, which is the wisdom that realizes the nonexistence of that quality. Again, we cultivate this profound wisdom, as we cultivate humility in order to uproot our pride. We must first become familiar with the improper way we perceive ourselves and other phenomena; we can then cultivate a correct perception of phenomena. Initially, this perception will be intellectual, as in the kinds of understanding one achieves through study or listening to teachings. To deepen this perception requires the more sustained meditation practices described in Chapter 11, "Calm Abiding," Chapter 12, "The Nine Stages of Calm Abiding Meditation," and Chapter 13, "Wisdom." Only then is the perception able to truly affect our view of ourselves and other things. By directly realizing our lack of an inherent nature, we uproot the very basis of the self-grasping that lies at the core of all our suffering.
Developing wisdom is a process of bringing our minds into accordance with the way things really are. Through this process we gradually remove the incorrect perceptions of reality we have had since beginningless time. This is not easy. Merely understanding what is meant by the inherent or intrinsic existence of things demands much study and
contemplation. Recognizing that things have no inherent existence is a profound insight, requiring years of study and meditation. We must begin by familiarizing ourselves with these notions, which we shall explore further later in this book. For the moment, however, let us return to the method aspect in order to explore the idea of compassion.
CHAPTER7
COMPASSION
WHAT is COMPASSION? Compassion is the wish that others be free of suffering. It is by means of compassion that we aspire to attain enlightenment. It is compassion that inspires us to engage in the virtuous practices that lead to Buddhahood. We must therefore devote ourselves to developing compassion.
EMPATHY

In the first step toward a compassionate heart, we must develop our empathy or closeness to others. We must also recognize the gravity of their misery. The closer we are to a person, the more unbearable we find that persons suffering. The closeness I speak of is not a physical proximity, nor need it be an emotional one. It is a feeling of responsibility,
of concern for a person. In order to develop such closeness, we must reflect upon the virtues of cherishing the well-being of others. We must come to see how this brings one an inner happiness and peace of mind. We must come to recognize how others respect and like us as a result of such an attitude toward them. We must contemplate the shortcomings of self-centeredness, seeing how it causes us to act in unvirtuous ways and how our own present fortune takes advantage of those less fortunate.
It is also important that we reflect upon the kindness of others. This realization is also a fruit of cultivating empathy. We must recognize how our fortune is really dependent upon the cooperation and contributions of others. Every aspect of our present well-being is due to hard work on the part of others. As we look around us at the buildings we live and work in, the roads we travel, the clothes we wear, or the food we eat, we must acknowledge that all are provided by others. None of these would exist for us to enjoy and make use of were it not for the kindness of so many people unknown to us. As we contemplate in this manner, our appreciation for others grows, as does our empathy and closeness to them.
We must work to recognize our dependence on those for whom we feel compassion. This recognition brings them even closer. It requires sustained attention to see others through less self-centered lenses. We must work at recognizing their enormous impact on our well-being. When we resist indulging in a self-centered view of the world, we can replace it with a worldview that takes every living being into account.
We must not expect our view of others to change suddenly.
RECOGNIZING THE SUFFERING OF OTHERS
After empathy and developing closeness, the next important practice in our cultivation of compassion is an insight into the nature of suffering. Our compassion for all sentient beings must stem from a recognition of their suffering. One thing very specific to the contemplation of suffering is that it tends to be more powerful and effective if we focus on our own suffering and then extend that recognition to the suffering of others. Our compassion for others grows as our recognition of their suffering does.
We all naturally sympathize with someone who is undergoing the manifest suffering of a painful illness or the loss of a loved one. This is one kind of suffering, in Buddhism called the suffering of suffering.
It is more difficult to feel compassion for someone experiencing what Buddhists refer to as the suffering of change, which in conventional terms would be pleasurable experiences such as the enjoyment of fame or wealth. This is a second kind of suffering. When we see people enjoy such worldly success, instead of feeling compassion because we know that it will eventually end, leaving them to experience disappointment at their loss, often our reaction is to feel admiration and sometimes even envy. If we had a genuine understanding of suffering and its nature, we would recognize how the experience of fame and wealth are temporary and how the pleasure they bring will naturally end, causing one to suffer.
There is also a third and more profound level of suffering, which is the most subtle. We experience this suffering constantly, as it is a by-product of cyclic existence. It is in the nature of cyclic existence that we are continuously under the control of negative emotions and thoughts. And, as long as we are under their control, our very existence is a
form of suffering. This level of suffering pervades our lives, sending us round and round in vicious circles of negative emotions and nonvirtuous actions. However, this form of suffering is difficult to recognize. It is not the evident state of misery we find in the suffering of suffering. Nor is it the opposite of our fortune and well-being, as we see in the suffering of change. Nevertheless, this pervasive suffering is most profound. It permeates all aspects of life.
Once we have cultivated a profound understanding of the three levels of suffering in our own personal experience, it is easier to shift the focus onto others and reflect upon these three levels. From there we can develop the wish that they be freed of all suffering.
Once we are able to combine a feeling of empathy for others with a profound understanding of the suffering they experience, we become able to generate genuine compassion for them. We must work at this continually. We can compare this process to the way in which we start a fire by rubbing two sticks together. To get to the smoldering point, we know that we must maintain a continuous friction to ratchet up the temperature to the point where the wood can catch fire. Similarly, as we work at developing mental qualities such as compassion, we must diligently
apply the mental techniques necessary to bring about the desired effect. Going about this in a haphazard way is of no real benefit.
LOVING-KINDNESS
Just as compassion is the wish that all sentient beings be free of suffering, loving-kindness is the wish that all may enjoy happiness. As with compassion, when cultivating loving-kindness it is important to start by taking a specific individual as a focus of our meditation, and we then extend the scope of our concern further and further, to eventually encompass and embrace all sentient beings. Again, we begin by taking a neutral person, a person who inspires no strong feelings in us, as our object of meditation. We then extend this meditation to individual friends and family members and, ultimately, our particular enemies.
We must use a real individual as the focus of our meditation, and then enhance our compassion and loving-kindness toward that person so that we can really experience compassion and loving-kindness toward others. We work on one person at a time. Otherwise, we might
end up meditating on compassion toward all in a very general sense, with no specific focus or power to our meditation. Then, when we actually relate this kind of meditation to specific individuals we are not fond of, we might even think, "Oh, he is an exception."
CHAPTER 8
MEDITATING ON COMPASSION
COMPASSION AND EMPTINESS
The compassion that we must ultimately possess is derived from our insight into emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality. It is at this point that the vast meets the profound. This ultimate nature, as explained in Chapter 6, "The Vast and the Profound," is the absence of inherent existence in all aspects of reality, the absence of intrinsic identity in all phenomena. We attribute this quality of inherent existence to our mind and body, and then perceive this objective status Ч the self, or "me." This strong sense of self then grasps at some kind of inherent nature of phenomena, such as a quality of car-ness in a new car we fancy. And as a result of such reification and our ensuing grasping, we may also experience emotions such as anger or unhappiness in the
event that we are denied the object of our desire: the car, the new computer, or whatever it may be. Reification simply means that we give such objects a reality they don't have.
When compassion is joined with this understanding of how all our suffering derives from our misconception about the nature of reality, we have reached the next step on our spiritual journey. As we recognize that the basis of misery is this mistaken perception, this mistaken grasping at a nonexistent self, we see that suffering can be eliminated. Once we remove the mistaken perception, we shall no longer be troubled by suffering.
Knowing that people's suffering is avoidable, that it is surmountable, our sympathy for their inability to extricate themselves leads to a more powerful compassion. Otherwise, though our compassion may be strong, it is likely to have a quality of hopelessness, even despair.
How TO MEDITATE ON COMPASSION AND LOVING-KINDNESS
If we truly intend to develop compassion, we have to devote more time to it than our formal meditation sessions grant us. It is a goal we must commit ourselves to with all
our heart. If we do have a time each day when we like to sit and contemplate, that is very good. As I have suggested, early mornings are a good time for such contemplation, since our minds are particularly clear then. We must, however, devote more than just this period to cultivating compassion. During our more formal sessions, for example, we work at developing empathy and closeness to others. We reflect upon their miserable predicament. And once we have generated a true feeling of compassion within ourselves, we should hold on to it, simply experience it, using the settled meditation I have described to remain focused, without applying thought or reason. This enables it to sink in. And when the feeling begins to weaken, we again apply reasons to restimulate our compassion. We go between these two methods of meditation, much as potters work their clay, moistening it and then forming it as they see the need.
It is generally best that we initially not spend too much time in formal meditation. We shall not generate compassion for all beings overnight. We won't succeed in a month or a year. If we are able to diminish our selfish instincts and develop a little more concern for others before our death, we have made good use of this life. If, instead, we push
ourselves to attain Buddhahood in a short time, we'll soon grow tired of our practice. The mere sight of the seat where we engage in our formal morning meditation will stimulate resistance.
GREAT COMPASSION
It is said that the ultimate state of Buddhahood is attainable within a human lifetime. This is for extraordinary practitioners who have devoted many previous lives to preparing themselves for this opportunity. We can feel only admiration for such beings and use their example to develop perseverance instead of pushing ourselves to any extreme. It is best to pursue a middle path between lethargy and fanaticism.
We should ensure that whatever we do, we maintain some effect or influence from our meditation so that it directs our actions as we live our everyday lives. By our doing so, everything we do outside our formal sessions becomes part of our training in compassion. It is not difficult for us to develop sympathy for a child in the hospital or an acquaintance mourning the death of a spouse. We must start to consider how to keep our hearts open toward those