In some versions of the loving-kindness (metta bhavana) meditation practice, we start by thinking of a benefactor—someone who has shown us kindness. This helps us to remember and connect with the feeling of kindness: being looked at kindly, hearing kind words, seeing kind body language, and experiencing kind actions. This connection makes kindness real for us and helps us become kinder ourselves.
The reason this is important is that everyone has limitations when it comes to cultivating kindness and compassion. We all need some outside help to become less limited. Our genetic makeup and cultural backgrounds can make it hard for us to be compassionate. Even if we want to be kind, we might struggle. Sometimes, we overlook suffering or fail to respond with compassion. Other times, we unknowingly cause suffering because we have blind spots about how we act.
In my case, I grew up in an environment with little kindness or compassion but a lot of criticism and harshness. This kind of upbringing creates behavioral patterns that are hard to change. People who grew up in empathetic and compassionate households have different neural patterns. They understand what compassion looks like, sounds like, and feels like, and they know how to act when they see someone suffering.
Figuring out compassion on our own is tough. While we can make some progress independently, our biggest breakthroughs often come from learning through others. This learning can come from books, courses, videos, or simply by observing compassionate behavior. Witnessing compassion can be an enlightening experience, making us realize that it’s possible to act in a kind and compassionate way. This realization helps us move beyond our conditioned limitations.
You might want to recall moments when others were compassionate towards you. It doesn’t need to be limited to meditation. Think about times when someone forgave you, understood you, or simply listened patiently. By repeatedly recalling these memories, you can imprint these compassionate patterns into your neural pathways. This reinforces the belief that you can act compassionately, making it more likely that you will do so in the future.
Compassion spreads gradually from person to person—parent to child, teacher to student, or friend to friend. This slow spread has made the world a better place over many years, despite some setbacks. Compassion is continuously imprinted in our minds.
It’s important to remember that we are part of this ongoing process. We can be examples of compassion that inspire others to think, “Wow! It’s possible to behave like that! Maybe I can do that too!”