I have encountered a very touching passage this morning, about the awakening of compassion. I was led by the scholar-practitioner in me to read Bhikkhu Anālayo’s latest book Compassion and Emptiness in Early Buddhist Meditation. I’m relaxing in a cafe in Balmain, in Sydney, having breakfast, after teaching a workshop for two days, sharing Focusing with nine precious people.
Anālayo’s book is not a beginner’s book; but is valuable for committed meditators (as was his detailed study of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta). And, I’m moved by a passage in which Anālayo quotes the Sakyamuni Buddha of the Chinese Agamas (and he says there is a parallel sutta in the Pāli Anguttara Nikaya. For those of you who love the Pāli Nikayas, it’s at: AN 4.186/AN II 178,27 [translated Bodhi 2012: 555]) The Sakyamuni Buddha is, in this sutta, represented contrasting penetrative wisdom and vast wisdom.
This may not be directly a post about dying. I’ll praise the practice of Focusing and its associated Philosophy of the Implicit, as well as refer to compassion in Buddhist meditation. Focusing and the Philosophy of the Implicit are definitely relevant to any deep exploration of dying and death. And, of course, the qualities of heart fostered in Focusing practice include and result in compassion. So, all this gives some of the context for why I am particularly moved this morning, by the Anālayo passage. The ten of us over the weekend, were exploring being here. We did that for the benefit of each of us there in the workshop, but also for circle upon circle of beings radiating out from our activities. More than one person there spoke of the healing occurring.
It was one of the most satisfying workshop experiences that I have had, from another standpoint, too. I finally – after more than fifteen years of teaching Focusing workshops – I finally taught my own workshop. I’ve been teaching Focusing from a pattern learned from my trainers, which has worked well enough; but this was very different. I think I have absorbed Prof Eugene T. Gendlin’s book A Process Model sufficiently during the last decade, that now I can truly teach Focusing informed by the philosophy that goes with it. It’s curious, how I can teach something developed by another, by Gendlin, and now know I am teaching authentically? How does that work? I can feel the next step would be to invite the love that comes, when I ask that question. However…. that would be another whole post, wouldn’t it? One about authenticity. Worth exploring some day, but now I’m talking about compassion.
I was moved by the courage of my workshop participants, and by their love of what is true and compassionate in this torn world. There was, in us all, a high level of interest in true experiencing and the welfare of the many.
So, now, to the passage that moved me. It mentions ‘dukkha.’ For those of you who don’t know what dukkha means, I suggest that you think of it as ‘skewiffness.’ It’s that quality of human life where you sense that somehow there’s a whole lot of suffering – in everyone’s life – that doesn’t appear to be necessary. It’s not just pain – like, I’m not talking, here, about my disintegrating hip; or, my post-viral chronic illness – but it is, at root, the sense that something in us is out of kilter. If you’ve touched that sense, you’re on track. The feeling is endemic in the species. It’s a form of disharmony that is produced by wrong inner vision. Now, here’s the passage that moved me:
:If … one has heard that “this is dukkha” and through wisdom moreover rightly sees dukkha as it really is; [if] one has heard of “the arising of dukkha”… “the cessation of dukkha”… “the path to the cessation of dukkha”, and with wisdom moreover rightly sees the path to the cessation of dukkha as it really is; then in this way … one is learned with penetrative wisdom …
My understanding of that fourth reality – ‘This is the path leading to cessation – is a little different. I accept this ‘path-to’ translation as useful, but personally, I’ve resolved the Nikaya’s presentation of human freedom a little differently. I propose, instead, that the path and the cessation are not two. I take a ‘path-as’ view. So, for me, there are four ennobling realities, which are:
1) there is disharmony; 2) there is a cause of the disharmony; 3) there is the cessation of the cause of disharmony; and, 4) there is the path which is the cessation of the cause.
So, if one has heard this teaching, and has become involved the tasks that correspond with each of these realities, and has seen the realities rightly, then one is ‘one of penetrative wisdom.’ However, the Agama (Sakyamuni) Buddha goes further, to indicate the possibility of a territory called “vast wisdom”:
If … one does not think of harming oneself, does not think of harming others, does not think of harming both; and instead … one thinks of benefiting oneself and benefiting others, benefiting many people out of compassion for the affliction in the world, seeking what is meaningful and of benefit for devas and humans, seeking their ease and happiness; then in this way … one is bright, intelligent, and with vast wisdom.”
Gendlin’s Focusing (when taught with the Philosophy of the Implicit) is vast wisdom. It is a complete practice of self-knowledge. And it’s a practice of non-harm, and of benefit for all beings. I presented Focusing, over this last weekend, as a full path in its own right, grounded in Gendlin’s Philosophy of the Implicit. It has been created and propagated for the benefit of the world. Focusing doesn’t belong to anyone. It doesn’t belong to psychotherapists, artists, school teachers, architects, or peace-makers – all of whom use it. It is human.
By practising Focusing, “one does not think of harming oneself, does not think of harming others, does not think of harming both; and instead … one thinks of benefiting oneself and benefiting others, benefiting many people out of compassion for the affliction in the world, seeking what is meaningful and of benefit for devas and humans, seeking their ease and happiness.” (Here, we can take ‘devas’ to mean any possible or impossible beings.) It is, indeed, a vast wisdom. Deep bows to Gene Gendlin and all his students. I am moved by these two great paths, actualising vast wisdom.