farmer attends carefully to the conditions necessary for a rich harvest – good soil, the removal of
weeds, proper moisture, the seeds and so on – a good harvest will be the outcome. Similarly,
cultivating compassion requires that we ensure the proper conditions that give rise to compassion.
The Eight Stages of CBCT
The steps of the practice can be briefly outlined as follows:
1.
Developing Attention and Stability of Mind:
The foundation for the practice is the
cultivation of a basic degree of refined attention and mental stability.
2.
Cultivating Insight into the Nature of Mental Experience:
The stabilized mind is then
employed to gain insight into the nature of the inner world of thoughts, feelings, emotions and
reactions.
3.
Cultivating Self-Compassion:
The student participant observes the innate aspirations for
happiness and well-being as well as those for freedom from unhappiness and dissatisfactions,
i.e., which mental states contribute to fulfillment and which ones prevent it. The participant
then makes a determination to emerge from the toxic mental and emotional states that
promote unhappiness.
4.
Developing Equanimity:
Normally one tends to hold fast to categories of friends, enemies
and strangers and to react unevenly to people, based on those categories, with over-
attachment, indifference and dislike. By examining these categories closely, the participant
comes to understand their superficiality and learns to relate to people from a deeper
perspective: everyone is alike in wanting to be happy and to avoid unhappiness.
5.
Developing Appreciation and Gratitude for Others:
Although people view themselves as
independent, self-sufficient actors, the truth is that no one can thrive or even survive without
the support of countless others. When the participant realizes interdependence with others
and the many benefits that others offer every day, the participant develops appreciation and
gratitude for them.
6.
Developing Affection and Empathy:
This requires a two-pronged approach; reflecting on
the kindness of others, and reflecting on the many drawbacks of a self-centered attitude. The
latter weakens one’s self-centeredness, while the former is the active component that
strengthens endearment and affection towards others. Additionally, deep reflection on the
ways in which these dear beings are caught in suffering – not only those individuals known to
oneself but those who may be suffering in far off places, afflicted by war, poverty, disease and
so on – engages one’s empathy for them and the sense of the unbearability of their suffering.
Thus, endearment, and the enhanced empathy that arises from thinking of the suffering of
these beings who are so dear to oneself, serves as the catalyst for compassion. The more
endearment one feels towards others, the more unbearable one will find their suffering and
difficulties, and the more one will rejoice in their happiness and good fortune. One will then be
impelled to see them relieved of their distress, which is compassion. Moreover, deeper
contemplation and insight into the ways in which myriad benefits are derived from countless
others, along with awareness that this kindness should by rights be repaid, enables the
participant to relate to others with a deeper sense of connectedness and affection.
7.
Realizing Wishing and Aspirational Compassion:
Enhanced empathy for others, coupled
with intimate awareness of their suffering and its causes, naturally gives rise to compassion:
the wish for others to be free from suffering and its conditions.
8.
Realizing Active Compassion for Others:
In the final step, the participant is guided through
a meditation designed to move from simply wishing others to be free of unhappiness to
actively committing to assistance in their pursuit of happiness and freedom from suffering.
Consistent meditation training develops a greater capacity for compassion, which eventually
will become ingrained and spontaneous.
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