Compassion, Loving Kindness (+ our practice as inherently political)

Compassion, kindness, empathy and sympathy are words lumped together in the big bag of other-orientated emotions. Although these terms can seemingly be used interchangeably when describing an understanding and reciprocity of the emotions of others, there are subtle differences in each of these concepts. I’m going to be exploring what it means to live with a sense of compassion (warning: it gets a little complicated and it’s not as warm and soft as it sounds) and how this can apply to our yoga practice. Digging deep ...

Loving-Kindness (or Metta) is a lived mental state taught in the Buddhist ‘middle path’ of balanced mental and emotional presence. It is an attitude cultivated, preserved and tended to through practice (it takes work!) and a desire for all beings everywhere to be happy and free. This loving kindness begins with the self and then extends out into the world.

Compassion (or Karuna) follows loving-kindness and although similar in concept, involves the key difference of activation. It involves a desire for all beings to be free from suffering, and incorporates the will to make this change happen. While Buddhist teachers share the benefits of living compassionately to both ourselves and those around us, compassion of itself is a difficult feeling to sit with. Absorbing the suffering of all beings the world over is heavy and a little overwhelming to say the least. Compassion is not a happy feeling, despite the many positive thinking self-help books on the topic. But this is exactly the point. Beginning from this place of discomfort is more likely to motivate us to pursue change. Recognising the suffering of others and acting out of compassion with a sincere and urgent desire to relieve it. It is from this sense of compassion that stems action.

The Tibetan Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön writes, 

“In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves. In particular, to care about other people who are fearful, angry, jealous, overpowered by addictions of all kinds, arrogant, proud, miserly, selfish, mean–you name it–to have compassion and to care for these people means not to run from the pain of finding these things in ourselves.” 

This sense of compassion begins with the self. And although this can at first seem like selfish navel gazing (why dwell on ourselves when compassion is about thinking of others?) it’s an essential step in our journey towards truly knowing and acting from compassion. By seeing, feeling and forgiving those uncomfortable emotions in ourselves. To be compassionate with yourself is not to be good and do good all the time. It’s to see difficult qualities within our thoughts and the things we do, to acknowledge these as a source of our personal suffering and construct the will to change.

From this inner work our compassion we can then expand out into the world around us. Peplakl and Malti’s study ‘Towards Generalised Concern: The Development of Compassion …’ explores the difference between a familial feeling of compassion and a wider sense of global compassion.

A familial compassion is widely recognised and appears inherent from a young age. Their study of children aged 8, 11 and 15 showed a universal experience of compassion for others, with significantly higher levels of kind emotions towards familiar in-group members in contrast to unfamiliar out-group members. This included disliked others (those considered bullies or those seen to have ‘done wrong’) as well as strangers. From this research it seems compassion comes more naturally to those closest to us, whilst we are likely to show less compassion for those labelled with negative attributes, or shown to be distanced and different from ourselves.

Global compassion is the feeling of concern and desire to alleviate the suffering of anyone, regardless of their background and closeness to ourselves. This involves widening our sphere of concern beyond ourselves and those closest to us to strangers and enemies beyond social groups. This comes back to our inner work. Of seeing the difficulties within ourselves as a means of recognising that we are all the same at our core.

“For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannot build a sound basis of compassion” Dalai Lama

So in practicing compassion we are undoubtedly coming into contact with our own unique bias. Tara Brach thoughtfully explores this concept of the ‘unreal other’ in her book Radical Compassion. She suggests an internal conditioning to separate ourselves from others stemming back to our earliest ancestors living in small groups, where familiarity meant safety. Our international social structure has since unfolded to create the wonderfully globally interconnected web of life we live in, where strength comes in mutual understanding and honest communication across groups large and small. A connection drawn from similarity, rather than difference that stands at odds with the smaller, withdrawn communities we lived in centuries ago.

However she suggests these conditioned bias’ persist both on a personal and a political level. This much is clear from recent political decision making in our own government which continues to label ‘others’ as a means to divide rather than instill compassion. Institutionalised racism, classism and, with particular horror in recent years, the oppression of refugees persists due to this other-ing.

It is through mindfulness practices drawn from both loving kindness and compassion that we can begin to reduce our automatic processing, freeing us to recognise a sense of shared vulnerability and belonging. When this sense of compassion so integral to the principles of yoga is absent in our systemic policy making our practice becomes political. It becomes active and evokes a will to change in our wider lives. Compassion, by definition, is this activation.

This one’s a hot topic that definitely deserves it’s own blog post in the future. There’s been some serious debate in the yoga community about the politically radical nature of the practice vs yoga as an escape or refuge from the challenges of day to day life.

I tuned into the Accessible Yoga Conference’s brilliant keynote with Reggie Hubbard simply titled ‘Yoga Is Political: Discuss …’. Reggie talked about his personal experience of merging activism with yoga (as well as completing a 200hr YTT whilst impeaching Donald Trump!) He describes an authentic yoga beyond the physical asana, as well as deconstructing the ‘good vibes only’ instagram friendly yoga approach. If we practice beyond asana, yoga by definition becomes political. It becomes a practice to alleviate the suffering of both ourselves and others. A whole lot of very interesting stuff from this conference, do check out their content for more eye opening conversation. 

Having taken a re-read of my website I hover over the copy in my class description labelling the practice as ‘an escapism within yourself’. Poetic, sure. But lingering over the word escapism and it starts to feel like a statement of separation. My practice as sanctuary, and the rest of my life as something to be run from. I’ve since changed this wording to read for a more integrative approach.

The Practice: Loving Kindness Meditation

“We resonate with one another’s sorrows because we are inter-connected. Being whole and simultaneously part of a larger whole, we can change the world simply by changing ourselves. If I become a centre of love and kindness in this moment, then perhaps in a small but hardly insignificant way, the world now has a nucleus of love and kindness it lacked the moment before. This benefits me and it benefits others”. John Kabat-Zinn

Practicing loving-kindness helps us cultivate love as a strength, a working and building muscle that opens to those around us by focussing on our similarities, and breaking down the barriers of difference and internalised patterns of labelling.

Centre yourself in posture and breath. From your heart, invite feelings or images of kindness and love to radiate until they fill your whole being. Invite feelings of peacefulness and acceptance with yourself.

Repeat the following affirmations ...

May I be safe
May I be happy
May I be healthy
May I live with ease

After holding this radiant centre at your own being, allow loving kindness to radiate outwards. Beginning with immediate family or those closest to you. 

May you be safe
May you be happy
May you be healthy
May you live with ease

Then extend this radiance further afield to people you don’t know - stretching your emotional being. Take this wider into the world, sending to groups oppressed or suffering. Understand that they are no different to you and we all carry the same nucleus of loving kindness.

May we be safe
May we be happy
May we be healthy
May we live with ease

We begin to extend at the edge of our own ignorance, just as in asana we stretch against the resistance of muscle, ligament and tendon. Just as stretching is painful sometimes we expand, we grow, change ourselves and the world.

I’ll be exploring this meditation alongside the theme of compassion in a series of flow + restore fundraiser classes through December. Join me at Stretch London every Tuesday at 5pm. All proceeds will be donated to the great work by the team at Hackney Food Bank. Sign up here.