Compassion is hard wired in our organism, and can be cultivated. This talk helps us identify the blocks to compassion—our outmoded survival equipment—and using RAIN, offers practical guidance in mindfully attuning to others’ emotional experience and awakening our natural tenderness and care. This talk includes a short introduction to the meditation: The RAIN of Compassion.
Compassion is a central mental factor that we want to cultivate on the path. It is both the sensitivity to suffering and the wholesome intention and action to alleviate suffering. Compassion frees the heart from unwholesome mindstates temporarily, is the foundation of moral conduct and supports the unfolding of wisdom.
We’re not having an experience, we are an experience. An experience that’s changing, that’s affected. Allowing content to arise and manifest generates spaciousness and eases the sense of self.
Two kinds of reflexes occur in the flow of experience: not knowing what to do and knowing what to do. Both are subject to suffering. Recognize that within experience there is an innate intelligence, clarity, refuge if we allow it to arise. Doing is guesswork; being is clearer.
Ajahn Sucitto reflects on questions posed about breathing, how to engage with the felt sense, heedfulness vs mindfulness, metta practice and cultivating an open heart
