Raghu and his son Noah talk with Joseph Goldstein about the necessity of embracing suffering in order to activate compassion.
“Compassion arises when we’re willing to come close to suffering. That’s the cause for compassion, and if we don’t have that willingness, it’s not going to arise because the compassion is in response to the suffering in the world, in other people, even in ourselves.” – Joseph Goldstein
Raghu, Joseph, and Noah explore these topics:
- Empathy and compassion for global suffering
- Fixing your own heart in order to offer compassion to others
- Lessons from Tsoknyi Rinpoche on “California Compassion”
- Checking in with our motivations and intentions
- The tendency to avoid suffering
- How a willingness to look at suffering is a precursor to compassion
- Renunciation and the willingness to let go of our own comfort
- Reminding ourselves that it is okay to feel the unpleasant
- Using suffering to learn something meaningful
- The suffering that comes along with aging
- Meditating on the our finiteness
- A guided Mudita practice with Joseph
“I think a really important balance for compassion, especially as it engages with the suffering in the world, is also equanimity. Because without equanimity, it can be overwhelming. So then it’s interesting to explore how we can strengthen the factor of equanimity along with the compassion.” – Joseph Goldstein
About Joseph Goldstein:
Joseph Goldstein has been leading insight and loving-kindness meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. He is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where he is one of the organization’s guiding teachers. In 1989, together with several other teachers and students of insight meditation, he helped establish the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
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