Using How Compassion Works as the focus of our study and practice

Since August of 2024, the Open Circle Mindfulness Group has been using the work of Lama John Makransky as our guide. How Compassion Works: A Step-By-Step Guide to Cultivating Wellbeing, Love and Wisdom is his most recent book, co-authored by Paul Condon.  John Makransky is a Buddhist scholar and practitioner in the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition, and a recently retired Associate Professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College, and creator of the SCT model. Paul Condon is an associate professor of psychology Southern Oregon University, and a co-developer of SCT.

As of now we are finishing the introduction: “Accessing Our Innate Powers of Goodness.”

From the introduction of Awakening Through Love: “The path to embodying unconditional love and wisdom is not some overwhelmingly difficult struggle to make ourselves into something alien to our nature. Quite the opposite.  Unconditional love and wisdom dawn as we come home to what we most deeply are.”

From Chapter 3 of Awakening Through Love: “…the path to enlightenment is not a quest that issues in a solitary achievement. It is an intuitive awakening to one’s implicit relation to all others…Complete enlightenment manifests not just as a figure in private repose, but as a luminous embodiment of all-pervasive love, compassion, joy, and liberating activity…”

From the Preface of How Compassion Works: “This book presents a series of meditations on love, compassion, and wisdom that have been adapted from Tibetan Buddhist traditions (especially Dzogchen and Mahamudra), in dialogue with several areas of modern psychology. These practices help us realize a power of unconditional care from within that can be healing and sustaining, make us more present to ourselves and others, and help empower compassionate action that can be less subject to emotional exhaustion.

“The arc of contemplative practice within this book is known as sustainable compassion training (SCT). This series of meditation practices highlights our need to experience how it feels to be held in love and compassion so as to extend love and compassion inclusively to others, our need to be seen in our unconditional worth in order to see the same in others, and our need to become present to all our experience with kindness, to become sustainably present to others with kindness”

What does Makransky mean by “love?” Have a look again at the 4 Immeasurables, which Thich Nhat Hanh calls “True Love.” These are Loving-Kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity. You will find a section “Practicing the Four Immeasurables” under “Reference Material” in the menu at the top of each page. You are invited to practice these, using the suggestions on that page.

JOHN MAKRANSKY’S MEDITATIONS

Here is a link to the page on the Shambhala website that has audio recordings of John Makransky leading his meditations: shambhala.com/howcompassionworksmeditations

Ken’s recordings of the meditations from John Makransky’s 2024 handouts

Below are links to YouTubes of Ken narrating John Makransky’s meditations. If you are unfamiliar with them, it is strongly suggested that you familiarize yourself with his “Preparation” and “Processing” instructions for each meditation. (Even if you are familiar with them, it is worth reviewing these instructions frequently!)

Receptive Mode

Meditation 1: Field of Care- youtu.be/R5PGqp_dLUE

Meditation 2: Becoming More Deeply Receptive to Love and Compassion- youtu.be/KIDAkVrYlNI

Meditation 3: Being a Loving Figure With Another Being-youtu.be/d1dIeCO0cJU

Deepening Mode

Meditation 4: Becoming Compassionately Present to Our Feelings- youtu.be/VPhssV4k8iQ

Meditation 5: Letting Be of Body Breath and Mind- youtu.be/bb5qRZOBAOE

Inclusive Mode

Meditation 6: Extending Love to Others- https://youtu.be/VmPRRe1ZLwM

Generating Empathy and Compassion for Action, Meditations 7, 8, and 9

Meditation 7: Taking Our Own Suffering Feelings Into Compassion For Others (I have included the Preparation section for this meditation in the recording.) https://youtu.be/1Q7vB_qBzTQ

FROM AWAKENING THROUGH LOVE, by John Makransky

Meditation from Chapter 4: “Self-Transcending Love” https://youtu.be/1BtNjhhem8w