Excerpts from Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's Teachings: The Happiest Person in the World

Imagine you live in a small room with only one window—locked, and so caked with grime that no light can pass through. You might assume the world outside is a bleak, dismal place, populated by all manner of grotesque creatures, because every time they pass by, terrifying shadows dance across the filthy glass.

Then one day, perhaps by accident, you splash some water on the window. Or maybe after a storm, rain seeps through. You grab a cloth—or just use the corner of your sleeve—and start wiping away the moisture. As you do, a patch of old grime comes off, and suddenly a sliver of light slips through the glass.

Your curiosity is piqued. You rub harder. More grime comes off; more light pours in. Maybe, you think, the world isn't so dark and dismal after all. Maybe it was just the dirty window.

You go to the sink, fetch more water (and maybe a few more cloths), and keep at it until every last smear of dirt and dust is gone. Light floods in. And then, perhaps for the first time in your life, you realize that the frightening, distorted shapes on the glass were actually people—people just like you! In that instant, a spontaneous urge rises from deep within your awareness: you want to reach out, to step outside, to be among them on the street.

In reality, you haven't changed anything. The world, the light, the people—they were always there. You simply couldn't see them clearly because your view was blocked. But now that you see them fully, the difference in how you feel is like night and day.

This is what the Buddhist tradition calls the dawn of awakening compassion—the innate capacity to empathize with and understand the feelings of others, stirring awake.

The Biology of Joy and Sorrow

One who possesses great compassion grasps the entirety of the Buddha's teachings.

In a sense, the compassion that Buddhists speak of differs somewhat from the conventional understanding. For Buddhists, compassion goes beyond simply feeling pity for others. The Tibetan word for compassion is Nyingjay, which literally means "the heart fully opening." The closest English equivalent might be "love"—but a love without grasping, a love that asks nothing in return. In Tibetan, compassion is a spontaneous feeling of connection with all living beings. Your experience resonates in me; what I feel, you can feel too. There is no real separation between us.

From a biological standpoint, the human instinct for responding to environmental change is fairly straightforward: avoid threats to survival and seize opportunities to enhance one's own well-being. One need only open a history book to see that the story of human civilization has often been written in the blood of the weak—a chronicle of violence and suffering.

Yet that same fierce biological instinct that can drive us toward violence also gives us the capacity to restrain aggression, to overcome the selfish impulse to survive at all costs, and instead to cultivate a genuine desire to help others.

At the Mind and Life Institute conference held in 2003, I was particularly struck by a talk given by Harvard professor Jerome Kagan. He explained that alongside our tendencies toward aggression, our survival instincts also endow us with powerful biological predispositions toward kindness, compassion, love, and nurturing.

I've heard countless stories from World War II, of people who risked their own lives to shelter European Jews fleeing the Nazis. And there are many unsung heroes in the modern world who willingly sacrifice their own well-being to help victims ravaged by war, famine, and state tyranny. On a more everyday level, many of my Western students are parents who pour enormous amounts of time and energy into driving their children to sports matches, music lessons, and all manner of activities—while patiently saving for their education, little by little. On an individual level, these kinds of sacrifices point to something that transcends personal fear and desire—something biological, something deep.

The fact that every civilization humanity has built at least recognizes an obligation to care for the poor, the weak, and the defenseless supports Professor Kagan's conclusion: a moral sense is a biological characteristic of our species.

Professor Kagan's thesis resonates almost perfectly with the essence of the Buddha's teachings: the more clearly we see things as they truly are, the more willing—and able—we become to open our hearts to other beings. When we genuinely recognize that other beings suffer and feel unhappy because they do not know their own true nature, we are naturally moved by a profound vow of compassion, wishing that they too might begin to taste the same stillness and clarity we have come to know.

"Acknowledging" Our "Differences"

Spicy seeds produce spicy fruit; sweet seeds produce sweet fruit.

As far as I can tell, most conflicts between people stem from misunderstanding each other's motivations. Everything we say and do, we say and do for our own reasons. But the more we can let compassion guide us—pausing for just a moment to put ourselves in another's shoes and understand their reasons—the less likely we are to be drawn into conflict.

Even when problems do arise, if we can take a deep breath and listen carefully with an open mind, we often find that we can handle disputes far more effectively. It's like calming churning water—resolving differences in a way that leaves no "winner" and no "loser," only mutual satisfaction.

For example, I have a Tibetan friend who lives in India. His neighbor kept a dog with a terrible temper. In India, unlike many other places, the walls around front yards are quite high, and the entryways are solid gates rather than open fences. My friend's front gate and his neighbor's front gate were very close together. Every time my friend stepped out of his house, the dog would burst through the neighbor's gate, barking ferociously, teeth bared, hackles raised—a terrifying sight. But that wasn't all. Eventually the dog developed a habit of charging right through my friend's gate into the yard itself, barking thunderously and creating an awful nuisance.

My friend spent a long time thinking about how to punish the beast. Finally, inspiration struck. He used a stick to prop the front gate open just a crack, then precariously stacked several small but heavy objects on top of the gate. Next time the dog pushed its way in, the weights would come crashing down—teaching it a lesson it would never forget.

Trap set, my friend sat by the window, waiting for the dog to invade. Minutes passed. The dog never came. After a while, my friend opened his daily practice text and began his prayers, glancing up now and then toward the yard. Still no dog.

Partway through his recitation, he reached a very ancient prayer—the Four Immeasurables—which says:

May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

As he chanted, it suddenly occurred to him that this dog, too, was a sentient being—and the trap he had so carefully set would cause it real pain.

If I keep reciting these verses, he thought, I'm lying. Maybe I should stop.

But that didn't feel right either, because the Four Immeasurables were part of his daily practice. So he began again, sincerely praying that compassion for the dog might arise in his heart.

Then he stopped short. No! That dog is wicked. It's caused me so much grief. I don't want it to be free from suffering or to find happiness.

He wrestled with this for a good while, until at last a solution came to him: why not just change a few words in the prayer?

And so he began to chant:

May some sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May some sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

He was delighted with this clever resolution. After finishing his prayers and eating lunch, the whole business with the dog slipped his mind. He decided to take a walk before dark.

In his haste, he completely forgot about the trap he had set. The moment he pulled open the yard gate, every one of those heavy objects came tumbling down—right on his own head.

We might call this, at the very least, a rude awakening.

But through this painful outcome, my friend grasped a vitally important truth: excluding any being from the possibility of freedom from suffering and the attainment of happiness means excluding yourself as well. Having experienced firsthand the consequences of his own lack of compassion, he decided to change his approach.

The next morning, he brought along a small piece of tsampa—a dough made from roasted barley flour, salt, tea, and butter—standard breakfast fare for Tibetans. The moment he stepped out his door, the neighbor's dog came charging over, barking and snarling as usual.

But this time, instead of cursing the animal, my friend tossed the tsampa to it. Mid-bark, the dog stopped in surprise, caught the tsampa in its mouth, and began to chew. It was still snarling and baring its teeth, but the food had distracted it, and the attack was over.

This little routine continued for several days. My friend would step out; the dog would come bounding over, barking—and catching the tsampa he tossed. After a few days, my friend noticed something: while the dog was still snarling and barking with its mouth full of tsampa, it had started wagging its tail.

A week later, the dog no longer even braced itself to attack when it saw him. Instead, it trotted over to greet him, happily anticipating its treat. Eventually their relationship evolved to the point where, whenever my friend sat down to recite his daily prayers, the dog would trot quietly into the yard and sit beside him in the sun. Now he could pray for the happiness and liberation of all sentient beings with a completely easy heart.

Once we can recognize that other living beings—whether people, animals, or even insects—are just like us in their fundamental motivation, seeking peace and wanting to avoid suffering, then even when someone does something contrary to our wishes or says something disagreeable, we can understand from a deeper place: Oh, this person (or this being) is coming from such-and-such a place. Just like me, they want to be happy. Just like me, they want to be free from pain. That is their fundamental aim. They aren't really trying to make things difficult for me. They're simply doing what they believe they should do.

Compassion is the natural, spontaneous wisdom of the mind, with us at every moment. It always has been, and it always will be. When compassion awakens within us, it is a sign that we have learned to see, at last, just how strong and how safe we truly are.