Compassion isn't an affective feeling: Discuss

I was at a funeral this last weekend and ran into a practical problem along this topic. I realized repeatedly that I, too, am going to die, and so is everyone else. Basically I was very comfortable with death and this created the implicit assumption/projection in my mind that all others are comfortable with death.

Comfort with death is extremely uncommon. I realized that my perspective is changing my ability to relate to others and that some of the aforementioned arrogance is creeping in.

Maybe we just need to embrace the imperfection and assume that everything has a tradeoff, even perfection.

In this moment, perfect as it is, the practice of imperfection unfolds.

I am thankful for both Nikolai's and Kenneth's comments on this topic. All conversation is in the conceptual realm, so none of it is the truth - but the more nuance and complexity it holds, the less our minds can calcify around a deluded truth. Our minds work unceasingly to simplify and theorize, creating distance from reality. Conceptual practice pointers from Nik are very helpful (thanks!) though I think it is best for the conceptual mind to hold a question rather than a tidy answer.

Nick - it (your quote from Dipa Ma) reminds me of the stage 6 of Kenneth's model, whereby vedena is still arising but anger is not experienced.

"Nick - it (your quote from Dipa Ma) reminds me of the stage 6 of Kenneth's model, whereby vedena is still arising but anger is not experienced."

I see. These stages have never really been fully explained to my satisfaction. Too many variations and additions and jumping stages. If the fetters of illwill (anger) or sensual desire are not arising/fabricating/forming in any way whatsoever, then it's safe to say you probably got the fetter 3rd path at least. If one is able to be 99% of the time equanimous with such vedana and 1% not, meaning slightly reactive with ill will arising in even the sublest of ways then it's safe to say the fetters have just been subdued and not cut at the root. This is my own subject to change opinion.

Shadow being leaps off of vedana, which still occurs from time to time. (getting less)

"Are we able to feel the pain of our own hubris?"

Kenneth,

In what way can a snide remark such as this be offered with a positive intent to this conversation?
What is it meant to add? Why not be direct instead of relying on these "drive by shootings" that help no one?
These are not rhetorical questions.

"Kenneth,

In what way can a snide remark such as this be offered with a positive intent to this conversation?
What is it meant to add? Why not be direct instead of relying on these "drive by shootings" that help no one?
These are not rhetorical questions."

Actually, I meant it in the most literal way. Drive by shooting, yes, but I'm not convinced that the value of a communication is measured by word count. I am asking people to feel their own bodies.

Are we able to feel the pain of our own hubris?

If not, we are going to create more problems than we solve. If we are not able to feel, in this body, the pain we cause others, we are going to be constantly out of sync, always a step behind, having to resort to intellect for a job it was never intended for. Direct connection with another human being is felt in the body. When we find ourselves asking questions like "how are my words being perceived by others" (because we literally have no way of knowing) it's time to get back to work, because something deep and important is missing.

Does anyone really believe that the be-all-end-all of enlightenment is to lose touch with how others are feeling? I don't. And this is not what my role models, living and dead, have reported. Compassion and wisdom are almost universally considered inseparable aspects of enlightenment among Buddhist sages. For me, any talk of the inability to viscerally feel compassion is a sign that there is more work to be done.

Honestly, how is this not obvious to everyone? Sometimes I throw up my hands in bewilderment.

I will say it again: for those of you who have reached a point in your practice where compassion cannot be felt, you are not done; you are in yet another transitional phase. Keep working.

(Disclaimer: I am not done. Although I am currently in a phase where compassion can be clearly felt in the body, I am not yet a Buddha.)

Yes, Kenneth. I too think that word count is just confusing the issues. I am trying and failing to sort that one!

Kenneth: "Does anyone really believe that the be-all-end-all of enlightenment is to lose touch with how others are feeling? I don't. And this is not what my role models, living and dead, have reported. Compassion and wisdom are almost universally considered inseparable aspects of enlightenment among Buddhist sages. For me, any talk of the inability to viscerally feels compassion is a sign that there is more work to be done.

Honestly, how is this not obvious to everyone? Sometimes I throw up my hands in bewilderment."

I too am clueless as to how that is failed to be recognised.

Adam.

Some kinds of cluelessness are intentional.

Circling is clinging. No clinging, no more circling.

Something to consider: the Buddha didn't have internet chat - he only met people face to face. It is far easier to tell exactly what a person is feeling if one can see their facial expression, body language, hear their voice tone, etc. It seems this facility only improves when you aren't attempting to intuitively feel what the other person is, but are looking at every single aspect of their behavior with 100% mindfulness without having anything at stake in what they are feeling, but I will reserve judgment on that for when I see it for myself.

When there are only textual words, it is certainly more difficult. I would argue that even us feeling-beings cannot accurately tell how someone is feeling just by words on a forum, but that we project what we think others are feeling, which often leads to confusion and frustration (how many times has that happened on an internet forum?)

The main thing that seems to happen is that you lose some inhibition. When you want to get a point across, you say it plainly and clearly. The fact is that the words are disagreeable to some people. But, if the Buddha never said things that people disagreed with, how effective would his teaching method have been? How much would it have been impaired?

True story: I was sitting in a subway car, seeing if I could feel others' emotions and pain. A woman walks in, holding her chest and panting. "Hmm, I wonder what she's feeling..." so I try to intuitively reach out and feel that. "Something at the chest maybe?" I keep looking, I feel something on my body, hard to tell if I'm projecting or not, maybe if I - Suddenly, the person in the seat next to me gets up to let her sit down.

Can we agree there is no reason to feel another's pain without action following it?[1]

---

I also have noticed, as I've gone down the path, as mindfulness has increased and reactivity has decreased, and as I've learned more about what it means to be a human and what suffering is, that it's easier for me to 'see through' people, to see where their attachments lie, to see what might offend them. This does not involve feeling those attachments, but simply looking at how they react and what they say. Personally speaking, if I try to 'feel' their reactions, instead of just looking at what they're saying and how they're acting, I always have trouble figuring out if I'm projecting or if that's what they are really feeling.

Just my 2c.

[1] In terms of helping that person. It might be a good exercise to feel the pain of the world in order to gather enough intent to end it once and for all.

All this reminds me of the absolute-relative aspects of truth. After studying Nagarjuna, reading a few texts from the perfection of wisdom sutras, and practice, I could discern that "form is emptiness and emptiness is form". IMO and based on experience, the two truths are just one truth, and I wonder: Could affectless compassion and felt compassion be exactly the same thing? Could affectless compassion be the absolute aspect and felt compassion the relative? At the beginning of this thread I said I agree with Nick and I still do, but now I also wonder if felt compassion is a natural manifestation of absolute/affectless compassion. What do you guys think? Maybe this is too obvious for some but I think it would be helpful if we can shed some light on this.

Vedana paccaya tanha;
vedana-nirodha tanha-nirodho;
tanha-nirodha dukkha-nirodho.

"All this reminds me of the absolute-relative aspects of truth. After studying Nagarjuna, reading a few texts from the perfection of wisdom sutras, and practice, I could discern that "form is emptiness and emptiness is form". IMO and based on experience, the two truths are just one truth, and I wonder: Could affectless compassion and felt compassion be exactly the same thing? Could affectless compassion be the absolute aspect and felt compassion the relative?"

Hmm... depends what you mean by 'relative' and 'absolute'.

Since affectless compassion seems to be an actually-existing phenomenon, it seems to me that felt compassion is just the clinging to said affectless compassion - the suffering version. What is clean and pure is tainted and made selfish, even though it doesn't 'feel' that way (yet by its very nature, suffering is self-ish).

If you take 'relative' to mean 'suffering' and 'absolute' to mean 'no suffering', then felt compassion is indeed the 'relative' version of affectless compassion.

I disagree that suffering is exactly the same as no suffering, though. I take relative to mean "that which can be experienced right now by a given person" and absolute to mean "that which can be experienced, period", and I equate those two, as all that can be experienced, period, for a given person, is that which they are experiencing right now. You might say suffering is part of that relative, if suffering is being experienced. Yet, if one looks closely enough, one will find that 'suffering' vanishes, not to return. Why is that if they are the same?

"Does anyone really believe that the be-all-end-all of enlightenment is to lose touch with how others are feeling?"

I'm unaware of anyone suggesting that it is. Which post, specifically, states this? Is it on another thread?

We are not separate from other beings. How can we not feel as they feel? Maybe we cannot so long as that awareness is obscured or suppressed. We are all directly connected, energetically. We are all connected through the web of prana, among the myriad other connections we share.

When I open myself, I feel and see this deep connection to other beings, the earth, and the cosmos. Empathy for me is not limited to monitoring and interpreting someone's outer expression(s), it is being open and receptive, directly feeling as they do, and compassion seems deeply connected with this.

Weren't there a lot of examples of the buddha using clairvoyant awareness, being directly aware of the content of the minds of others, basing his teaching on this to suit the student... as well as direct transmission? I'm not saying compassion is necessarily a siddhi, it seems quite clear to me that Karuna is one of the brahmaviharas, a pure, naturally arising aspect of our true nature.

But it seems odd to me that we seem to be overlooking the direct awareness of how others feel in this discussion, if we have seen through the notion of a separate self then this seems only natural to me that we should no longer be putting up walls or obscuring this awareness / empathy.

If we are no longer reflexively constricting this awareness, artificially limiting it to a separate self, then we can feel and be aware of impressions of others through empathy, as though we are feeling sensations of the body. This reminds me of the techniques in another thread regarding expanding or extending our awareness to feel an entire room, etc. Clearly, I am of the opinion that Karuna is felt ( altho whether affective applies as it clearly should not be categorized as suffering I couldn't really say. )

Just thinking out loud..

metta!

Justin

Is it possible to directly feel another's emotion? Or is it always just a projection? I really don't know. So long as there is ignorance in my experience (and thus suffering), I don't think I can ever find out accurately enough. It's too difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. If it is possible to encompass somebody's awareness with my own, it seems that I have a far better chance at doing so if there is no ignorance in my experience. How is ignorance eliminated? By paying attention. I can't see myself as cutting off any important aspect of my experience by simply paying attention to this moment so much until it becomes effortless. How can something possibly go wrong by doing so? I have interest in the psychic powers, currently, but I'm putting it off until after release, cause I don't want to get sidetracked or trapped in delusion. It seems, to me, that the ability to directly feel another's emotion accurately, if possible, would best be cultivated post-release.

Put differently: I cannot sincerely attribute any value to something which disappears when I pay attention to it without preconceptions. There is no room for preconception if you pay attention closely enough.

Put differently: Whatever disappears cause of paying attention wasn't really there in the first place. Whatever doesn't, is actually there. Something actually there will not disappear when you look at it. We don't debate whether trees disappear if one is released. You cannot lose something valuable by paying attention.

Thus my aim is to not be guided by views whatsoever (which have helped motivate and orient attention in the past), but by what is actually existing. If things disappear that 'I' find important, so be it - it's more important to see clearly. That is the ending of delusion.

"If you take 'relative' to mean 'suffering' and 'absolute' to mean 'no suffering', then felt compassion is indeed the 'relative' version of affectless compassion.

I disagree that suffering is exactly the same as no suffering, though. I take relative to mean "that which can be experienced right now by a given person" and absolute to mean "that which can be experienced, period", and I equate those two, as all that can be experienced, period, for a given person, is that which they are experiencing right now. You might say suffering is part of that relative, if suffering is being experienced. Yet, if one looks closely enough, one will find that 'suffering' vanishes, not to return. Why is that if they are the same?"

No, what I mean is that not clinging to affect allows the release of affect. This may lead to be free of negative emotions caused by one's delusion. However, after reaching some sort of 10 fetter arhatness, IMO one is still exposed to other people's feelings. In fact, because one is completely empty of opinions, deluded views or filters, one can only feel other people's feelings. Not only that, since there is no clinging whatsoever, there is no fear to feel: One is a pure fearless being that freely appears without delusion or suffering, and that senses everything there is to sense.

So, feeling other people's pain is never impure, it is the purest way of sensing their pain, WITHOUT suffering. Because of the absence of suffering, one can ACT immediately in a compassionate way.

Feeling other people's pain is the relative. The fearless unfindable openness that allows the occurrence of other people's pain is the absolute.

"If it is possible to encompass somebody's awareness with my own, it seems that I have a far better chance at doing so if there is no ignorance in my experience."

Indeed, the less ignorance, the less of your own junk obscuring things, the better your chance. Encompass somebody's awareness with your own... you are both the same awareness, you are not other than one another.

So you already share the same awareness, it is just a matter of having sufficiently removed the ignorance of separate self, to where you can be open to impressions / sensations you might otherwise have rejected or been lost in doubt over.

Until we are fully released, how can we know? We can go by our gut, and maybe sometimes we'll be misguided, but I say we'll probably be better for that, than if we put off compassion until we consider our path "complete" ... will it ever be complete?

If we are abiding as non-dual, then by definition we have cut off our own suffering. Direct mode is absent of affective suffering, is it not? This leaves the natural mind and the brahmaviharas un-obscured, where they can naturally arise. Karuna naturally responds to the recognition of the suffering of other beings, from our own state of awakeness, there is no conflict here with paying attention, embodying awakeness is perfect attention.

So, as a conclusion from the above I would say, if we have progressed enough on our path that we can do third gear, then we should be able to practice karuna even if we know we have work left, we should have enough clarity to do so resulting in minimal if any harm. This is of course speaking of acting from the felt brahmavihara Karuna, as apposed to practicing compassion based on morality / ethics alone.

Notice where each sublime abode succeeds and fails. Which leads to an affective result? Which leads to a possible affectless result?

QUOTE: 93. As to the characteristic, etc., loving-kindness is characterized here as promoting the aspect of welfare. Its function is to prefer welfare. It is manifested as the removal of annoyance. Its proximate cause is seeing loveableness in beings. It succeeds when it makes ill will subside, and it fails when it produces (selfish) affection.

94. Compassion is characterized as promoting the aspect of allaying suffering. Its function resides in not bearing others' suffering. It is manifested as non- cruelty. Its proximate cause is to see helplessness in those overwhelmed by suffering. It succeeds when it makes cruelty subside and it fails when it produces sorrow.

95. Gladness is characterized as gladdening (produced by others' success). Its function resides in being unenvious. It is manifested as the elimination of aversion (boredom). Its proximate cause is seeing beings, success. It succeeds when it makes aversion (boredom) subside, and it fails when it produces merriment.

96. Equanimity is characterized as promoting the aspect of neutrality towards beings. Its function is to see equality in beings. It is manifested as the quieting of resentment and approval. Its proximate cause is seeing ownership of deeds (kamma) thus: 'Beings are owners of their deeds. Whose [if not theirs] is the choice by which they will become happy, or will get free from suffering, or will not fall away from the success they have reached?' It succeeds when it makes resentment and approval subside, and it fails when it produces the equanimity of unknowing, which is that [worldly-minded indifference of ignorance] based on the house life. END OF QUOTE

Page 311, Visuddhimagga: www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nana...Purification2011.pdf

""Its function resides in not bearing others' suffering.""

Right. Pure fearless openness where other people's pain is released effortlessly and immediately because there is no support, base, etc.

"This may lead to be free of negative emotions caused by one's delusion. However, after reaching some sort of 10 fetter arhatness, IMO one is still exposed to other people's feelings. In fact, because one is completely empty of opinions, deluded views or filters, one can only feel other people's feelings. Not only that, since there is no clinging whatsoever, there is no fear to feel: One is a pure fearless being that freely appears without delusion or suffering, and that senses everything there is to sense.
"

In my own experience there is an instant 'recognition' which is cognitive, of another's suffering. There are instant thoughts and intentions to help. If we are talking about vedana which then leads to an affective feeling arising, then no, that isn't my experience. I cannot call up any affect. But this has not hindered my ability to help others. In fact it has enhanced it. I don't think I would have been able to help the many that are contacting me via email and skype without pause and without getting tired and without wanting a rest before this last shift. I have not delved into the possibility of 'siddhis' though so can't comment on that.

The affectless sublime abodes make sense when there is no affect arising. As Owen once said, 'it just makes sense to help others'. There is no reason to have a 'felt urge' to push one to act and aid others. There is no need to fabricate 'compassion' to then act on it. The default mode takes care of that.

In part, the actual caring or intention to help others come out of suffering is a mystery. The affectless versions of the sublime abodes are just inherently a part of what is underneath the veil of fabricating. They have nothing to do with self or 'feeling' or fabricating. I wish I could explain it better. But it can't be imagined, as imagination is 'I' and 'I' am that very veil.

"No, what I mean is that not clinging to affect allows the release of affect. This may lead to be free of negative emotions caused by one's delusion. However, after reaching some sort of 10 fetter arhatness, IMO one is still exposed to other people's feelings. In fact, because one is completely empty of opinions, deluded views or filters, one can only feel other people's feelings. Not only that, since there is no clinging whatsoever, there is no fear to feel: One is a pure fearless being that freely appears without delusion or suffering, and that senses everything there is to sense.

So, feeling other people's pain is never impure, it is the purest way of sensing their pain, WITHOUT suffering. Because of the absence of suffering, one can ACT immediately in a compassionate way.

Feeling other people's pain is the relative. The fearless unfindable openness that allows the occurrence of other people's pain is the absolute."

yes! when the suffering of beings is recognized by this openness, karuna is felt. one acts for the benefit of all beings, seeing they are not other than the openness, as best as one can, towards the cessation of suffering of all beings. this is the movement of karuna.

"The affectless sublime abodes make sense when there is no affect arising. As Owen once said, 'it just makes sense to help others'. In part, the actual caring or intention to help others come out of suffering is a mystery. The affectless versions of the sublime abodes are just inherently a part of what is underneath the veil of fabricating. They have nothing to do with self or 'feeling' or fabricating. I wish I could explain it better. But it can't be imagined, as imagination is 'I' and 'I' am that very veil. "

This makes sense. But how is it that we know the "affectless" versions of the sublime abodes if we do not feel them? I am interested in your response, thanks for the discussion, Nick. :]

Justin

...