Live Session Summary, Sunday, December 18, 2022: It was good to be back with you today for our Live session on Cultivating Compassionate Curiosity. Here is a summary for those who missed the session—or any of the references. (This is more a synthesis than a summary per se, but hopefully gets across the main points and references.)
I argued that cultivating curiosity and compassion—approaching/meeting ourselves and the world with compassionate curiosity—is a pathway to insight and connection with all of life that leads to the deepest freedom of the heart.
We can ask ourselves, How would it be to bring curiosity, deep interest, to THIS—whatever ‘this’ is (a bodily feeling, an emotion or mind state, or anything in the ‘world,' e.g., a sound, sight, person, situation, event)—without judgment, resistance, clinging, or escaping?
And we can ask the same question about compassion: how would it be to meet anything that arises in meditation or daily life with compassion—a deep caring and friendliness—and without judgment, resistance, clinging, or escaping?
We can see curiosity and compassion as two metaphorical ‘wings of the bird’ that are needed to live with peace and freedom—the wings of wisdom and compassion, or love.
Looking at each in turn, curiosity allows us to grow in awareness and in insight because we are opening to the truth of any experience or situation. We are allowing new and relevant information to come into awareness and this can lead to seeing into cause and effect, particularly what causes our suffering and how we can find a way out of suffering—the Buddha’s teaching of the Four Noble Truths.
When we don’t meet our experience with curiosity we tend to default to our (often unhealthy) habits of mind, our prejudices, and our comfort zone. We think we already ‘know.’ As Suzuki Roshi, author of ‘Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,’ said: ‘In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s there are few.’
The great American writer, playwright, poet, and civil rights activist, James Baldwin said: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ‘Facing’ our experience means being willing to be aware of our feelings and our world to be curious about them.
Bringing mindfulness to the body (our theme last week) is a particularly helpful way to cultivate curiosity because very often when we are caught up in suffering—in fear, anxiety, craving, anger, etc.—we are disconnected from our bodily experience. We are caught up in our mental narratives—‘I’ve got to have this…’ ‘I need to get rid of this feeling’…’that person shouldn’t be… ’
When we have the awareness to come back to our bodily experience, we will typically experience a great deal of activity—e.g., tension in the torso, heat in the face, shortness of breath, heart pounding, etc.—as well as racing thoughts and strong emotions. When we come back and meet these feelings and sensations with (compassionate) curiosity we reconnect with reality, with the truth of our experience, and then can choose how to act or respond. The insight that comes with ‘welcoming’ all the ‘guests’ (in Rumi’s metaphor and poem) is a doorway to freedom.
Bringing compassion to our curiosity about our experience allows us to hold more fully, wisely, and kindly, what we are feeling—which is particularly important when we are dealing with suffering. When we suffer, we easily blame ourselves or think we are doing something ‘wrong’ and meet ourselves and our experience with judgment or harshness. Replacing judgment with compassion—with kindness; recognizing that others, like us, are suffering (connecting with our common humanity); and with mindfulness, the three elements of self-compassion in Kristin Neff’s formulation—provides us with great support when we are dealing with our own suffering.
To sum up, meeting our experience/s—all of it/them—with compassionate curiosity is a way of living and a way of being that both leads to, and is an expression of freedom—in our heart and in our life.
Poems I shared include familiar ones (or parts of them): ‘Clearing’ by Martha Postlethwaite; ‘Peace’ by Dorothy Hunt; ‘The Guest House’ by Rumi—and one I reconnected with recently, ‘Flowering’ by Linda Buckmaster.
I also referred to the work of John Vervaeke, who teaches in the Psychology Department at the University of Toronto. I’ve only recently connected with his work and find him an extraordinarily thought-provoking and wide-ranging thinker.
If you are interested in his work, a good place to start is his 50-part (hourlong) lectures on ‘Awakening from the Meaning Crisis,’ These can be found on YouTube by putting in his name and the series title. If you decide to jump in—it’s not easy, but, in my view, highly fruitful—you might listen to the first twelve or so and let me know what you think (hughgbyrne123@gmail.com)
For football fans, congratulations to Argentina—and to Lionel Messi! And well played France! It was an amazing end to a great World Cup tournament. Rory Smith, the New York Times chief ‘soccer’ correspondent argues that it may be the best World Cup final ever—and possibly the best game ever, taking many different factors into account… People can argue about that till ‘the cows come home’, as my mother would say, but no question it was a fantastic game and a tribute to the ‘beautiful game’ of football.
Have a wonderful holiday season, however you celebrate (or don’t). Be safe, be well, stay warm, and see you in the new year! Warmly, Hugh 🌻 💜 ⚽️
