Cultivating Compassion, p 4

Turning self-cherishing into self-compassion, a practice

We generally are very focused on ourselves. We have a habit of cherishing ourselves, self-cherishing. We need to turn self-cherishing into an experience of compassion for ourselves. Rather than cherishing ourselves in a typical way, we look at ourselves, we look at our situation, we look at our experience of suffering, and we have the wish that we can be free from that. We want to experience happiness, and we can focus on ourselves as we are usually focused on ourselves anyway; we have a habit of making ourselves the most important. So rather than using the normal way of cherishing ourselves, we should practice compassion towards ourselves. We give rise to the experience of compassion. We experience what it is like to have compassion. Then we experience peace, and we experience happiness.

This happiness is a very important experience, and in order to experience it, we need to meditate. We need a regular practice of cultivating compassion. We work with the negative emotions, we decide that we are no longer going to be a servant or follow the negative emotions. We understand that when that happens, when we follow the negative emotions, our minds have no independence, we have no autonomy, we have no freedom. We have the wish to apply compassion to ourselves, to bring forth in our mind the qualities of loving kindness and compassion.

Through those experiences, we have the experience of happiness. To meditate regularly or to practice regularly is important. Through this kind of regular practice, then we will also be given glimpses of our mind's nature. We will experience our mind's nature from the experiences of happiness, which begin with self-compassion, the wish to be free from negative emotions, practicing compassion, experiencing the nature of the mind and getting glimpses of the nature. The feeling of peace will naturally come, and our minds will then know the power of compassion. We will recognize that we rely upon these methods.

We need to have some kind of practice. We must have the wish to be free, the interest, the motivation towards that: to practice, to utilize these methods and to experience this. It's just like when the physicians tell us that we have to drink water. We need to develop the habit of drinking water. We have to become accustomed to doing that, and then practice it regularly. There needs to be some kind of habituation or some kind of interest in doing this. And then we actually do it. We actually have to remind ourselves to drink water, so to speak, and to practice compassion or to meditate on compassion for ourselves.

This requires some effort on our part. It requires a regular practice. We can see that this type of practice, this type of cultivation brings us a happiness that is different from the kind we experienced before. When we wish for happiness through outer comforts or through gaining physical comforts and external comforts, if we rely on that type of happiness, then some kind of happiness comes, but it's very short lived. Maybe the first time we will have some happiness attained. Let's say we buy some things that are very comfortable for us, that make us happy. We experience happiness that one time, but the next time we don't quite attain the same level of happiness. We don't get so much satisfaction. The more we repeat, the less we will be able to attain that level of happiness.

When we rely on external comforts and circumstances to make us happy, it's not the same. We aren't able to maintain happiness through that kind of practice. It's very different from the practice of meditation or the practice of cultivating compassion. That type of happiness is much more sustainable. It's something we can replicate, it's something we can have again and again. The external comforts and happiness don't last long.