INTRODUCTION TO MEDITATION
WEEK SEVEN
This page hold content from the weekly class, originally recorded on February 19th, 2025. For the daily meditations, go to the daily meditations page.
Compassion, or Karuna
Building on from last week’s look at loving-kindness we move onto compassion.
Similar but subtly different, compassion invites us to step into the space of courageously seeing that life is hard. Suffering is an inherent part of the human existence.
Different again from empathy where we would simply relate to the pain of suffering, in compassion we take that small step further of wishing for the suffering to cease.
Sometimes described as allowing ‘the quivering of the heart’ in response to another’s struggle.
The Buddhists describe compassion, or karuna, as being one of the brahma viharas – the heavenly abodes, or one the highest of places to put our consciousness
Similar to loving kindness, this quality is inherent in all of us. But perhaps we do not exercise it as much as we might.
Sometimes misunderstood as being soft, weak, or making us foolish. In fact, provided it is coupled with wisdom this can be the greatest strength and comes with incredible benefits to our happiness and mental health.
Buddhism has given us simple and yet powerful meditation exercises to uncover and cultivate this beautiful part of ourselves and these are now being researched and taught in universities around the world.
VIDEO
The Full Class
