The Immense Power of Giving a Crap | Election Sanity Series | Rev. angel Kyodo williams
This episode, part two of the "election sanity" series, features Rev. angel Kyodo williams, a Zen teacher and author. It explores compassion (Karuna) as a mental skill, distinguishing it from Metta and empathy, and discusses its cultivation through self-compassion and engaging with suffering.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
Introduction to Compassion and the Brahma Viharas
Importance of Metta (Friendliness) as a Foundation
Understanding 'Bypass Culture' in Spiritual Practice
Distinguishing Metta from Compassion
The Critical Difference Between Empathy and Compassion
Why People Fear Cultivating True Compassion
Cultivating Compassion in Meditation Practice
Applying Compassion to Political Disagreements
Compassionate Action as a Path to Self-Compassion
The Near Enemy of Compassion: Pity
The Far Enemy of Compassion: Cruelty
Recognizing One's Own Capacity for Cruelty
Preview of Sympathetic Joy
6 Key Concepts
Bypass Culture
Bypass culture refers to the tendency to reduce vast, millennia-old spiritual teachings to superficial sound bites or gestures without engaging in the deep practice required to embody their true meaning. This can manifest as making a gesture like 'namaste' without genuine loving-kindness or understanding the depth of the practice.
Metta (Loving-Kindness/Friendliness)
Metta is an ascending, emanating quality that begins with oneself and expands outwards, cultivating an expansive sense of self and a fundamental wish for wellness and ease for all beings. It is considered a profound, deep practice and an essential starting point before cultivating compassion.
Compassion (Karuna)
Compassion is the act of 'getting in there with' others' suffering, actively engaging with it, and having an impulse to alleviate it. It requires a willingness to be touched, moved, and transformed by others' experiences, and fundamentally, to be with one's own suffering first.
Empathy
Empathy is the ability to feel with others, resonating with their emotions, whether positive or negative (e.g., empathetic rage or fear). It is distinct from compassion because it lacks the specific focus on suffering and the active impulse to alleviate that suffering.
Near Enemy (of Compassion): Pity
Pity is a quality of mind that feels like compassion but inhibits true compassion. Pity involves wanting others' suffering to end from a 'hovering above' stance, without genuinely leveling with them or being willing to be touched and transformed by their experience.
Far Enemy (of Compassion): Cruelty
Cruelty is an active twisting of hate that gets right in there to diminish or dehumanize others. It goes beyond mere hatred and robs the practitioner of their own humanity, diminishing the capacity to cultivate compassion.
9 Questions Answered
Bypass culture is the tendency to reduce vast, millennia-old spiritual teachings to superficial sound bites or gestures, without engaging in the deep practice and effort required to genuinely cultivate the underlying qualities.
Metta is an emanating quality that sends out wishes for wellness and ease, allowing one to remain in their own space. Compassion, however, requires one to 'get in there' with others' suffering, to be touched and transformed by it, and to have an impulse to alleviate it.
Empathy is feeling with someone, resonating with their emotions (which can be positive or negative, like rage or fear). Compassion is specifically feeling with suffering and includes an active impulse to alleviate that suffering, even if one cannot always act on it.
People fear compassion because they often conflate it with empathy, believing it means taking on others' suffering without the empowering impulse to help. There's also the humbling realization that one cannot always alleviate suffering, which can be profound to reconcile.
Rather than jumping directly to compassion, one should first cultivate conditions for it, such as Metta. A specific practice involves observing 'turbulence' (distractions) during meditation, inquiring into the underlying fears or anxieties, and becoming a 'connoisseur of one's own pain,' which then creates space to understand and relate to others' suffering.
When feeling 'charge' or 'contraction' (suffering) due to political disagreements, pause and listen inward to identify what feels threatening to yourself. Recognizing this signature of fear or threat within oneself allows for understanding the same in others, fostering a desire for their suffering to end, even if one disagrees with their views.
Such actions are primarily paths to self-compassion. By putting in effort and showing up, one avoids the deep suffering of inaction and regret, which in turn creates internal space to be more present and compassionate towards others without being overwhelmed by personal uncertainty.
The near enemy of compassion is pity. It feels similar to compassion but inhibits true compassion because it involves wishing for others' suffering to end from a 'hovering above' or detached stance, rather than genuinely leveling with them and being willing to be touched by their experience.
The far enemy of compassion is cruelty. It is an active twisting of hate that aims to diminish or dehumanize others, robbing the practitioner of their own humanity. Recognizing one's own capacity for cruelty, even in subtle forms like harsh words, is crucial because it diminishes the capacity to cultivate compassion.
26 Actionable Insights
1. Cultivate Self-Compassion First
Cultivate self-compassion by being willing to sit with and tolerate your own suffering, as this is a prerequisite for genuinely engaging with the suffering of others.
2. Tolerate Your Own Suffering
Begin by tempering yourself to tolerate your own suffering and actively meet the places within yourself where there is tension or unwillingness to touch your own pain.
3. Inquire Into Turbulence’s Root
During meditation or when experiencing mental ’turbulence,’ don’t just dismiss distractions; instead, inquire into the underlying reason or ’thing’ that makes that distraction interesting, rather than just its content.
4. Become Connoisseur of Your Pain
Become a ‘connoisseur of your own pain’ by deeply understanding your personal suffering, as this comfort with your own experience will enable you to recognize and engage with the suffering of others, including those you disagree with.
5. Examine Your Own Cruelty
As an act of self-compassion, be willing to honestly examine and see the specific ways in which you express cruelty, rather than simply trying to avoid being cruel.
6. Route Out Inner Cruelty
Actively ‘route out’ internal cruelty, hatred, and indifference within yourself, as cultivating compassion alone is insufficient without addressing these negative qualities.
7. Meet Your Ugliest Aspects
Cultivate self-compassion by being willing to meet and accept even the ugliest and most challenging aspects of your own nature.
8. Avoid Cruelty to Preserve Compassion
Understand that engaging in cruelty will diminish and dry up your capacity to cultivate compassion and contribute to a better world, making it essential to avoid.
9. Prioritize Metta Cultivation
Cultivate Metta (loving kindness or friendliness) as an essential, deep practice, understanding it is not merely about ‘being nice’ but a fundamental starting point for expanding one’s sense of self.
10. Cultivate Conditions for Compassion
Instead of directly trying to ‘produce’ compassion, focus on cultivating the necessary conditions for it to arise naturally, such as practicing loving kindness (Metta).
11. Practice Expansive Metta
Cultivate Metta by starting with an impulse of wanting wellness and ease for yourself, then consciously extending that expansive feeling outwards to others.
12. Engage Actively with Suffering
Understand that true compassion requires actively ‘getting in there’ with people and their suffering, rather than merely sending good wishes from a detached position.
13. Focus on Suffering Alleviation
Distinguish compassion from general empathy by specifically focusing on suffering and cultivating an impulse to alleviate it, even when direct action is not possible.
14. Avoid Spiritual Bypass
Do not engage in ‘bypass culture’ by using spiritual gestures or words (like ’namaste’ or ‘I wish you ease’) without genuinely cultivating the underlying qualities of loving kindness and deep practice.
15. Pause and Listen to Contraction
When you feel emotional ‘contraction’ (a physical or mental tightening), pause and listen inward to identify what feels like a threat to yourself, as this creates space and helps recognize similar threats in others.
16. Breathe Deeply to Expand
When experiencing feelings of contraction or tightness, breathe deeply to expand your body, counteracting the sensation of getting smaller and creating more internal space.
17. Recognize Universal Human Needs
Understand that all people are fundamentally striving for safety, to be seen, to be whole, and to be loved, even if their methods for achieving these needs differ greatly from your own.
18. Connect Own & Others’ Threats
By becoming deeply aware of your own feelings of threat and vulnerability, you create more internal space to understand and allow for the feelings of threat in others, which helps compassion arise.
19. Avoid Pity, Embrace Leveling
Actively avoid pity, which is a ’near enemy’ of compassion, because it inhibits true connection by keeping you at a distance from others’ suffering rather than ’leveling with’ them.
20. Address Immediate Suffering
Do not use engagement with distant or abstract causes as a way to avoid addressing suffering that is immediately present and requires your direct, personal engagement.
21. Actively Participate, Don’t Wait
Avoid deep suffering by actively participating and ‘putting skin in the game’ in important matters, rather than passively waiting for outcomes or expecting others to resolve issues for you.
22. Engage in Civic Action
Actively participate in civic duties like voting or volunteering for a cause you believe in, as this engagement is a path to self-compassion and helps alleviate personal anxiety and feelings of inaction.
23. Ensure Safe Voting Conditions
Beyond casting your own vote, actively work to ensure that people in your life have safe and unthreatened conditions in which to exercise their right to vote.
24. Full Engagement Generates Compassion
Fully engage and commit yourself to causes you care about; even if the outcome isn’t as desired, the act of full participation itself generates enormous self-compassion.
25. Hold Self Gently & Firmly
Navigate challenging times by holding yourself both gently (with self-care and kindness) and firmly (with resilience and resolve).
26. Cultivate Caring & Compassion
Recognize that caring or having compassion for yourself and others is a courageous and empowering act, not a sign of weakness.
8 Key Quotes
Caring or having compassion or giving a crap about other people or about yourself is a baller move. It takes courage and it gives you courage.
Dan Harris
Metta is this, it's ascending, right? It's an, it's an emanating. It is a, a quality that begins with oneself and extends out... Compassion asks something even more of us that's kind of out there, which is, it says, get in there with them.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams
Compassion distinguishes itself by feeling with suffering specifically... and compassion always requires the impulse to alleviate the suffering, even if we can't actually do something about it.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams
When we're in touch with our own places of threat, we will have more room to allow for other people's places of threat. That's how compassion arises for us.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams
The last place you want to be is on the other side of the election and feel like you waited for somebody else to take care of it, to do it... That is a recipe for really deep suffering.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams
Cruelty gets right in there, just like compassion. It gets right in there and it twists. It twists the hate.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams
It's not enough to go and cultivate the compassion without routing out the cruelty. It's not enough. We have to route out the cruelty. We have to route out the hatred.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams
The instruction is come to see how it is that you are cruel. Not, don't be cruel. Come to see, right? Be willing to practice as an act of self-compassion, how it is that you express cruelty.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams
2 Protocols
Cultivating Conditions for Compassion
Rev. angel Kyodo williams- Start by cultivating Metta (loving-kindness/friendliness) to establish stability.
- Temper oneself to tolerate one's own suffering and meet places of tension in willingness to touch it.
- Observe 'turbulence' (distractions like a to-do list or replaying an argument) during meditation.
- Instead of just letting it go, inquire into what makes that turbulence interesting or what is underneath it (e.g., fear of not accomplishing enough, fear of limited time).
- Become a 'connoisseur of your own pain' to understand the existential quality of fear and anxiety.
- This comfort with one's own suffering leads to a willingness to see and hold the suffering of others, even those with whom you disagree, recognizing shared human fears.
Operationalizing Compassion in Difficult Situations
Rev. angel Kyodo williams- When feeling 'charge' or 'contraction' (dukkha/suffering) in response to a difficult person or situation, recognize it as a cue to listen.
- Turn attention inward and listen to what is being threatened for yourself (e.g., safety, wholeness, being seen, being loved).
- Breathe deeply to fill your body back up from the place that has gone small and tight.
- From this place of understanding your own threat, you can recognize the same signature of threat in others, even if their expressions or views differ.
- This recognition allows for compassion to arise, wanting their suffering to end, without necessarily agreeing with their specific choices or political stances.