Compassion in Zen
zenguitar
Bad BuddhistNew England Veteran
Hi Sangha, My impression of Zen training is that it is almost entirely focused on developing mindfulness and concentration. It seems to be almost all sitting meditation, except for sutra chanting, mindful eating, mindful walking, mindful bathroom-using, etc. 
The goal seems to be to achieve some kind of great insight into the true nature of reality via this constant application of laser-like mindfulness, which will eventually lead to wisdom (prajna). But correct me if I am wrong here.
Anyway, this is all well and good, but I wonder, are there any Zen exercises specifically designed to develop the other key part of enlightenment, compassion (karuna)?
Just asking because there are a lot of situations in daily life where I think basic compassion is called for rather than, say, a lecture on emptiness. Sometimes this is easy to do, but sometimes it is quite difficult to accomplish without disturbing one's own equanimity. So, how can one exercise the compassion "muscle" in order to deal with the difficult situations?
Comments
@Zenguitar I agree, if I hear you correctly: There seems to be a rather chilly distance implied in talking about Zen practice.
But that is from afar.
The elements of clarity and compassion are not like cats and dogs or heads and tails. What practice teaches is that they are not different commodities. Clarity IS compassion. Compassion IS clarity. Practice makes this clear...
As it does that lecturing anyone about anything is probably a fool's errand.
Just be kind ... and the dime drops.
Just be clear ... and the dime drops.
No need to strike some imagined Zen pose.
Exactly so.
It is possible to reach clarity through the heart as in Sufism (just a different emphasis) or to reveal or rather gain insight into compassion/the heart through a mind path such as Dharma.
In a strange way the space of mind, widens to include the heart and the widening of compassion empowers the clarity that @genkaku mentions.
Love the mind, feel the mind . . .
@genkaku and @lobster have it pretty much on the money. Zen doesn't divide enlightenment into parts or steps or degrees, so we don't divide the practice into "this is the mindfulness part" and "this is where you learn metta" and such. We tend to leave degrees of meditation and levels of enlightenment to the other schools. You either have clear mind or you don't.
Having said that, Master Seung did have a lot to say about compassion, and the difference between that and emotion. Clear mind means asking, "How can I help?" and metta means giving with no thought of reward or expectation in return.
@ zenguitar
Compassion, sympathy, tenderness, empathy, benevolence, love & wisdom are all descriptions of spiritually moving from selfishness towards selflessness.
These truths are only obscured by our identities adversarial machinations.
Each moment is a chance between self construction or self transcendence.
What exercise in each moment do you think supports one or the other?
Ok, thanks, I think I see. Apparently Zen practice accomplishes everything at the same time when done correctly. So simple...yet so difficult.
Yes..but I think that all Buddhist practice does this to some degree with Zen just being another description of it.
It makes enlightenment, (somewhere I swore I'd never use that word) not so much of an accomplishment than the innate inheritance of identity's absence.
innate inheritance of identity's absence?
.....a natural gaining of the illusory fabrication of who you thought you were.
Got it.
@how, interesting, you talk about identity as if it is a bad thing.
it's not bad, it's irrelevant.
@zenguitar
The walk towards sufferings cessation can be described as all the steps we take towards identities transcendence.
Like all attachments, pushing it away or clinging to it, just feeds it.
**
Identity** is just a word describing how we habitually manipulate all of our sense input in order to keep propagating the dream of our own ignorance.
I think so. The practice of the perfection of the 6 paramitas, the 16 Bodhisattva Precepts and the 4 great vows.. All of these are part of a solid zen practice. There are also several koans that touch on this subject if you ever get the opportunity to do formal koan practice.
I swear by all mighty Buddha to tell the truth, the whole truth and Nothing
. . . but the Truth . . . So help me [insert expletive]
Lack of identity is just a Zen hangover. I spent my inheritance on a nice shell and an empty swear jar . . . however enlightment is definitely a rude word in some circles . . .
Thanks everyone, insightful as always. I was asking because it seems there are separate compassion exercises in, say, Theravada and Tibetan Buddhism. But I guess zazen is the complete package.
"Perception is often Deception".
Every tradition is a complete package.
it's like the American Constitution. All in one place.
The UK has a constitution too.... it's just not all on "one piece of paper". But nevertheless, we have one....
Simply because you think some things are dealt with separately, doesn't mean they actually are.....
I would say that is true just as long as one does not think zazen is something that happens only when you sit on a meditation cushion. One time someone asked my teacher how long we should practice for? Like 1/2 hour? Once or twice a day? He responded "24/7". Ha!
I hear you-- Zen does feel a bit cold and dry at times, as the words like "compassion", "love" and "kindness" aren't regularly part of the teaching vocabulary.
But in the Korean school I'm a part of there is a lot of emphasis on direction and intention. It's really the key point-- our goal should be to help all beings and that is the only reason to practice. A catchphrase we use is something like: "if it's for me, suffering appears; if it's for all beings, suffering disappears". Getting clear and wise through formal practice is only a tool-- not the goal.
One curious pitfall along the way is that as you develop clarity and calmness, that can be used to achieve all sorts of goals, including getting money, social connections or sexual partners. Also, during World War II the Japanese military used Zen to make soldiers more determined and ruthless. I don't know if there's anything in Japanese Zen to prevent using the fruit of practice for dubious reasons, but the school that I'm familiar with starts not with the practice itself but with the intention for practice: whatever we do, why do that?
The Bodhisattva ideal began with the Mahayana school, zen being part of that tradition, and as we know, compassion is a key concept in the Bodhisattva ideal:
http://sarasotazen.org/four-bodhisattva-vows/
This American Zen organization states in number 6 of its principles:
http://www.zenbuddhisttemple.org/about.html
Maybe also the ancient samurai warriors, who practiced Zen meditation (I'm told), did not exactly want to come across as big ol' softies. Hence the emphasis on discipline, hardness, cutting through to the heart of reality, self-reliance etc. and lack of warm-and-fuzzy elements. Just a theory though.
Reading the sad history of Japan and their attempt to conquer the Pacific, the temples like the people became terminally infected with nationalism and even worse, racism. It didn't matter what religion or set of moral rules were being taught once it reached that point.
If you want to have nightmares about the depths to which they sank, read up on the crimes of Unit 731 in occupied China. These same Japanese people would have stopped their torture long enough to celebrate Buddha's birthday. See, the Chinese weren't human beings to the Japanese. They were barbarians, one step above apes, and not worthy of being treated as human.
But before you think there is something different about the Japanese, when we won the war our great hero General MacArthur and our government gave all the doctors and nurses who tortured the Chinese to death by the thousands in this horror camp complete amnesty in exchange for teaching our own military doctors what they'd learned about the many ways to maim and kill people. And those Japanese doctors went on to live perfectly normal, obscure lives in Japan with military pensions.
We held open trials and hanged the Nazi people responsible for crimes and did the same with the Japanese that mistreated our own POWs, but see, these were "only" Chinese. We didn't much care what those people did to each other.
The temples also tried to pretend none of this ever happened. It was like a half-remembered night of wild partying that you are ashamed to talk about. They simply all went insane. Against such blindness, not even the Dharma can prevail. Myanmar today is another sad example of this.
A reference from the mighty Wikipedia:
"The philosophies of Buddhism and Zen, and to a lesser extent Confucianism and Shinto, influenced the samurai culture. Zen meditation became an important teaching due to it offering a process to calm one's mind. The Buddhist concept of reincarnation and rebirth led samurai to abandon torture and needless killing, while some samurai even gave up violence altogether and became Buddhist monks after realizing how fruitless their killings were. Some were killed as they came to terms with these realizations in the battlefield."
I don't see Zen as a reason for the nationalist cruelty in Nanking, for instance. As I don't see Christianity as the true reason for the cruel Crusades (or for the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima).
Vajrayana Buddhism is the state religion of Bhutan where ethnic and religious minorities have been persecuted. Again, we can't blame Buddhism for the lack of compassion, but it's a question of politics.
It's a question of Wrong....just about Everything.....