The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at audiodharma.org.

Hello and welcome to this fifth talk on the joy of compassion.

Today is the fifth aspect, the element that we contribute to create a healthy, beneficial compassion for ourselves in the world.

That is action.

And usually compassion is very closely associated with action, the action of care, the action of doing something to alleviate the difficulties, the challenges of suffering of others or ourselves.

But to have the joy of it, to enjoy the activity of compassion is sometimes in short supply.

Sometimes we don't consider that the activity of compassion, whether it's a simple activity of being a listener for someone or offering well-wishing for someone, or whether it's a big thing that we do and maybe takes a long time to really care and tend to someone who's sick or something.

That we don't often think about looking at the activity that we're doing is a source of joy, something that will generate a sense of well-being or a lightness or that somehow we feel more at ease in doing it.

Sometimes the reason for that is that the need for compassion, which stimulates it, catalysts for it, is so the suffering is so great, it's so challenging, it's so there's so much injustice, there's so much oppression, there's so much poverty, there's so much suffering, there's so much unfairness that we're trying to care for and support people who are experiencing these things.

And we could feel our own despair, our own anger, our own sense of urgency, our own sense of overwhelm, all kinds of things come along.

And so those feelings kind of influence the way in which we do the action, those feelings come along with the action.

But to trust the action, think of it almost stepping into a new phase, a new dimension almost, where yes, we can have these feelings for sure.

But the action we step into is like stepping into a new activity, a new room, a new world in doing the action, not to deny what we're feeling, but to not be held and checked by it, not be unduly caught in it and feel like, okay, now that I'm prepared to offer my care, my compassionate care for some situation,

this is what's important, this is what's valuable, I've prepared myself well, I've brought a lot of awareness to myself into the situation, studied it, got to know it, I've become a tune to it, I'm in harmony with it, I'm not stressed around it or not aversive to it or not, you know, in different to it or not really connected to it,

I'm connected and I'm at ease, I'm in harmony, in a certain kind of way with this, I'm attuned to what's happening, I understand that the others are really well enough, it's not just my projection and my preoccupations which are driving me,

and there's a appreciation of the people I'm going to support, it's not only the horror or the distress that I feel around, how terrible it is, that's taking the time to really respect these people and what is respect, what is appreciation here,

what is valuing this people, whatever being, that they're at least we're equal, I'm not there to help or to fix, I'm there to serve, they're welfare to support, and then there is an aspiration, which is a beautiful part of human being,

so those are the foundations and then we get ready to act, to enter into the action as if the quality, the way in which we act is part of the message, that we act in such a way that people appreciate the activity, the ease, the calm, the generosity, the love, the well-being,

we don't they don't feel our actions as being, that's a heavy burden we're carrying, we're stressed, we're pushing, but they feel something very different, and people can be nourished by the ease, the well-being by which we do things, and they can be troubled when we're troubled,

so to engage in the action, not to look for the joy in the action, or as you can look for the joy in awareness or attunement or appreciation or an aspiration, but with action not to look for it, but rather to generate it, to step into the action and try to find a way you do it with grace, with ease, with peace, with a nice way of doing it,

don't have a sense of urgency unless there's a, you know, sometimes we have to act quickly, but we don't have to hurry, there's a difference between quickness and hurrying, I think of hurrying, we're losing ourselves, to do things fast, we don't have to lose ourselves, we can stay present,

...