Buddha's Heart by Stephen Snyder

Author:Stephen Snyder [Snyder, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-73478-103-8
Publisher: Stephen Snyder
Published: 2020-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

7

Karuṇā: Compassion

ON OUR JOURNEY of spiritual awakening and embodiment, we will pass through many familiar areas of our history, memories, and psyche that remain painful. Yet the light of objective, universal truth beckons us closer to our tender places. Navigating these difficult areas, we need to have tenderness and compassion for ourselves.

Compassion is often misapplied in Buddhist practice. Many Buddhists believe that the function of compassion is to take away painful life events. This is not compassion’s full benefit. Using compassion in our meditative practices provides gentle support, a kindhearted holding that allows us, and others, to be with our pain and persevere.

Compassion helps us draw closer to an enduring truth that is very different from the subjective truth that supports the story of our lives. In our life narratives, we cast ourselves in a particular role, typically that of the pure, good, innocent one. With sustained karuṇā practice, we begin to see that we maintain this young, pure, innocent self-image to present others as the source of our pain, and we are confronted by the universal truth that we encompass many emotions and levels of identity.

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