This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, teachers and friends. In the room and... in the world at large. Some of us here are immersed in a practice period, the theme of which seems to be great compassion and great wisdom. And we've been receiving unprecedented teachings about great compassion.

[01:09]

An amazing celebration of great compassion and encouragement to see it, hear it, remember, accept, practice it, verify it. So in this spirit, today, I thought I could bring up some of the background, the classic teachings of great compassion in the Buddha Dharma. You may be surprised I was a little bit surprised to hear the Buddha's definition of compassion karuna it's not described so much as a feeling but a wish compassion is the

[02:29]

wish to relieve suffering, the wish to be free from discontent, the wish for self and others to be relieved of this burden. It could be said that all the Buddha's teachings are helping us to understand what is this discontent and how to be free from it. What could be more important for this world of discontent and freedom? which starts with compassion, the wish to relieve it.

[03:35]

Sentient beings are those who are not always content. It's the definition of a sentient being. Sentient beings who feel They are a separate entity. So being a sentient being is naturally a realm of not being content. And compassion is the wish for sentient beings to be free from discontent. We might even go so far as to say that the wish for sentient beings to be free from discontent is the wish for sentient beings to be free from being sentient beings.

[04:54]

And compassion is the the wish to relieve sentient beings of their sentient beingness ultimately. And then there's also the teaching of great compassion, Maha Karuna. And one of our ancestors, Vasubandhu in his treasury of Abhidharma defines great compassion as distinct from compassion in several ways. Compassion being this wish to relieve suffering is also Part of its definition is it's the absence of hatred, the absence of anger and hatred.

[06:06]

Compassion is kind of almost the opposite of hatred. But great compassion goes beyond this. It's not only the absence of hatred, it's the absence of delusion. according to Vasubandhu. So great compassion is when this wish to relieve suffering is enjoined with understanding, wisdom. Another way that great compassion is slightly different goes beyond regular old compassion. which is still an amazing thing, but great compassion has a further scope. The Buddha teaches that discontent comes in different forms, and maybe the most obvious that everyone would understand is just

[07:29]

basic resistance to what's happening. I'm not content. The basic feeling of I really want the situation to be different than it is. That's that kind of discontent. buddha teaches but then also there's the there's the discontent of happiness the buddha sometimes teaches which is the reminder that even when a sentient being is temporarily doing okay that that's an impermanent situation so the the happiness will come to an end there's a subtle uneasiness a subtle dissatisfactoriness and conditioned happiness because it's temporary and uh another type of suffering or discontent is just being a conditioned sentient being subject to birth aging sickness and death

[08:56]

These are three types of suffering. And according to Vasi Bandhu, regular compassion is addressing the basic suffering of just unhappiness and resistance. But great compassion is compassion for all three of these types of suffering. Great compassion. wishes to relieve obvious suffering and discontent and pain, and also wishes to relieve the subtle discontent of this uneasiness with the fact that good things will come to an end, and also great compassion. wishes to relieve the quite subtle discontent of just being a conditioned to be, which means identifying ourself with this impermanent body and mind.

[10:14]

Great compassion is compassion for all these types of discontent. And Compassion is directed towards discontent of people that we know and see, also animals, other types of sentient beings. Regular compassion can be directed towards, but great compassion is compassion for all beings of all realms. So not only the visible beings in our usual human realm, but compassion for hungry spirits and sentient beings that we actually don't know and see. All possible types of sentient beings.

[11:17]

We wish to relieve any discontent. Great compassion is... is uh like this are all all sentient beings known and unknown visible or invisible near or far and uh wishing to relieve discontent of all these beings equally I would understand great compassion to be not so much like, well, this suffering is more important to relieve than this other suffering. It's more like any kind of suffering or discontent. Great compassion wishes to relieve it, wishes freedom from such discontent.

[12:20]

So great compassion is... incredibly vast in its scope. And this is the Bodhisattva path. Emptiness with Heart of compassion. Being emptiness with a heart of compassion. The unity of wisdom and compassion. And it's, I think, quite hard to understand the extent of the bodhisattva vow. How bodhisattvas could be so free.

[13:25]

due to their understanding, but have such an open heart with others, never turning away from suffering. So one way that it's expressed by the great Bodhisattva, future Buddha Maitreya, whose name means love, Aitreya once put it like this, Bodhisattvas may suffer, but since their suffering is due to love, the bliss that they experience is immeasurable. Strange. The Bodhisattvas' suffering, that is the suffering of compassion for and with all sentient beings.

[14:35]

That so-called suffering is incredibly blissful for these bodhisattvas. I confess I have some difficulty myself in fully understanding description of bodhisattvas. What is that suffering that is at the same time blissful because it's so open to all beings? Usually we think of suffering as kind of a self-grasping. Suffering is where we're contracted in upon our self and we're grasping or we're resisting some experience. That's how I usually think of my suffering and discontent. So I think this is not quite that kind of suffering.

[15:41]

The suffering of the bodhisattvas is not a self-grasping or aversion. It's the suffering completely with all others. Bodhisattvas may suffer, but since the suffering is due to love, the bliss that they experience is immeasurable. Then Maitreya goes on to say, a bodhisattva who is free from personal suffering experiences suffering because of love. We might say the suffering of others.

[16:42]

And this suffering due to love outshines all the world's happiness. Maybe we could imagine a bodhisattva is no longer, at the time that they're functioning as a bodhisattva, they're no longer identifying with their own body and mind as their self. It's more like they understand themselves to be like vast space. clear, open, vast space. But then within that space, the Bodhisattva is. Many sentient beings are appearing, discontent sentient beings.

[17:50]

And so this open space is by nature quite content within this space spacious contentment bubbles of discontent are arising and and this body spacious bodhisattva wishes nothing other than relieving this bubbles of discontent bubbles of discontent. All sentient beings are part of the Bodhisattva's spaciousness. Nothing other than the Bodhisattva's spaciousness. And yet, discontent is the feeling and actual experience of this is not pleasant.

[18:58]

This is painful and bubble of discontent, which is nothing other than for itself to pop, to relieve the discontent. So the spacious bodhisattva in which the bubbles are appearing is completely in accord with that aspiration, wish to relieve all problems of discontent. Along these same lines, there's sometimes said to be different types of compassion. We've talked about some different kinds and different scopes.

[20:02]

compassion and the difference between compassion and great compassion. Sometimes it's also taught, this is another kind of angle on types of compassion, just to really open our minds to different ways of looking at compassion and understanding it. Again, the first On most of these lists, the first is the usual kind we usually think of as great compassion, which is in itself an amazing possibility. That's just the compassion of a sentient being for the suffering of other sentient beings. Compassion for sentient beings. That's how it works. Sentient beings usually think of compassion and experience compassion. I'm a sentient being and there's another sentient being that's not content and I really wish that they were and actually would like to help them if I can to be free from this discontent.

[21:21]

So the subject of the compassionate, sentient being and the object of the suffering sentient being that needs compassion are two different beings kind of dualistic kind of compassion but um a good one it has we have to start with this it is true compassion it's just slightly distorted by the sense of self and other as two And another type of compassion is not just the compassion for a sentient being, but compassion that focuses on Dharma, sometimes called. And this is a compassion that's also infused with the understanding that there is no...

[22:31]

owner of bodies and minds. For this person, there seems to be a body and mind appearing, but there's no owner of it, no controller of it, no possessor of the body and mind. There's just body and mind arising and ceasing, which is a freeing understanding. and uh with this understanding a bodhisattva could could see others also in the same way because if it's true for one person it's true for everyone that actually we're all collections of body and mind experiences but none of us have some separate self it's like the owner of our experience so with that remembrance in mind slightly different type of compassion.

[23:36]

It's compassion that's seeing the reason why beings suffer. It's sometimes taught by the Buddha that the root of our suffering is believing and feeling that there is some owner, controller of our body and mind. And we're not necessarily so concerned with a constantly changing body and mind as much as we're concerned with the owner of it. And we see this problem for ourselves, and therefore we see this problem with all sentient beings. It seems to me, like watching sentient beings, that it's not even just humans. In the animal world, it looks like animals also feel on some deep level that there's somebody there in addition to just this mysterious flow of body and mind experience.

[24:46]

There's somebody to protect and defend and get ahead of others. These kinds of things are usually generated by assuming that I am actually some kind of owner and controller of this body and mind. I'm in the control tower trying to manage it, and as stuff starts happening to this body and mind, I, the owner, am getting concerned with this. So we see that that's this root of many problems, maybe all problems. The Buddha taught this is kind of the root of discontent. So this kind of compassion is not just new ascension being.

[25:51]

Maybe even the eye that feels as if it owns its body and mind has compassion towards that eye that feels like it owns its body and mind. This is going a step deeper and more like, I see that this is just this very messy situation where we're all kind of operating from this misperception and we're getting in a big mess because of it. And the compassion is based on more like the root of the suffering. We see where the suffering is coming from. this false belief, this misperception. So this is the wish not only for sentient beings to be free from suffering, but the wish for sentient beings to be free from the cause of suffering, from the root of suffering.

[26:52]

So in that way, it's kind of a little bit deeper, clearer compassion. compassion that focuses on Dharma. And the third in this list, this is, by the way, Bodhisattva Chandrakirti in old India taught these three types of compassion. The third goes even more profoundly into what's really going on here. So it not only sees that there's a body and mind that's appearing here it's or that there really is a body and mind but there's no owner of it this third type of compassion is that even the body and mind are kind of like dream-like appearances everyone's bodies and minds they're not really what we think they are not to mention that there's no owner of them and therefore um it's compassion

[27:58]

It's really based on the deepest understanding of emptiness. Bodies and minds are appearing, but like they might appear in a dream. And yet, because this is such a profound teaching, we don't fully understand it. And even if we do, we don't always remember it. And because of this, sentient beings are suffering, solidifying or reifying body and mind and the whole world into this dualistic, divided realm of solid, fixed things. It's just totally unworkable. We can try to patch it up and we do our best. But it's not, I think the Buddha is kind of saying it's not really, it's impossible to find freedom in a world of solid, separate things.

[29:12]

This type of compassion is seeing that although everything is actually just free, flowing appearance, We sentient beings don't realize this, so we suffer. And even though the suffering itself is also a dreamlike appearance, the Bodhisattva path is to relieve the suffering of this dreamlike sentient being. The Buddha has said things like, My dreamlike appearance as a Buddha appears to dreamlike sentient beings, to teach them a dreamlike path that leads to dreamlike awakening, to relieve dreamlike suffering.

[30:16]

That's the Buddha's complete compassion. It's not... actually the way we think it is, but as soon as there's some thought and feeling and experience of suffering, whether or not it's just an appearance, that's the Bodhisattva's only wish and aspiration and vow is to, in whatever way Bodhisattva can, to relieve this. of suffering. So at first it might be like, well, we're not going to teach this kind of thing to somebody in a war zone, right? Of course, it doesn't make any sense. So first we try to help them out of the war zone. But that doesn't really end suffering, according to the Buddha. Then you have to come to Green Gulch.

[31:22]

Something like this and practice and... and understand this more and more deeply. And then when Leti and the Bodhisattva then goes back out to the war zone to help the next one, something like this. And so all these types of compassion are worthwhile and beneficial, but this is just opening the scope of possibilities of great compassion and non-dual compassion it's not like two different things right that there's there's the wisdom or understanding of emptiness or non-duality and then there's compassion they're interfused they're inseparable within the vast spaciousness of the of the bodhisattva

[32:24]

there are um sentient beings another way we might talk about the sentient being is just the belief that um that they're a separate entity and therefore it's suffering so it's wishing to relieve these these beliefs and all the manifestations of the beliefs somebody's um in a war zone and wants to kill someone else rather than questioning them about their beliefs, first we can take away the gun, the dream gun, to relieve the dreamlike suffering. Skillful means, many infinite skillful means bodhisattvas have. So regarding this way that a bodhisattva might be

[33:27]

but at the same time, it's the greatest joy, that kind of inconceivable statement. One example and a metaphor for this that I've heard is like maybe like a skilled doctor who wants to relieve suffering of beings. And But because they kind of have some skillful methods, they know how to go about this. When a wounded or sick person comes to the doctor, they're not overwhelmed themselves by suffering. Their wish is to relieve the suffering. That's what their whole job is about. But because they have some skills as a doctor, they see this as like, it's their job, it's their opportunity. And they probably also have some empathetic resonance with the patient, but they're not so overwhelmed by the patient's suffering that they're like, I can't even be in the room here.

[34:43]

There's too much blood or something. They're like, let's get to work. And they enjoy their work in this metaphor. I think hopefully doctors do enjoy it. helping beings in this way, helping suffering beings. I thought kind of a way we might approach this possibility of bodhisattvas could enjoy relieving suffering, and they wish that the person wasn't suffering in the first place, but since they are, they're just doing the work of relieving. That's one kind of metaphor we could explore. Another one about how the bodhisattva's compassion might work is like a mother whose child is afraid of the monster in the closet.

[35:45]

So the mother tries to explain that there's really no monster in the closet. They try to use logic. And rationality like this. But of course it doesn't work. The child doesn't understand all these intricate Dharma teachings. The mother says, well then let's just go look in the closet and open the door. And still the child is like, I don't see a monster, but I really feel like there's one there. And so then this mother Bodhisattva and her skillful means. The important thing is that this Bodhisattva is actually not afraid of the monster. The mother says, okay, I'm not going to try to convince my child there's not a monster. Just come sit in my lap. I'll just hold you here. And the child is, it works. The child is relieved. It's almost like the mother's confidence that there's no monster and that it's okay is kind of like, it's directly transmitted to the child to just,

[36:56]

being not afraid of the monster. So that's, I think, a way to look at the bodhisattva's compassion too. Not trying to convince anybody or anything, but we can look at our practice that way. Just us wholeheartedly practicing and trying to discover our own freedom is benefiting others that we're around. visible and invisible. So just before that question and answer part, just one Zen story on great compassion. I think the most well-known Zen story, it's really directly about compassion. One of our ancestors, Yun Yan, said to his Dara brother, Dao Wu, what is the Bodhisattva of great compassion do with so many hands and eyes?

[38:12]

Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of great compassion. Sometimes is depicted as having a thousand arms with a thousand helping hands, and in each helping hand is a seeing eye, which is itself an image of the unity of wisdom and compassion. The eye that knows what suffering is and knows how to help in a thousand ways, What is the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion? Or how does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion with a thousand hands and eyes, how does that work? How does that function? And Daobu said, it's like reaching back for a pillow at night, half asleep.

[39:18]

It's totally dark, but there's some discontent here because my neck is crooked. and uncomfortable. Oh, they're groping around in the dark for the pillow and tucking it under the head and comfortably falling asleep. That very natural, totally uncontrived response is the Zen version of Bodhisattva's great compassion. Yunyan says, Oh, I understand what you mean. And Daoru says, How do you understand? And Yunyan says, All over the body is hands and eyes. And Daoru says, That's pretty good, but it's only 80% right. And Yunyan says, That's...

[40:26]

how I would say it. How about you? And the hour says, throughout the body, hands and eyes, pervading the body, hands and eyes. But are we talking about some lump of red flesh body? Or are we talking about the spacious, vast body of the bodhisattvas. And throughout this vast reality body is hands and eyes, inconceivably filling the body with hands and eyes. Our true nature is nothing but hands and eyes already complete, but temporarily cured by misunderstandings and old habits.

[41:33]

Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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