Endless Compassion Without Burnout - Session 2a

Venerable Robina Courtin continues teaching about the Buddhist approach to developing compassion.

WHY ENDLESS COMPASSION?

Sometimes it feels like the world’s problems are demanding so much of our attention that our compassion reserves will run dry. How can we develop strong, resilient compassion that allows us to help others? Venerable Robina says: “You don't harm others even slightly if you love, have compassion, generosity, forgiveness - it's not possible. It’s the delusions that cause us pain and cause us to harm others. So when we deeply understand that, it’s like we’ve got compassion for ourselves. That’s what qualifies us to have compassion for others - and that doesn’t just mean the victims, it means the people who do the harm. This is a really tough level of compassion but we can not have it until we know ourselves, until we know what causes us pain.”

Course notes: https://bit.ly/EndlessCompassionNotes

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What drives *our* actions that harm others? (7:07)

It is the very *having* of anger is where the suffering is (10:45)

When we can see this within ourselves... (15:00)

Anger is a mental breakdown [klesha = affliction = mental illness] (24:24)

The Four Noble Truths (28:15)

Compassion for ourselves (30:06)

Look at "deserving". What does "deserving" have to with anger and attachment? (34:48)

What is attachment? (47:35)

Q: Can I change my anger into compassion and *then* take action? (56:20)

Q: Does "survivor guilt" come from compassion? (57:34)

Q: If “junior school” is being ethical and not harming, and “university” is the compassion wing, is “high school?” working on our own minds? (1:01:48)

Q: What is the difference between the anger of the man who kicks his dog and Roger the meditators experience where Rinpoche said "the dirt has to come out" (1:04:15)

Q: Apparent randomness of events and karma (1:06:17)

Q: All of these things that are happening - good or bad - our job as practitioners is to bring it all into the path? (1:12:21)

Q: Does purification practice like Vajrasattva get rid of the seed of transmute it? (1:14:04)