Kinds of Kindness

In the 1990’s, in my mid – twenties and a new member of the monastic community at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey, I was asked by the temple officers to phone a long standing supplier and give notice that that the monastery was ceasing our regular order of tea. The community and guest numbers were consistently quite high and we drank a lot of the stuff, so I guess that we were a relatively good customer. The reason for the change was solely a timely financial and pragmatic one. The supplier was a business founded on ethical trade principals, that was their whole ethos, and this was a factor in the monastery buying from them in the first place.

So I phone, quite intimidated by having to be the one to say ‘no’, possibly it was the first time in my life that I had to do so. My memory is that I was talking to a contact who had dealt personally with the monastery for some time. I stumbled my way to telling the employee the news, and I was met with a wave of indignant fury. How could we, the man was saying, a religious institution that shared the same ethical values as the organisation he worked for, do this? Clearly, in his view, we were reprehensible for taking this action.

I mostly froze as the sales rep raged, his reaction was shocking and seemed incongruous, though, at the same time, something penetratingly significant was going on which to this day, resonates and informs me. I’ve been around the block a few times since then, and now see versions of this problem almost daily, it’s not at all an unusual one. There’s no doubt that the employee was harming both himself and the organization that he professed to love, the destructive nature of indulging anger was vividly clear. Most significantly, the interaction was showing that there is a difference between idealism and practice. Buddhist teachings and practice are not idealism, they are about doing something about yourself.

It’s mistaken to believe that idealism is ‘Buddhism’. Treating compassion as if it were a political ideology is a version of this mistake. Making distinctions between engaged and contemplative Buddhist practice, would be another. The path of meditation (which could be a synonym for doing something about yourself), is rooted in compassion, it does not manufacture compassion and does not lie in the making of opposites. Anger and despair, of a number of hindrances to liberation, become obstructions as they’re being rooted in perceived opposites. For a practitioner of meditation to drift into idealism would be making an obstacle in their own path. Indulging in a self image in the naming of something good, is the making of an opposite. Thankfully, though it is not easy, it is always possible to see how suffering is created and continued. To cut the problem off at it’s roots, necessitates facing ourselves squarely, and we’d often rather do anything else but that.

 

Like any addiction, love and light projections are driven by something. Ignorance is still in the driving seat, no matter how fervently this is denied or how noble the mission is proclaimed to be. Dynamic, adaptive, subtle, sophisticated ignorance, encourages an endless neediness which like a ship, in a never ending pursuit of an ever receding horizon, ploughs ahead leaving an overlooked churning wake of disquiet. The all inclusive path of meditation, requires the thorough respecting of ignorance. Having no need to get rid of, or avoid ignorance, the life of meditation practice at least reduces disquiet, perhaps even to the point of leaving only invisible, beneficent fulfilment behind it. Seeking to save the world, believing that it can and must be, is like a sweet tasting poison. Once tasted, it will seem much more preferable to keep drinking the sweetness than to turn around and face whatever the unease is based on. It’s much easier to tell everyone else that they don’t understand and need to change, than it is to change yourself. It’s not hard to call out what is unwholesome and tragic in the world, seeing the truth of these though, requires accepting the pain of these, which seems to be quite difficult. Acceptance requires not taking our reactions to things, to be the truth of things. The response that comes from acceptance is free from the causes of suffering and is quite different to reactivity.

 

I can’t save the world, what the world could truly use, is saving it from myself. It’s illusory to even think that the world can be saved, but this doesn’t mean that good things can’t be done. I ‘save’ the world from myself, by having conviction and confidence in true nature. This is done through turning away from indulging in an illusory self, i.e. the practice of true nature, which is the source of vows in Buddhist teachings. Two people who are basing their lives on meditation – one is visibly committed in a socially charitable field – the other’s life isn’t involved with endeavours so explicitly ‘good’ – both are equally benefitting the world, they are content but not complacent with their capacities, and neither needs to defend any position because the virtues of true nature* are influential throughout their individuality. Somehow, the earth and its things respond gratefully to this unforced integrity. With the self forgotten, reality shows its true radiant face** which is not caught in any opposite, is somehow beyond any perception, and yet is utterly reliable and sufficient too. Right livelihood, such a well known concept in Buddhism, is much more than delusive idealism.

“The qualities of true nature are not mine or yours,

If they were, there would my truth and your truth,

And that would be a nonsense.

The great teacher said, “If you want to understand the meaning of Buddha nature, first rid yourself of selfish pride.”

That ignorance is the cause of endless births and deaths,

Is an eternal truth.

How radical the Buddha way is! The problem and its answer lie within, nowhere else.

How many teachings are you going to ignore and how many will you cherry pick,

To try and justify yourself?

Does someone who is being kind, think that they are?

If there’s something that needs doing, why aren’t you just doing it?

This is what the Buddha taught – to train yourself benefits others,

Save sentient beings from your own mind.”

                       – Ximeng Li

Aren’t the many manifestations of kindness, forms of a virtue that can instantly cut through our delusions like a sharp sword? Tenderness might be such a sword, a stern rebuke might be. Isn’t this ordinary, and aren’t some kinds of kindness uncommon and some misunderstood too? However it comes, isn’t nameless compassion a seamless, immediate response? I might call some things kindness because they are palatable to the tendencies and sentiments that I carry with me, while anything that challenges these, I might see as unkind. Compassion itself cannot be so temperamental, its activity doesn’t arise from biased emotionality, it is like a call and its echo, or a person, half asleep, reaching behind them for a missing pillow in the dark.

 

The desire to make a compassionate and wise image of ourselves is perhaps relatable, but it won’t really make either of these. A spiritual ego is still a problematic belief in an ego self, however wholesome appearing. It may seem satisfying and meaningful, it may feel so good and right, even essential, to believe in something and call it positive, but feeling strongly about something is not a sign of truth. Because it is mistaken, making a foundation out of feeling creates an uneasy inadequacy and frustration will become apparent sooner or later. If a belief can’t be questioned, then there’s something problematic going on for sure. At a critical time that scratches the surface, such an externalized mind, because of whatever it is masking, may seek fight or flight over contributing helpfully. Imagined compassion, in making itself the central character, can even introduce confusion into what is really being asked for in a situation. This would be compassion without wisdom, and if there’s an absence of wisdom, it isn’t actually compassion either. Such a messy occasion would not be entirely a failure though, the unseating of a delusive fantasy is a compassionate manifestation of wisdom and an opportunity to open up to the kindness of reality, even when it can sometimes be a disturbing and unpleasant experience too.

 

To realize the source of compassion, love and wisdom, all that is needed is to keep turning around from projecting a self on to the world. This is to steep body and mind in the sympathetic experience of a wisdom that neither comes, goes, or stays. Properly done, meditation reveals an authentic, vitally responsive fullness that is beneficial to the world, whether or not anyone notices or approves. The unconstrained nature of indivisible reality is not concerned with what we want or what we think the world should be, and it doesn’t spread the disease of righteousness.

The life of meditation is the rigorous life-posture of an honesty that I cannot ever claim. I avoid eating the flesh of animals and have no need to call myself a vegetarian. I’m a Buddhist monk and have no reason to think of myself as a ‘Buddhist’. I cannot make the truths of existence into whatever I want them to be. Sometimes I could be wrong, sometimes I could be right, and sometimes a no is as good as a yes.

Willard Lee August 2024

* Two classic formulations from Buddhist traditions, of the virtues of true nature:

  1. the six paramitas (perfections); generosity, ethical discipline, patience, energy, meditation and wisdom
  2. the four wisdoms; charity, tenderness, benevolence and sympathy

** A ‘face’ that radiates the three seals of Buddhist teachings:

  1. Impermanence

  2. Non-self

  3. Nirvana

– or the four seals:

  1. All compounded things are impermanent (and therefore duhkha*)

  2. All compounded phenomena are, by nature, duhkha* (All emotions are painful, is another interesting translation)

  3. All phenomena are without inherent existence (empty of self existence)

  4. Nirvana is beyond description (beyond concepts) (Nirvana is true peace)

* Much can be, and has been, said about this important teaching word. Suffice to say here, duhkha is much more than the common English translation of, ‘suffering’. Duhkha (or dukkha), is a sophisticated word from one of the oldest recorded languages and, because of the many meanings and implications contained in its six letters, has often been explained as untranslatable by language experts. Unreliable, unstable, unease, not a source of lasting satisfaction, pain, bummer; translations/interpretations along these lines are closer to conveying duhkha’s meaning than, ‘suffering’ might imply.

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