B. Alan Wallace, 06 Oct 2014

Alan prefaces the meditation with his reflections on compassion being a hard sell to avowed materialists. If not sick or dying, cultivating your own hedonic pleasure seems a good bet. But materialists who truly open their hearts to the suffering so apparent in the world today, risk being crushed by despair.

Materialists, Alan says, must protect themselves from their worldview with an Orwellian-type “double think,” denying the hedonic states of others. But true protection from despairing over others’ suffering, he says, occurs only when it is viewed with the pure vision of pristine awareness.

Thus, bodhisattvas are able to be always spontaneously cheerful while simultaneously on the verge of weeping over the suffering of samsara.

Meditation starts at 23:15

Download (M4A / 24 MB)

Transcript

This lecture does not have a text transcript. Please contact us if you’d like to volunteer to assist our transcription team.

Discussion

Ask questions about this lecture on the Buddhism Stack Exchange or the Students of Alan Wallace Facebook Group. Please include this lecture’s URL when you post.