Compassion Comes in Stages

The Three Stages of Compassion

Compassion is the essence of our practice. And practicing with compassion is a three-step process, as Chandrakirti explains at the very beginning of his Entering the Middle Way. Understanding this process tells us where to start and guides us as we become more and more capital-B-Bodhisattva-like.

We can all start here, now, by practicing with the first of the three types of compassion, compassion for the suffering of others. As we become more aware, we can move to practicing with the second type of compassion, compassion that arises from the suffering caused by delusion. Finally, when our practice deepens sufficiently, we practice the third type of compassion, compassion that arises from an awareness of emptiness.

Where we are on our path determines the type of compassion we practice, but knowing the direction in which our compassion will grow allows us to aspire toward deeper and deeper levels of compassion and to be open to an ever-increasingly profound practice.

Here is Chandrakirti’s triad:

1. Compassion with reference to beings.

This arises when our practice allows us to clearly perceive the pain and suffering of others. It is the first kind of compassion to arise and it causes us to strive to do what we can to help those who suffer.

This form of compassion is marked by our no longer being able to remain unmoved by the suffering of beings and by aspiring to do everything possible to help alleviate their suffering. It is often random and is not necessarily directed by wisdom. It is where we all begin as we dabble out toe in the stream.

2. Compassion with reference to reality.

This arises when we genuinely perceive how, through ignorance and delusion, beings create their own suffering. This compassion arises when we see deeply how, in striving to alleviate their suffering, beings are in fact causing themselves more suffering. Blinded by their ignorance of how things really are (impermanence and non-self), they continue to deepen their suffering thinking they are working to eliminate it.

Through understanding the illusory nature of reality, genuine perception of this situation brings forth this second type of compassion, which is more intense and profound than the first kind, and in which the delusions underpinnings of the suffering are addressed. Here there is focus and wisdom guiding our compassion. We see this type of compassion, for the most part, that we see in our Sangha.

3. Compassion without reference.

What distinguishes this third type of compassion from the first and second is that this compassion retains no notion of subject-object/self-other, nor of intention.  [It is what the Buddha and Subhuti are chatting about in chapter ten of the Diamond Sutra.] It is the ultimate form of a Buddha or Bodhisattva's compassion. It depends on the realization of emptiness.

This third and most profound type of compassion opens naturally and spontaneous from within. It is our default or factory setting. It is simply who we are when we attain one mind. This is the compassion that is manifest in the mostly deeply practiced of our Teachers, those we address as Venerable Masters.

Understanding the three types of compassion, and the order in which they occur, tells us where to start with our practice of compassion, what to expect next, and extends our vision so that we may practice with ever-increasing depth to until we are able to be of benefit to all those touched by suffering, without discriminating and ultimately practicing without any preferences.

Stealth Buddhism: Dharma in the Business World

While most practitioners “get” the big handful of basic tenets of Buddhism (the two truths, the three poisons, the four noble truths, up to if not necessarily the twelve links of dependent origination), applying these to our business lives can be baffling. For example, what does the dharma have to say about inventory control? Or, what does the Buddha tell us is the best strategy for negotiating a big deal? Or how do we keep line employees calm under pressure?

Buddhism was meant as a practice in the world. Quite an irony, since Buddhism is so infrequently taught today in an applied form. Sutras are translated, concepts are explained commentary-style, meaning what they “mean,” not how to use them. We’re almost never taught how to apply these dharma guidelines; how to use them in explicit business situations. We seem more comfortable with theory than practice.

If we’ve learned from our own experience with meditation and the dharma that stomping our heals and running around like warriors of certainty doesn’t make us more efficient and effective at the office, doesn’t make us better bosses, then perhaps it’s time to look for ways to apply Buddhism at work, to look at questions to ask ourselves so that modalities for applying the dharma appear.

There is a new sect of Buddhism developing in the workplace called Stealth Buddhism. From West Coast to East, Google to Monsanto to West Point, companies are teaching meditation and mindfulness, they just aren’t using the “B” word. As one consultant said: “As long as I don’t call it Buddhism, I can teach it anywhere.” “It’s basic Buddhist principles in a secular dissolution,” as another explained how she gets away with teaching dharma in corporate settings. Business Buddhism, it seems to most consultants, best serves us when it is Stealth Buddhism. Tis Buddhism without the label, I suspect, would have greatly appealed to the Buddha.

The dharma teaches us to be wise in our choices, disciplined in our action, caring, dependable and trustworthy in our interpersonal relations. That’s where we begin in applying the dharma to business. When our decision arises from one of the three poisons–greed, anger and delusion–our choice is never wise. So when it is time to make a decision, ask yourself: what am I trying to get out of this and why? If greed and/or anger are the motivation, then reconsider how you might effect the change in a way that honest, peaceful and beneficial.

The Pali Canon includes general principles for applying the dharma to business: Avoid any occupation or job whose main function causes harm and suffering or any kind of work that leads to one's own inner deterioration. Examples from the early scriptures are raising animals for slaughter or abuse, or slaughtering or abusing animals; manufacturing or dealing in weapons or arms; dealing in human slavery or prostitution; and producing or selling alcoholic beverages. The Buddha also says that his followers should avoid businesses and business practices that are deceitful, hypocritical, high-pressured, or dishonest. Obviously, the dharma implies we not engage in any kind of business that requires us to violate right speech and right action.

What does this say to terminating a “bad hire”? It certainly doesn't suggest the all too common three trumped-up writeups rather than being honest and paying for the unemployment. In the longrun, this type of dishonesty harms everyone? And there is always a sensitive, compassionate way to terminate a bad hire–kindly, gently, generously and honestly.

The Buddha places the positive aspects of dharma in the workplace under the three convenient headings of

1.     Rightness regarding actions

Rightness regarding actions means that business systems should be designed to encourage and allow workers to fulfill their duties diligently and conscientiously.

2.     Rightness regarding persons, and

Rightness regarding persons means that due respect and consideration should be shown to employers, employees, colleagues, and customers. An employer, for example, should assign his workers chores according to their ability, pay them adequately, promote them when they deserve a promotion and give them appropriate time off. Cooperation should be stressed over competitive in the corporate culture, and merchants and suppliers for the business should be held to the same standards.

3.     Rightness regarding objects.

Rightness regarding objects means that in business transactions the articles or services to be sold should be quality-produced and presented truthfully.

Once we get past these generalizations, we need to learn to use our analytic and deductive reasoning skills in applying dharma in the workplace. One way to learn to do this is to take each of the basic concepts and ask how it could be applied in any given situation. Start asking yourself, reflectively, questions like: What does the first noble truth say about this? What would be the least harmful way of dealing with this? What practices would best serve my employees and company around this issue? It will seem awkward at first because we haven’t done it before so let’s look at a couple of examples.

Consider inventory control and maintenance. What do the bodhisattva vows [Do no evil; do only good; save all sentient beings], for example, have to say about inventory control? In other words, what would be the least harmful and most beneficial way to manage and control a company’s inventory?

The garage at my local gas station, uses a just-in-time inventory control system. Which is the most beneficial way the garage can operate. It orders everything it needs from its suppliers for delivery either the day it is needed or the day before. It is clearly the most beneficial way for that business to operate its inventory–production occurs ontime and nothing is wasted either in terms of financial or human resources or in terms of the environment.

Other types of businesses might need a dependent demand inventory management system that inventories only what production demands and when it needs it, or even a history based inventory control system in which items are stocked based on a history of what was previously used. To determine which is dharma-suggested, ask: What type of inventory control system would be the least harmful and most beneficial to the company, its employees, and the environment?

In the case of dependent or history-based systems, as the Vina Sutra (SN 35.205) tells us, we should not manage our stock in a way that is too tight nor in a way that is too loose. The dharma suggests it should be tight but not so tight that we have shortages. Mindful monitoring and controls can keep everything flowing without interruption.

Question is, are we asking ourselves, in relation to our operating systems: Are these systems mindful of our company's need to be as beneficial as possible to all concerned, or are they just expedient, based on our greed to get things done rather than to do them “right”? Are they honest rather than dishonest? Are they a source of suffering rather than a source of peacfulness for those operating them? 

Here's another example: what does the dharma have to say about negotiating? As a negotiating strategy, the dharma would suggest reconciliation. In reconciliation, we fully accept whatever is presented to us, examine it mindfully, look clearly at the conditions, then we suggest whatever change or changes would be most beneficial for us and still be appropriate to the conditions. We simply do that over and over, never becoming impatient, frustrated or angry, never trying to get our own way, never becoming frustrated or angry. That way we stay clear-headed throughout the negotiation, which allows us to make the best deal. And if no deal is possible, we see that clearly and patiently accept it and move on.

Staying calm in crises, staying calm in customer service confrontations, just plain staying calm is a valuable and critical skill in any workplace. And what is the best practice for staying calm? Meditation. 2600 of experience has taught us that meditation is the most effective tool for developing calmness. Encouraging those on the firing lines to practice meditation, even perhaps giving them meditation time and a meditation space at work, will dramatically impact those under pressure, as well as customer satisfaction and office morale.

One San Francisco hotel, for example, had the executive committee (the senior management team) meditate together every morning for 20 minutes. The human resources manager said she noticed a significant reduction in conflict between those sitting and their direct reports.

Not all the results of applying the dharma in the workplace are easily measurable, not all will seem beneficial in the shortterm. But if we apply the dharma when conditions are right and with skillful means, the dharma will always be of benefit, both to the company and to the workers and to all sentient beings.

Our Ultimate Responsibility

It’s Time for a Paradigm Shift

What Meditation Teaches Us about Facing Cancer

By Carl Jerome

We make decisions based on certain underlying assumptions we have about ourselves and our world. These notions, which are called paradigms, guide and in fact determine our every action. These are our habitual responses to the world. They are “the box” in the phrase “thinking outside of the box.”

We don’t start thinking outside of the box until we become convinced that the box isn’t working. When things don’t feel right, when they just don’t seem to make sense, when we can’t find the answer we’re looking for, we might search for another box, search for another paradigm that works or at least works a little better. When we make a change in our modus operandi, it’s called a paradigm shift.

It is important to realize that we don’t make changes until something significant seems to demand it, and even then, we are often slow to make paradigm shifts, sometimes in spite of the fact that our paradigm is debilitating. We tend to keep fighting to make the current paradigm work. Perhaps in the case of minor paradigms because we are stubborn or hard-headed.

In the case of major paradigms, like the two listed below, our attachment to the paradigm is often so deeply rooted that it is built into our biology. Our instinct for survival, for example, is such a strong paradigm that we don’t even sense that it can be changed, even though it can hinder us when we are attempting to save our lives. When our fight-flight paradigm is activated, we become tense and anxious. An anxious and stressed mind hinders us from seeing clearly and making the best choice under prevailing conditions.

Regardless of their magnitude, paradigms are all habits, and what we learn in meditation is that all habits can be changed.

Here are two of our major paradigms, both of which meditation suggests need to be shifted, especially in view of a cancer diagnosis:

1. If I get more of what I want and what I think I need or ought to have, then everything will be all right.

This is the biggest and baddest of all paradigms, for it leaves us always wanting and never satisfied. It says that we should base our lives on greed. It tells us to always be striving, never to be content.

2. I am healthy.

This paradigm  falsely deludes us into thinking we will always be healthy. It prevents us from recognizing that getting sick it is the natural process of life and that sickness is simply a part of aging. It makes it impossible for us to remain clear-headed and fearless when illnesses occur, which is unfortunate because when an illness is life-threatening, that’s when we need to be really calm and clear so we can make appropriate decisions about treatment.

Until we understand our false and faulty paradigms, and how misguided they are, we won’t search for new paradigms. And until we not only search for new paradigms but actually make a paradigm shift, we will remain unable to address our most serious challenges, medical or otherwise.

The Key Paradigm Shift

Here is the new paradigm suggested by meditation (and the bodhisattva vows):

Our responsibility to ourselves, our families, our friends, and the world, is to use each moment to be of benefit to ourselves, our families, our friends, and our world.

Whether we are having lunch or deciding on a chemotherapy strategy for a recent cancer diagnosis, the paradigm is the same: do what is least harmful and most benefit to oneself, others and the world. This is a giant paradigm shift. And perhaps the most important realization that comes from meditation. Because when we do what is most beneficial, we become peaceful and make the best decision, even in face great difficulties and hardships.


As our paradigm shifts in this direction, self dissolves and we deadhead toward liberation.

A Quick Look at Dukkha

Two Perspectives on Suffering

In our classes, when we talk about suffering (that all is dukkha, the first noble truth) and the need to consider it contemplatively and experientially, I ask students what they learned about suffering in their churches and synagogues. The answer is always a resounding “Nothing.”

The reason “suffering” is underplayed in Christianity and Judaism is that those faiths’ theological emphases are in other areas and so “suffering” is simply an underdeveloped concept. In Buddhism, on the other hand, “suffering” is the central theme and all the teachings are directed to understanding it, either cognitively or experientially.

Traditional Judeo-Christian theologians and philosophers, while admitting to the horror and uselessness of suffering, struggle to make sense of it. The difficulty arises from the belief that suffering cannot be eliminated, it is God-created and so part of the divine nature. God created suffering, as their reasoning goes, to purify and/or punish us for our sins.

The way to make sense of suffering in biblical traditions is to make it bearable by portraying suffering as somehow beneficial. Many Judeo-Christian thinkers suggest that suffering is a necessary test of faith. The greater the suffering, the stronger the faith.  They suggest that suffering serves a higher, though unknown and unknowable, purpose. Often in Judeo-Christian thought, those who see themselves as “saved” or “chosen,” see their suffering as somehow special, different from the suffering of others, and particularly beneficial. The answer to the question “Why me?” in Judeo-Christian theology is that God acts in mysterious ways, ways we cannot know.

In the Buddhist view, suffering is never good, never beneficial. Suffering is always seen as bad, always seen as harmful. It is neither to be borne nor to be endured for the sake of some higher purpose. It is not an external creation of a higher being or a force of the universe. It is not the source of salvation. In Buddhism, suffering is not inexplicable and it does not need to be justified. For Buddhists, faced with the challenges of suffering, there is no question “Why me?”

In Buddhism, suffering is the result of our skewed relationship to the universe. Our ignorance about the way things really works results in our suffering.  When, by dint of diligent, hard, spiritual work, we realign ourselves by trading ignorance for wisdom, suffering ends. Therefore, to a Buddhist, suffering and the end of suffering is entirely in our own hands. We increase our suffering, decrease our suffering, or eliminate our suffering, depending on how we think and what we do.

Confronting and Ending Our Biggest Dukkha

When something big and awful happens to us, what do we do?

When we don’t get, or are about to not get, something we think is very important, what do we do?

The Buddhadharma suggests, and today’s neuroscience agrees, that if we want to end our dukkha, we must liberate ourselves from our addiction to preferences.  Currently, we look at new situations and pick and choose what to do based on the habits we inherited from our hunter-gather, agrarian, and industrial ancestors. Instead of synthesizing new information, we just confirm what we already know.

Here’s what I mean: Say you want to know the best way to live. You go to an imam, a rabbi, a pastor, and a Buddhist monk. You ask each to tell you the how to live the best life, and each does. All four tell you something quite different. You go home, think about it, and decide which to follow. Question is, which do you follow?

Our ancestral mind, our living-in-distinction mind, our picking-and-choosing mind, in other words–our karmic habit energy, leads us to pick the way that is right, the way that confirms what we already know. The bigger question is, why did we even bother to ask if all we were going to do with the information was to pick the way we already knew was right, if all we were going to do was confirm what we already knew?

Confirming what we already know rather than synthesizing new knowledge may have been a useful “habit” 25,000 years ago when we were hunter-gatherers, or even 2500 years ago in the time of the Buddha and the upheavals of the axial age, or even 250 years ago at the start of the industrial age, but in our lives today, it is binding us more tightly than ever before to lives of unending dukkha. Lives where we can’t even see how to end our suffering…even when we are told the way.

To unbind our self so that we can deal effectively with big dukkha, with the loss of something we greatly value, we must shift our paradigm. We must change our karmic heading. We must respond to the dukkha without dual-mind. We must stop defining the situation as awful or terrible or unfair. We must let go of that false and faulty evaluating, let go of our picking and choosing and labeling energy. And then we must learn to consider every situation in the same way, with an open heart and faith in mind. We must learn that no situation is more weighty than any other.

[I say this from personal experience, not abstractly and in no way meaning to be insensitive to anyone else’s suffering. The big dukkha that led me directly to the Great Way was being told by my oncologist–in 1984–that I had less than a year to live.]

To realize that no situation is weightier than any other, that there are no situations, that there are no problem, we must stop confirming what we already know and learn to synthesize new knowledge. We must learn to see that there are only conditions. Understanding these is a big step in the right direction. It is, after all, what right view is teachings us.

We learn how to do this with grace and profundity in the third patriarch’s enlightenment poem, the Xinxinming.

Cutting to the chase, the answer is: we must train our minds to look at each new situation in life as simply a new set of conditions to which we must respond with a peaceful heart. As the Buddhadharma has been telling us for 2500 years, we simply need to abide in conditions instead of labeling things based on past information. There are only conditions, after all, not problems or difficulties or terrible things. Those are labels. And in any situation, regardless of the conditions, what do we do? We look clearly at what we are facing and we do what is most beneficial to making us and our families and our friends and the universe a more peaceful place.

The Buddha tells us to do this and this alone so that our big and small dukkha will dissolve. So that we can live lives of peace and happiness. So that we can to move from moment to moment toward liberation instead of toward more suffering.

So why don’t we listen, why don’t we train ourselves to live in conditions? The most important reason is that we think we think we already know the right way. That’s why we can’t see the Great Way.

Today is a good day to stomp our feet, become a knowledge synthesizer and commit to the Great Way. And what better place to learn it than from the Xinxinming.

Here’s an online version of the Xinxinming and a commentary.

Set a Place at Your Holiday Table for Mudita

Make Mudita

The Centerpiece of Your Holiday Table

And Your Life

Even though mudita, which is generally translated as sympathetic joy, is one of the four heavenly abodes, relatively little seems to have been written about it and it is rarely the topic of talks. When it is discussed, it is usually presented as "sympathetic joy at the good fortune or success of others," the most minor of the four abodes, and not much more.

But consider it from this wider dharmic point of view. Consider mudita as a prerequisite of lovingkindness (metta) and of compassion (karuna). Meaning that appreciation of others is one of the chief aspects of mudita.

Because we cannot appreciate another person without seeing the good in them, then how can we expect ourselves to experience joy at an incident of good fortune or success in their lives when we feel nothing for the other person, or even worse, dislike them? Mudita is the answer: it is the source for finding the good in others and learning to recognize and admire the wholesomeness that is always there, even and perhaps most importantly when those others seem to be making our lives difficult.

Unless one has the faith and confidence in mankind that the Buddha had, practicing lovingkindness and compassion is, I suspect, difficult if not impossible without the appreciation that arises from mudita, and from a solid practice of mudita. What the dharma is suggesting is that an appreciation for the goodness of others should flow within each of us, all the time. That’s what underlies a solid practice of mudita.

This would lead us to faith in mankind’s potential for good and to acceptance of our inherent worthwhileness.

What better practice could there be for the holiday season?

Follow the Rules

“Just follow the rules.” It’s that simple.

So perfect freedom is in—is under some rules. If there are no rules, there is no freedom. As long as you have rules you have freedom. Without being aware of the rules to try to obtain freedom means nothing. –Suzuki Roshi


There is no freedom without the law.
–Ancient Greek teaching Cecile B. DeMille put into the mouth of Moses on Mount Sinai

The first rule of Buddhism is follow the rules. The more profoundly we understand that rule, the less of anything else there is to know. The more stringently we follow that rule, the more clearly we see. The more we realize that rule, the more liberated we become.

There are implicit and explicit rules. Following them reduces our anxiety and clears the path for us. Implicit rules arise from conditions, are specific to the moment and ideally should be followed without thinking. Explicit rules are formally or informally codified. The challenge of explicit rules is that they are speculative rather than experiential, rigid rather than arising from current conditions. Nonetheless, they are rules and our obligation is to follow them.

Implicit rules look like this: When the alarm rings, the rule is to get up. When I take off my jacket, the rule is to hang it in the closet. If I use a credit card, the rule is that I be able to pay the balance when the bill arrives. If we want to rid ourselves of the constant anxiety we feel, we get up when it is time to get up–no snooze alarm and angst over arising, we need to put things away after we have used them–the way we taught our children to do, and we need to be financially responsible–we don’t need to spend more than we have.]

Explicit rules look like this: I don’t kill, steal, lie, abuse others or do drugs. I drive within the speed limit; I don’t fudge on my taxes; and I follow the company policies at work. [I follow the precepts and the laws and the policies and procedures.]

Our obligation as practitioners, an obligation that we see arising from meditation, is to learn ways to live in peace and harmony–with ourselves, our families, our friends, with all sentient beings, the planet and universe. Rules are what allows us to meet that obligation.

Rules restrain our minds, they give us order. They reduce our suffering and allow us to walk the path more stably and effectively. When that happens, our defilements and attachments lessen and we become more content, more confident and more peaceful, especially in the face of difficulties. Following the rules restrains our desires for sense stimulation and sense objects. As that craving and clinging for the things we see, hear, taste, touch, feel and think diminishes, we become calmer and more patient. Without rules, we would live in the constant dukkha of chaos.

Meditation helps us to see the rules clearly, contemplation and study help us to clarify the rules, and observing that we are calmer and happier when we follow the rules gives us faith to continue, especially when we disagree with a rule.

There can be no freedom without rules. Question is, why don’t we just follow the rules?