Part 3 - Meditation on Compassion

a. Thinking about the sufferings of sentient beings

Now compassion is taught:

After all beings have been enfolded in this kindness.
Think of their sufferings, arousing such a compassion
As when your mind cannot endure your parents’ suffering.

If our kind parents did evil deeds for our sake and consequently were tormented by the sufferings of the three lower realms and so forth, we would think, “I must be compassionate to them.” The Middle Length Prajñaparamita says:

If we see sentient beings who are suffering, we will think, “May these sentient beings be free from suffering.”

b. How to Meditate on Compassion

As for how to meditate:

Think how our parents, who were so kind to us,
Suffered by doing evil actions for our sake.
With thirst and hunger, heat and cold, and being killed,
They have been sinking down into the raging sea
Of birth, old age and sickness and finally of death,
Worn out by the great variety of these sufferings.

Because they did evil deeds for our sake, now they are tormented by their particular sufferings.

c. The main topic of compassion

From this present suffering:

Though they want liberation, they have no peace of mind.
There is no good friend to show them the proper path.
How pitiable is their limitless wandering in samsara.
Having seen it, can I forsake and abandon them?

The beings of samsara are suffering and know no way of being liberated. Except for a very few spiritual friends, there is no one to teach them all the path of liberation. None of these beings who now suffer without limit in samsara, formerly was not my father, mother, relative, and friend. As for just abandoning them without a refuge or protector, they are my family, father, and mother! That is how we should think.

The Letter to a Student says:

If beings get into such situations and remain,
Those who with kind attention receive them carefully,
Cannot be pained by these kleshas, but if they should reject them,
And are base and malicious, who will then be happy?

d. The reason of compassion

The reason:

Then we should think from the very depths of our heart and bones,
“May all beings be freed in a moment from suffering,
By means of our bodies and enjoyment of our wealth,
And any happiness that is ours throughout the three times.”

Thus may all our enjoyment and happiness be transferred to other beings. Having been freed from suffering, may they forever enjoy immeasurable happiness. We should think that from the depths of our hearts.  The Prajñaparamita in Eighteen Thousand Lines says:

With  such  a  vast  mind  possessing  the  great  compassion,  all  shravakas  and
pratyekabuddhas should meditate in this extraordinary way.

e. The sign of training in compassion

When training in this meditation, as we go from one sentient being to all, the sign of success is that the suffering of beings arises within us and becomes unbearable.

e. The post-meditation of compassion meditation

After all sessions of meditating like this on compassion with objects:

Then meditate on compassion without a reference point.
The sign is the unity of compassion and emptiness.

If the objects of compassion, sentient beings, are examined and analyzed, they are natureless like the appearance of water in a mirage. No water is really there. That is how we should think. The King of Concentrations Sutra says:

As when the summer sun is at its zenith,
Persons tormented by thirst and other beings
With their skandhas see a mirage of water.
All dharmas should be known to be like that.

The Precious Garland says:

As water in a mirage
Is neither water nor real,
Egos in the skandhas
Are neither there nor real.

“That mirage is water.”
So thinking, people go there.
If that water is non-existent,
Such grasping at it is stupid.

Existing like an illusion,
This world is non-existent.
The grasper of it is stupid,
And so will not be free.

But also it says there:

So both, in reality,
Never come nor go nor stay.
And so the world’s pain is gone.

Also it says there:

Therefore the teaching of the buddhas is deathless,
Transcending both existence and non-existence,
And also profound, as it has been explained

After we understand the nature of all dharmas through  meditation, emptiness and compassion are unified. This is how practice is done on the true path. If either of these two is absent, we stray from the path. The Dohakosha says:

Those who, without compassion, dwell in emptiness,
Will never be attainers of the highest path;
But those who meditate upon compassion alone,
Will never be liberated from dwelling in samsara.

Those who have the power of joining both of these
Will not be dwellers in either samsara or nirvana.

f. The fruition of meditating on compassion

Of meditating in this way:

The fruition is workable mind without injurious malice,
Able to establish primordial purity.

One attains a workable mind without malice and injurious intent.

By that the Buddha’s enlightenment will be established. The Supreme Essence says:

By the great compassion the mind becomes workable. It becomes deathless. It attains the supreme adornment of delight.