(In Sanskrit, it is maitri and karuna. Maitri means giving joy and karuna is removing sufferings)
By Chanh Phap
Observing compassion
The following chants should be recited. I will explain each chant to make it easier for us to practice observing. First, please concentrate on your breathing for a moment. Let’s start with the first one.
May I be free from resentment
Let us observe our enmities, conflicts, hatreds or anger inside us. If we are agitated by these negative sentiments in the past or present, we need to observe and transform them into compassion.
May I cause no harm to all beings
Let us observe whether we have caused suffering to any living creature in the past or having the intention of doing so. We should promise to change ourselves in some ways so these actions never occur again.
May I be free from suffering of my own body and mind
Let us observe any suffering that arise in our bodies and minds, and try to find out their underlying causes. Then we will practice removing all the suffering and be not attached to anything.
May I protect my own happiness
Let us observe what is true happiness to us? Once we understand the constitution of our happiness, what shall we do to prevent these elements of happiness from being destroyed?
May all beings be free from resentment and hatred
We also want to wish for others what we have wished for ourselves. First, we need to know what to do before we are able to help others. By doing this, our own happiness can spread toward many people.
May all beings be harmless and safe
We want to share our experience with others. If we are serene, we will be able to inspire many people with serenity. Our observation is to find the right way of thinking, speaking, and doing without causing suffering to anyone.
May all beings be free from suffering of the body and mind
Here, we will observe our love and compassion for others. Do we have empathy for them?
May all beings live in true happiness
If we have love and compassion for others, we will never destroy their happiness. Instead we will be willing to help them protect their happiness. We need to observe whether we really have these thoughts from our innermost hearts, and to what extent? How can we develop them further?
How to observe the compassion-- Instructions I:
First, be aware of our breath for a moment. Allow love to fill up our heart and replace all suffering we have endured or will encounter in our lives. Let us recognize our difficulties of meditation at this stage, and the fact that we are not enlightened. Let these feelings cover and protect us. Try to share our love and compassion to those who are beside us. Be willing to sympathize with their sufferings that they have experienced and will experience in their lives. Practice understanding other people’s difficulties when practicing meditation. Let them feel that they are being cared for and loved. Extend our love throughout to all people sitting here in this meditation hall. We should remember that all of us are subject to suffering in nature and really want to be cared for and loved. Protect them with our love. Think about our parents and sympathize with their problems and suffering. Protect them with our love and express our caring to them.
Think about all our friends and let love fill up our hearts. Express our feelings so they know how caring and sympathetic we are to them. Let us sympathize their difficulties, limitations, and suffering. Let our love come to them and protect them. We must think about those who are more miserable. Those must stay in hospitals, go to prisons, and live desperately in refugee camps or war-devastated countries. And also those will likely die from hunger, illness, deaf and blind, homeless, friendless, and even having no relative. Let our hearts with full of love reach them. Let share and sympathize their suffering and show our willingness to help them. Now, be aware of self, let our love covers our bodies. Let us feel helped, loved, and accepted. May all of us have loving compassion for one another!
How to observe the compassion-- Instructions II:
Concentrate on our breath. Inspire ourselves with joy because we are fortunate enough to follow the right path leading to true happiness, serenity, and enlightenment. Recognize the presence of joy in our minds and let it spread all over our body. Share this joy with all people in meditation hall. Feel happy to know that they have a chance of practicing meditation diligently and applying Buddha’s teachings to their lives. Just let the joy spread to all of us.
Think about our parents, respect for what they have valued and share their joy. Feel happy for them because they have harmony in their lives. Let them feel that joy. Think about our loved ones. Be happy for their happiness unconditionally, be glad to hear that they have joy and happiness in their lives. Let them feel the joy.
Think about our dear friends and feel happy with what they have achieved and what makes them happy. Celebrate the friendship! Bring joy to them and let them feel it. Think about those who we dislike, then feel happy for their achievement and possession. Bring joy to them and let them feel it. Let us open up ourselves to bring joy to all beings. Be happy with their happiness, find delight in their happiness, and share our joy with them and let them feel that joy. Let the joy spread boundlessly. Return to ourselves. Let our minds be filled with the joy that bringing new energy, vitality as we realize the spiritual path, which we are walking on, is the only way leading to happiness and ultimate joy. We wish that all of us had loving compassion for one another.
How to observe the compassion: Instructions III
First, be aware of our breath for a moment. Imagine a white lotus is blossoming in the center of the lotus, a brilliant light is covering us, bringing the warmth, brilliance, serenity, and love to us.
Let the brilliant light extend toward those who are meditating around us, bringing the warmth, brilliance, serenity, and love to them. It is our present to them.
Think about our teachers or mentors, whether they are still alive or already deceased, then extend the brilliant light toward them, bringing the warmth, brilliance, serenity, and love to them.
Let us think about our ancestors and our parents, let the light of love from our innermost heart comes and covers them with warm love and gratitude.
Think about our relatives, extend our loving light to them bringing the happiness, friendship, serenity, and love to them without expecting for a return.
Let us think about our good friends, extending our light to all bringing the happiness, true friendship, caring, and love to them without expecting for a return.
Think about whom you have met in the past or today, whether they are our relatives or neighbors, co-workers, passers-by, and those who we met on a journey. Let our light reach them bringing our love and caring to them, and also including them as a crucial part in our lives.
Think about those have caused us suffering and we find it hard to love them. Now, let’s regard them as our teachers, once we extend the light toward them, there will be no resentment in our mind. Let’s express our gratitude to them as they have created an opportunity for us to cultivate our compassion and tolerance. Offer them love, compassion because we know that we all are subject to suffering.
Let us think about those who come from the same place with us and open our hearts to extend the light to their homes and through their hearts with warmth and serenity. Offer them love, compassion, and consider them as a part in our hearts and in our lives. Let us be aware of our body and let ourselves be covered in this wonderful light, in serenity, and pleasure that arising from our own minds. Let this wonderful light come back to our lotus, keep it in our heart and even allow it becoming with our hearts.
May all of us live in peace! The Buddha taught us many benefits of compassion. The first three benefits include: we will sleep well, we will be free from nightmares, and we will wake up with a fresh and peaceful mind. And I wish you too.
Five truths to remember everyday
The Buddha advised us to think about the five truths everyday. All of us know what they are, but we often forget them, or pretend that they never exist. Then when these truths become reality, as a rule of life, we still treat them as misfortunes although they are natural rules.
We have to distinguish between meditation and realization. In meditation, we concentrate on one single point, or one single theme to keep our mind calm and peaceful to develop wisdom. Meanwhile, in thinking, we choose an issue that is a universal problem to all humanity, rather than an individual problem, and we see how it affects our lives. Analyze our reactions and responses to the problem will tell us how important it is in our lives. Here, realization means although the problem is too familiar to us but when we dig deeper into its meaning, we are still be able to come up with new understanding and different viewpoints. We can give rise to wisdom if we remove all disturbing thoughts and concentrate on one problem. How our wisdom develops depends upon the phenomenon of NOT thinking about the problem, but rather deepening our understanding of the nature of the problem and how it affects our lives. Let us look at all aspects of the problem and connect them with the reality to come up with a new viewpoint of the problem. For example, when we are sitting by the window and looking outside at a tree, we only see a half of it, but if we are standing, we are able to see the whole tree itself. The tree has never changed, what changes is our viewpoint.
I recommend that you should recite these following chants to help you remember better. After a chant, I will give you some explanations, but you don’t need to follow them. They only serve as the purpose of explanation of the chant. If you have different methods to help you understand the chant better, don’t hesitate to use it
Please be aware of our mind and our breath for a moment. Then recite these chants:
I am aging and I can’t avoid the aging.
First, consider whether this is true; if it is true, ask ourselves whether we are concerned about it. Do we oppose this fact? Do we wish it will never happen? If we do, we have to observe to find out the reason that we don’t want to accept this natural law.
I will suffer from illness and I can’t avoid illness.
Once again, we consider this fact whether it is true or not. Were we all once sick? Are we sure that we will never get sick again? Does it mean anything to our bodies- what we called “I”? Do our bodies obey our will? Or they only follow their own rules?
I will die and I can’t avoid the death.
We all know it is true, but do we think that it can occur to us at any time? are we prepared and be ready for it? What can we do to prepare? if we are not ready and prepare for it, what else are we still attaching to? What can we do so death is no longer our fear?
What I consider is “valuable” or “joyful” or “mine” will end or ultimately they will change.
Looking at the past, we see that our belongings, memories, conditions, and loved ones have changed and no longer exist. If so, what will happen to our current possessions in the future?
Do they always belong to us?
Karma
I am master of my own karma. If we accept this truth, we will take responsibility for our own action. We must always remember that we, ourselves, not others, are the master of our karma.
I inherit my own karma. We create our karma. If we always remember this truth, we find it easier to do good things to benefit others.
I was born from own my karma. Our desire to return to life is the result of our current self. Our current self is an opportunity for us to learn.
I connect with my own karma. We should consider that our karma is as close to us as we are close to our skin. We have to learn to accept and live with it.
Whether I create good or bad causes, I have to receive the corresponding results. This awareness takes us back to reality. We are constantly creating karma, so be expected that we will be receiving consequences from those karma of our own.END=NAM MO SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA.( 3 TIMES ). OM MANI PADME HUM.( 3 TIMES ).15/12/2011.
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